Rail or Car?

Matthew, Travelling that distance by car would absolutely NOT be my choice. In addition to long days looking through a windshield, you'll have to contend with high fuel costs, parking, tolls, insurance issues, and in some cases horrific traffic, especially in Rome and Paris. You'll also need the Tax Vignette for Austria and Switzerland. In addition, my usual "caveats" regarding driving in italy..... It's important point to note that for driving in Italy, each driver must have the compulsory International Driver's Permit, which is used in conjunction with your home D.L. These are valid for one year, and easily obtained at any AAA office (two Passport-sized photos required, which in some cases are provided by the issuing office). Failure to produce an IDP if requested can result in fines on the spot! Have a look at This Website for more detailed information on driving in Italy. You may also want to search other Posts here regarding the Zona Traffico Limitato areas that are becoming increasingly prevalent in many towns in Italy (especially Florence!). EACH PASS through one of the automated Cameras will result in a €100+ ticket! A GPS along with a good Map would also be a good idea. Be sure to also give some thought to the question of CDW. If you accept the CDW offered by the rental firm, it will be expensive but will provide "peace of mind". Some "premium" credit cards provide rental vehicle insurance, however I've found this to be somewhat complicated so I just accept that offered by the rental firm. Check the Car Rental section in Europe Through The Back Door for further information. Well planned travel by train will not only be faster, but more relaxing. Cheers!

Every city on your list except perhaps Salzburg, Lauterbrunnen and Bruges are useless for cars - worse than useless, really, since you will pay a fortune to park and get hopelessly lost trying to drive in and out. Perhaps there are some intermediate stops between cities that you left out for brevity, but when you are going from city to city, there is NOTHING more convenient than a train. Even a flight for cities less than 3-400 miles apart is often less convenient when you factor in all the airport nonsense. The train picks you up in the center of the city where you are and drops you off in the center of the next city where you want to be. Now, if there was a prolonged segment of your trip away from cities AND not conveniently serviced by rail, then a car is a great option. We have rented several times for segments like that and not regretted it in the least. Driving through the countryside is easy. But there is almost no rationale for connecting large cities by car. The Cinque Terre can be reached by car, but it is awkward and useless while you're there. Figuring out the best rail prices involves learnng the quirks of each country's rail system. It's tedious, but worth the trouble, because the discounts for buying ahead and knowing what deals can be had can often be 50% off or more from any "regular" price you might have found so far. German Rail is a prime example. It's not unusual to see a popular city-to-city route that might have a regular price of 79euro or more start at 29euro 92 days ahead of departure. Between Italy and France this summer, we will be early booking a night train on which the regular price is 120euro and the fare we will be looking for as soon as it is posted is 35euro.

I think a car is convenient when you are in country areas. On the other hand if you spend more than a day in a large city, then your car will be parked at your hotel, and you are paying rental for a car you are not using. Out of the places you mention, cars are forbidden in Venice. In many of the others trying to find car parking near attractions would be very hard. I suspect this is why Vespas are so popular in Rome. What I do is rent a car for part, but not all of my trip. I pick an area where there are a lot of rural sights and rent and drive for that area only. I think alpine areas such as around Salzburg would be good for this.

Thanks for the input. I'm thinking i will scrap that plan and go back to rail.

You can do Munich to Venice as low as $50/p (€39) with an EC and Europa-Spezial fare. In actuality, that's a popular route, so you might not get the €39 fare for the day you select, but I see many $77/p (€59) fares. Depending on the DOW, you might have a little better chance of getting the €39 on one of the other ECs to Verona. You would then need to take an Italian train to Venice, $10 for a regional train, about $26 for an express.

@Tom........loved your comment!
Happy Travels, Matthew

Matthew, As a "planning tool", you might have a look at This Website. Enter the information for all your journeys and see what sort of Railpass it recommends. I've found that it provides a good estimate, but often some "fine tuning" is still required.

