Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

Book the slot before anything else

The mistake people make is assuming that because entry is free, you can just turn up — you can’t, and since 1 March 2026 you literally cannot: every pass must be booked online and on-site sales have stopped. A timed reservation is compulsory, and in summer the slots sell out two to four weeks ahead, so this is the one Kraków booking to lock in before you fly. Through the middle of the day an authorised guided tour is mandatory anyway, so the cleanest option for most UK visitors is an organised coach trip from Kraków that bundles the ~1h15 transfer, your timed slot and an English-speaking guide into one booking. Reserve directly on visit.auschwitz.org only if you’re confident handling the transfer and the separate guide reservation yourself.

If you go independently, the English guided tour costs 150 zł (around £30) for 2026 — it covers a guide-educator for the full 3.5 hours, the headset and the shuttle — and a free ‘entry pass only’ exists but is released only outside the mandatory-guide hours. Either way the visit covers two sites — the Auschwitz I base camp and the far larger Birkenau, linked by a free shuttle — so the standard tour runs about three and a half hours on site.

When to go, and what to expect

Aim for an early or late slot rather than the midday crush: the site opens at 07:30, and the first tours of the day are calmer and cooler in summer. This is not a day out to slot between two other sights — it is a memorial to more than a million murdered people, and it is heavy. Set aside a full half-day, keep the rest of that day light, dress modestly and quietly, and don’t bring young children.

Go if you can. It is one of the most important things you’ll do near Kraków, and an authorised guide turns a row of huts and ruins into something you actually understand. Pair the rest of your day with a slow evening back in Kazimierz rather than another museum — you won’t have the appetite to stack a second heavy sight on the same afternoon.