Bochum is well connected by rail and sits at the centre of the Ruhr conurbation's dense public transport network.
The main station (Bochum Hauptbahnhof) is on the high-speed line between Cologne and Dortmund. ICE trains from Cologne take around 45 minutes; from Frankfurt around 2 hours 15 minutes; from Berlin around 3 hours 30 minutes. Regional trains connect Bochum to Essen, Dortmund, and Düsseldorf every few minutes throughout the day.
The nearest airports are Düsseldorf (DUS), around 50 minutes by S-Bahn, and Dortmund (DTM), around 40 minutes by regional train. Cologne/Bonn (CGN) is a further option if flying with Ryanair or Eurowings; trains from Cologne take under an hour.