Lee's advice is excellent. The general map is OK for a one off or a short trip. For what you anticipate I suggest you get specifics before you jump off the dock. You can actually get it pretty close and save wheelbarrows full of wonga if you look for specials and ways to get it cheaper. Do the detailed math and then say if the pass is cheaper.

This is what one of those limited traffic zone signs looks like. Note, no English, just Italian to warn the locals. Most tourists of any language understand English, but they would rather the tourist unknowingly wander in and get fined than stay out.

I also think a car would be unwise in your case. You have not factored in tolls, parking, and fines. The first two will be very expensive and the last will probably have amount on such a long trip. You also have not factored in the time lost in the car. You may not mind driving long distances, but on a vacation, time is money and time spent behind a wheel instead of in a city enjoying the sites and cafes is very wasted. What you gain in flexibility you lose in stress of getting lost, heavy traffic, confusing directions and signs and trying to find a place to park the car. Hotels in cities will not have parking and if you stay outside of town, you'll spend time taking transit to get into the city each day. My rule on car versus train is this: If you want to see rural areas, small towns or parks, drive. If you are spending your time in cities, train (or fly). Lastly - for every day your car is parked while you visit a city, you waste money on the rental, insurance and parking fees.

I'm with the others who say NO to the car and YES to using rail

Like I said, I am going back to doing the rail plan. I've calculated the costs of point-to-point tickets, and the global unlimited 2-month railpass is much cheaper. Thanks for the input!

in terms of flexibility and price you might want to consider a combo of point-to-point tickets and a pass. eurail passes don't work as well in france and italy because of mandatory reservations on high speed trains for extra money and limited seat space for passholders. but passes work well in germany and austria where reservations are not mandatory. it will take a lot of research and number crunching to come up with the best deal and flexibility but i would certainly not discount using a pass. for example, a germany-austria-benelux pass covers a good portion of your trip and the youth price for 8 days of travel over 2 months is 296 euro. combined with point-to-point tickets for german border-prague, german border - venice, and then the handful of tickets you'd need entirely within italy and france which aren't that money, you'd probably save money using a pass and point-to-point tickets as opposed to renting a car. and with the pass you have a ton of flexibility.

Everything what you want to see is easily doable by train. In most of your cities car would be an enormous hassle. If you decide for some country drive you can rent a car right there.

Dear God, I'm getting road rage just thinking about driving in most of those places!

Yeah, already decided not to do the car thing after the first 10 people advised against it.

Matthew, I stand by my response on your earlier question that a rail pass might be worthwhile given the distances, number of people, and number of locations you're visiting. I tried to do a (very) rough estimate using the tools on this website. Try it yourself and see if you get different results. Of course, this doesn't consider possible discounts for seniors or youths or for advance bookings. Using only the point-to-point cost estimates at http://www.ricksteves.com//rail/comparetickets.htm 1. Berlin - Prague $85 2. Prague-Vienna $85 3. Vienna - Salzburg $65 4. Salz-Munich $40 5. Munich - Venice $125 ? ($50 to Innsbruck, then $75) probably cheaper nonstop 6. Venice - Rome $ 60 (to Florence) then $75 7. Rome - C.T. estimate $60? 8. CT to Lauterbrunnen again, I estimate $100? 9. L to Paris maybe $150 10. Paris to Bruges to Amsterdam $125 ? more ? So ten or eleven trips over two months, for about $1000, traveling second class. With a group traveling together, you might be able to do the Eurrail Global Pass FLEXI for $988 per person, traveling first class, for 15 days of travel in two months. Of course there might be additional reservation fees and things I haven't considered, but my point is that it might be worth doing the math and taking a hard look at the rail pass. The kind of travel you're contemplating seems to be the type these passes are really geared toward.
matt

We are also going to be travelling through Sweden and Denmark before we get to Berlin. Using the int'l train fare map on this website I figured the total cost point-to-point would be close to $2000 each, while the global unlimited 2 month pass is around $1100. We will probably go with a pass. Thank you everyone for you input!

