We booked the self-guided tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau via Booking.com a few days before our visit of Krakow.
I read lots of reviews of tours before booking and felt that this tour would suit us better than the guided tours as we would be able to spend longer in the museums and to walk through at our own pace. I'd looked at making our own way to the camps, but it's quite a long journey by public transport and would have involved several buses and a good two hours minimum each way. Then there's no guarantee that you will be able to enter the site as an individual. This tour was extremely good value to get us there and back quickly in comfort and to guarantee entrance and all of the information needed to fully appreciate the visit.
I'm so glad we chose this company, we had clear instructions on our meeting time and place. Our bus driver, Marco, gave us lots of interesting information about the two sites and played a documentary during the journey to further prepare us for the visit. He also laid out clearly the logistics of our visit, a recommended order in which to visit specific areas of the site, where to buy food and how to travel from one side to another and when on the free shuttle bus. He also gave us a guide book to use during the visit which was marked with not to be missed sites.
On arrival at Auschwitz Marco accompanied us to the counter to collect our tickets, then drove us to Birkenau to start our visit handing us each a bottle of water, even an umbrella to use as a parasol if required.
It seems that most tours begin at Auschwitz before visiting Birkenau and this meant that we got to Auschwitz as the crowds had cleared from this smaller site and were able to walk around without queuing even in peak season. It was great to be able to linger at the areas which most interested us rather than being rushed though by a tour guide in a large crowd.
Marco's directions for Birkenau were spot on and we exited this site to climb straight aboard the shuttle bus to Auschwitz to give us a full two hours to visit the site there. We had plenty of time to see everything and to read all the panels alongside our guidebooks and Marco was waiting exactly where he'd said he would be, as we expected at this stage.
Auschwitz is, I feel, the more emotionally draining of the two camps and it was a relief to know on leaving that our journey back to Krakow would be straightforward and comfortable.
Thank you Marco, you did a great job at making our visit as stress-free, comfortable and informative as possible considering the nature of the visit itself.