How long does it take to get across Berlin by public transport?

Between the centres of the five central districts, 16 to 38 minutes. From Mitte to the outer districts it ranges from 23 minutes to Wedding up to 76 minutes to Marzahn. The longest pair we measured is Köpenick to Steglitz-Zehlendorf at 121 minutes.

Can I do Kreuzberg and Neukölln in one day?

Yes. They are 23 minutes apart by public transport, and they share a border, so most of the interesting parts are closer than that number suggests. Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain at 16 minutes are the closest pair of the five.

Is Spandau worth the trip from central Berlin?

It costs 65 minutes each way from Mitte and 90 from Neukölln, so a bit over two hours of the day goes on getting there and back. That is a reasonable price for a half-day but it will not fit around other plans.

When were these times measured?

All 120 pairs were queried for the same departure, Monday 3 August 2026 at 12:00. Weekday midday is close to a best case. Late evenings, Sundays and engineering works all run worse.

Which Berlin districts do not belong on the same day

The five central Berlin districts are all within 38 minutes of one another by public transport. Five outer districts cost roughly an hour each way from the middle. That single line is most of what a first-time plan needs, and it is why so many Berlin itineraries fall apart on day three.

These numbers are looked up, not estimated. We queried the BVG journey planner for all 120 pairs of 16 district centres, for one fixed departure: Monday 3 August 2026 at 12:00.

The five central Kieze

From	Mitte	Kreuzberg	Neukölln	Prenzlauer Berg	Friedrichshain
Mitte	—	24	37	19	22
Kreuzberg	24	—	23	33	16
Neukölln	37	23	—	38	31
Prenzlauer Berg	19	33	38	—	20
Friedrichshain	22	16	31	20	—

Nothing here is expensive. The worst pair in the block is Neukölln to Prenzlauer Berg at 38 minutes, which is roughly the cost of crossing London between two adjacent-feeling neighbourhoods. Kreuzberg to Friedrichshain is 16 minutes, and on foot across the Oberbaumbrücke it is shorter still.

The practical reading: you can base yourself anywhere in these five and reach the other four without planning around it. Two of them in a day is comfortable. Three is possible and starts to feel like transit.

The outer districts

District	Mitte	Kreuzberg	Neukölln	Prenzlauer Berg	Friedrichshain	Worst
Wedding	23	30	39	27	33	39
Moabit	25	34	45	27	31	45
Charlottenburg	31	23	42	40	35	42
Schöneberg	32	22	33	43	34	43
Treptow	37	35	36	39	27	39
Lichtenberg	43	53	46	40	23	53
Köpenick	61	60	85	70	45	85
Spandau	65	82	90	81	79	90
Reinickendorf	69	57	75	69	75	75
Steglitz-Zehlendorf	71	71	84	78	73	84
Marzahn	76	52	60	66	39	76

The table splits cleanly. Wedding, Moabit, Charlottenburg, Schöneberg, Treptow and Lichtenberg all sit under an hour from every central district, and behave like extensions of the middle. Köpenick, Spandau, Reinickendorf, Steglitz-Zehlendorf and Marzahn do not.

For those five, the round trip from a central base is two hours or more before you have done anything. That is fine for a deliberate half-day and poor as one stop among several. The mistake we see most often is an itinerary that lists Spandau in the morning and a Neukölln dinner, which is 90 minutes each way and three hours of the day spent sitting down.

Of the 120 pairs, 52 come in at 60 minutes or more. Every one of those 52 involves at least one of those same five districts.

The worst pairs in the city

Pair	Minutes
Köpenick to Steglitz-Zehlendorf	121
Köpenick to Spandau	118
Marzahn to Spandau	116
Marzahn to Steglitz-Zehlendorf	111
Köpenick to Reinickendorf	101

Berlin's transport network is built around the centre, so the expensive journeys are the ones that cross the city without passing through it. Köpenick to Steglitz-Zehlendorf takes two hours in a city you can cross north to south in about 40 minutes if you go through the middle.

How this was measured, and what it does not tell you

Each district's centre is the mean coordinate of the researched places in it, so it is a centre of interest rather than a geographic or administrative one. Journeys run centre to centre, and your actual trip starts and ends at a door. Expect to add walking at both ends.

Every query used the same departure, Monday at midday. That is close to a best case: full weekday service, no night gaps, no weekend engineering. Evenings, Sundays and replacement bus periods all run worse, and none of that variation is in these numbers.

We also measured walking times and then discarded them. The public routing server we used returns car routing whatever profile it is asked for, which we confirmed by requesting the same journey as car, on foot and by bike and getting three identical answers at 30.5 km/h. Publishing those as walking times would have put a figure on this page that is roughly six times too fast, so the walking column is simply absent until we can run it properly.

The 120 pairs are one snapshot from one Monday. They are good for deciding whether two districts belong in the same day, which is the question they were collected to answer. They are not a substitute for checking a live connection on the day you travel.