Follow the S-Bahn signs

to the S-Bahn stop. You can take either line S1 or S8 (which is a bit faster). Both of them start at the airport, so you can take any S-Bahn you see. Before entering the train, you have to buy a ticket at a vending machine which looks like this:

Here is a closeup of the choices you have:

If you just want to go to the hotel or the conference venue and do not need to take any public transportation later that day, the best choice would be the button “Einzelfahrtkarte ab 4 Zonen”, i.e. the second from above in the right column. This costs 9.20 Euros and allows you to travel one way from the airport to everywhere else in Munich. If you think you might want to travel again on the same day, you should rather choose “Tageskarte Gesamtnetz”. This comes in 2 versions, for a single person it is 10 Euros and for groups of up to 5 adults it is 18 Euros (they are called “Partner-Tageskarte”). Both of these tickets you find in the 4th yellow row from above. This ticket allows you to travel within the whole Munich area for the whole day.

A side comment: for most purposes other than commuting between the airport and the city center, you will not need the “Gesamtnetz” (complete area). Usually it is enough to have a ticket for the inner region (“Innenraum”). This is the white area on the map that you can partly see at the left side of the picture of the vending machine. A whole map can be downloaded from the public transportation site. There are cheaper daily tickets (and also 3-day passes) for the inner region and if you just need to make a single trip within the white region, you should choose the upper left button (“Einzelfahrkarte 1 Zone”).

Once you have the ticket, do not forget to validate it in one of the little blue machines at the entrance of the platform or on the platform itself. They look like in this picture:

You should get off at “Marienplatz” and then follow the U-Bahn signs. An example would look like this:

You can take either U3 (in the direction “Olympiazentrum” or “Olympiaeinkaufszentrum”) or U6 (in the direction “Garching-Forschungszentrum” or “Fröttmaning”). It is also safe to follow the signs for “Arena” as on the picture above, as the soccer stadium is at Fröttmaning. You should get off at either “Odeonsplatz” or “Universität” and then walk a few minutes (along Ludwigstraße and Theresienstraße) to the hotel or the institute, following the map with the hotel and the ASC. 

See you soon!