Those Rick Steve cost maps are not very accurate. I'd call them "costs for the clueless", because they don't take into account lower prices that the knowledgeable person can get. For instance, for one person with a €21 Bayern-Ticket Single for regional trains from Salzburg to Munich it's about $28 at todays exch rate, not $40. But for two people sharing a Bayern-Ticket, it's $19 (€14,50) each. For 3-5 people, it only gets less (for four, it's less than $10 each). With advance purchase and specific train commitment, Vienna to Salzburg can be as low as $25/p (€19) using the high speed RailJet and a Sparschiene fare. If you are willing to spend more time, maybe hop on/off a bit on the way, the Vienna to Salzburg fare is only €7/p (just over $9) with a €28 Einfach Raus ticket and regional trains. Prague to Vienna is $80 full fare, but $38 with a Sparschiene fare. Berlin to Prague on a EuroCity train (4h41m) is as low as $38/p (€29). So, Berlin to Prague to Vienna to Salzburg to Munich is $111 (60% less), not $275. You really need to ferret out these low fares and use them instead of Rick's map.

I started pricing this out just out of curiosity and Lee is on the mark. Your total travel costs if you commited to buying tickets in advance for the first third of your trip will cost you about 85 euro (a little more than a hundred bucks) from Berlin through Munich. I can't speak for the latter part of your trip because I am too lazy to price it out but I'm guessing that no matter what you do, buying point-to-point tickets will save you money, far over a railpass or a car. You can probably buy point-to-point tickets for the entire trip under $500 per person. Just do it in advance and be willing to stick to the schedule.

I've been trying to find the fares for point-to-point, but I have to use April or May, because they won't tell me the fares that far in advance. Won't the fares go up in the Summer along with everything else? Using Bahn.de and OEBB.at is obnoxious, even though I have four years of university German under my belt. It's almost enough of a hassle to just go with the railpass. Any tips on using those sites effectively? I tried to go the easy route with some website called Raileurope and the prices there were way over what you guys were telling me. Any links to any threads or websites giving detailed instruction on how to effectively navigate those websites would be great. Thanks!

Just found Seat61. Lots of good info on there.

The prices on RailEurope are way over what we've been telling you. That's a well known fact. RailEurope, although owned by French Rail (among others), is not an outlet for European Rail companies. They're essentially a travel agency that has to make a profit over and above the price of the tickets. Not only do they charge more than the standard fares, but they don't have any of the discounted fares that save a lot of money vs the standard fare. Just don't use them. The Deutsche Bahn website is not hard to use. I use it in German all the time, for the practice, and I don't have anywhere near your formal education in the language. (But I do have 12 years of experience using the site.) If it makes it easier, the German Rail website has an English side, here, as does Austrian Rail (click the word "English" on the home page).

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en ...for Bahn in Germany and in English. Every other western European country I can think of has an English version of their web site. Depending on the country and the type of train, you can only book tickets 60-92 days ahead. This is standard. Schedules and fares hardly change at all however, so for info purposes, just use phantom dates in that window. For early discounts, look as far ahead as the 60-92 day window will allow. There is an almost infinite supply of train wisdom here (not necessarily from me) so just ask any specific question and you will get an A+ answer... Edit; Dang! Lee beat me...as I was certain he would....

Matthew, I have a few pages, here, on my website that might help you get started with the German Rail site. If you've been using the site for a while, it might be too elementary for you, but on the other hand, it might show you some things you've yet to discover on your own. Rick also has some tips on using the German Rail website, here.

Thanks! You guys are a helpful bunch.

Does anyone have any tips on finding tickets for Sweden and Denmark? I'm having trouble finding anywhere besides that raileurope site. I did all the math, and it looks like I can do everything from Berlin on for less than $500 point-to-point. that's including an obscenely expensive ticket from Lauterbrunnen to Paris. The cheapest I could find there was 116e for the Saturday train...

Denmark; http://www.dsb.dk/Rejseplan/bin/query.exe/en Sweden: http://www.sj.se/start/startpage/index.form?l=en Be sure to take currency exchange into account. Denmark is currently 5.66 to the $
Sweden is currently 6.75 to the $