6 ms·

> Also, you definitely don't want to get a Eurail pass for this trip. Eurail passes are sold only to persons with a residence outside of Europe. For Europeans

> Also, you definitely don't want to get a Eurail pass for this trip. Eurail passes are sold only to persons with a residence outside of Europe. For Europeans there are Interrail passes. I believe prices and conditions were similar many years ago, but I'm not sure and certainly not nowadays after Interrail has seen several changes. For Interrail you almost never need the pass if you want to go from A to B and can book somewhat in advance. The pass can be good if you have no fixed plans and just like to travel a lot, deciding more or less spontaneously where you go next. Although in some countries like France this doesn't work well anymore because you need reservations and there are no (reasonably priced) seats for pass holders during peak travel times. I travelled like this between Scandinavia and Portugal just 2 weeks before Covid-19 was a thing in Europe. Certainly off-season, so it was OK.

globular-toast 6y ago
Also Interail is way cheaper if you are under 26. Don't think it's worth at all if you aren't.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Yes, I did it 20 years ago in the pre-smartphone era and it was fantastic. The big advantage for that case was not having to plan, at all; you could simply wake up and decide where you want to go that day.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Amusingly when interrailing many years ago we managed to get on the wrong train at Ljubljana - we intended to go to Vienna but ended up on the overnight train to Belgrade. The nice thing about an Interrail ticket being that even when you do make such a mistake your ticket is generally still valid!
- detaro 6y ago
  The over-26 ones are still worth comparing, but it really depends on your trip then. (i.e. if you plan on using a bunch of not-highspeed trains, but want to be flexible and thus not book fixed low-price tickets early)
- usr1106 6y ago
  It's not cheap if you are over 26. But if you want to travel a lot and not plan ahead it gives you peace of mind and most likely some moderate saving compared to buying tickets on the spot.
tinco 6y ago
They really screwed up interrail, I'm not sure why. When I was 18 I got the 1-month interrail ticket, I think it was either all zones, or most of them, together with a friend, at 350 euro per ticket. We went from Leeuwarden (north of NL) to munich, to milano, to bari, then the boat to greece, to athens, thessaloniki, istanbul, back to thessaloniki, then north to sofia, bucharest, brasov, budapest, vienna, munich, back to leeuwarden. We both had a budget of 1000 euro, we skipped quickly through the rich countries, staying longer in the poor countries. If you've got kids coming of age looking for something cool to do, I highly recommend this, I think it was formative and really filled in some blanks in my head, growing up in a super rich country obviously doesn't give you a particularly complete view of the world. On the way we met kids from the states and canada as well that I suppose were on eurail passes. This was 15 years ago, I've been told it's no longer attractive to do the 1-month pass. I worked a simple data entry job after high school to save up for it. I'd recommend sponsoring the ticket for your kid if you can! I think restricting the budget was also a good idea, for us it was all we could afford, but it forced us to look for cheap spots, we only camped maybe 4 days in the whole month, in countries like hungary and romania it turned out the difference between camping and staying in a cabin was like 2 euro per night. edit: they actually reintroduced the 1 month free travel pass, it's 500 euro so not that much more expensive.
- usr1106 6y ago
  > They really screwed up interrail, I'm not sure why. Railways were a public service in Europe. Profit was not a goal. Trains were not that full often, so carrying a few youth did not make a difference. Nowadays they all have some kind of business thinking (how successfully is a different story). Long distance trains in France and Germany at least have lots of business travellers. So they don't want backpackers travelling a lot and paying little. Maybe we should lobby for subsidies in EU context. They even had some free tickets for 18 year olds some years ago, so they might understand the usefulness. Doesn't need to be free, but at least better prices and conditions than currently.
  - codethief 6y ago
    > They even had some free tickets for 18 year olds some years ago They still do: https://europa.eu/youth/discovereu_en https://europa.eu/youth/discovereu_en

globular-toast 6y ago

Also Interail is way cheaper if you are under 26. Don't think it's worth at all if you aren't.

pjc50 6y ago
Yes, I did it 20 years ago in the pre-smartphone era and it was fantastic. The big advantage for that case was not having to plan, at all; you could simply wake up and decide where you want to go that day.
- arethuza 6y ago
  Amusingly when interrailing many years ago we managed to get on the wrong train at Ljubljana - we intended to go to Vienna but ended up on the overnight train to Belgrade. The nice thing about an Interrail ticket being that even when you do make such a mistake your ticket is generally still valid!
detaro 6y ago
The over-26 ones are still worth comparing, but it really depends on your trip then. (i.e. if you plan on using a bunch of not-highspeed trains, but want to be flexible and thus not book fixed low-price tickets early)
usr1106 6y ago
It's not cheap if you are over 26. But if you want to travel a lot and not plan ahead it gives you peace of mind and most likely some moderate saving compared to buying tickets on the spot.

tinco 6y ago

They really screwed up interrail, I'm not sure why. When I was 18 I got the 1-month interrail ticket, I think it was either all zones, or most of them, together with a friend, at 350 euro per ticket. We went from Leeuwarden (north of NL) to munich, to milano, to bari, then the boat to greece, to athens, thessaloniki, istanbul, back to thessaloniki, then north to sofia, bucharest, brasov, budapest, vienna, munich, back to leeuwarden. We both had a budget of 1000 euro, we skipped quickly through the rich countries, staying longer in the poor countries. If you've got kids coming of age looking for something cool to do, I highly recommend this, I think it was formative and really filled in some blanks in my head, growing up in a super rich country obviously doesn't give you a particularly complete view of the world. On the way we met kids from the states and canada as well that I suppose were on eurail passes. This was 15 years ago, I've been told it's no longer attractive to do the 1-month pass. I worked a simple data entry job after high school to save up for it. I'd recommend sponsoring the ticket for your kid if you can! I think restricting the budget was also a good idea, for us it was all we could afford, but it forced us to look for cheap spots, we only camped maybe 4 days in the whole month, in countries like hungary and romania it turned out the difference between camping and staying in a cabin was like 2 euro per night. edit: they actually reintroduced the 1 month free travel pass, it's 500 euro so not that much more expensive.

usr1106 6y ago
> They really screwed up interrail, I'm not sure why. Railways were a public service in Europe. Profit was not a goal. Trains were not that full often, so carrying a few youth did not make a difference. Nowadays they all have some kind of business thinking (how successfully is a different story). Long distance trains in France and Germany at least have lots of business travellers. So they don't want backpackers travelling a lot and paying little. Maybe we should lobby for subsidies in EU context. They even had some free tickets for 18 year olds some years ago, so they might understand the usefulness. Doesn't need to be free, but at least better prices and conditions than currently.
- codethief 6y ago
  > They even had some free tickets for 18 year olds some years ago They still do: https://europa.eu/youth/discovereu_en https://europa.eu/youth/discovereu_en