Car Rental or Railpass?

Are you visiting big cities? How many are there of you? How long will you stay in each place? Also, railpass isn't the only option- point to point tickets sometimes make more sense.

That is an unanswerable question. With the weak dollar most of Europe ranges from expensive to very expensive. One way to hold down you expense is to reduce travel costs. What you are suggestions covers an area about equal to eastern US. What makes more sense economically is to have a tight triangle with min travel such as London, Amsterdam, Paris. Of the four Italy probably is the least expensive but not by much.

I would say car rental, but Italy will come with tolls. The autobahn will get you anywhere very quickly.

I think you had earlier posted that you have a 10-day vacation. When you figure on time loss due to departure and arrival that leaves maybe 8.5 days. Since you're thinking of visiting 4 countries in that time, I hope you have a real fascination with seeing transportation infrastructure -- train stations, rail cars, reading traffic signs, freeways, parking lots, and the like. Because that's where you'll spend an awful lot of your time.

Understand..... I am just trying to figure out the biggest bang for the buck..... How about Germany, Amsterdam and Austria? We will have ten days on the ground - total of 14 days (I am allowing 4 days of travel).....I don't expect to see everything in each country....

I can speak for Germany since over the last five years I have made four trips there and compared car to rail, rail pass to point-to-point tickets each time. Germany has some very good rail deals (SparPreis for longer distance, Länder tickets for regional trains).

I have never found a car to come anywhere near rail, "economically". For me, traveling mostly alone, a car would be two to three times as expensive.

I used a rail pass in 2000 and, at best, broke even. I haven't used one since.

You can go to the Deutsche Bahn website and look up travel times between cities you're considering. Michelin will let you estimate drive times. My suggestion is that you make a table with the days listed across the top and the hours for each day forming the rows. Fill in where you'll be spending your time; checking out, getting to the train station or car lot, travel time to the new city, lunch, finding the new hotel, and so on. Then take a look at the chart and decide if that's the vacation you want. Preferences differ, and it may be right for you. But this way you'll have a decent estimate in advance of where the time will go.

It can be very cheap point to point.

Sample itin:

Fly into MUC, out of Amsterdam.

MUC - Munich - a few Euros on the S-Bahn.

Munich - Salzburg: 14 Euros pp on a Bayern ticket
Salzburg - Munich: 14 Euros again.

39 Euros for MUC to A'dam leave 9:55 am arrive 17:25 pm. (sample date May 13, cheapest advance sale fare.)

A'dam - Schiphol airport - a few Euros

So that itin would run around 85 Euros each total, probably. Add some travel on the Bayern ticket for outings to smaller towns at 14 Euros each per day.

Here's the DB webpage for itin.'s and fares:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

And please keep in mind that it is not either/or. If you will be zipping from city to city, a car is not a good idea, but you can certainly rely on Train and Bus for the majority of travel, then maybe if you were to rent a car for a day or two to see Tuscany, the Austrian Countryside, or maybe the Mosel region in germany, then that works well.

If you're going to be in more than one country in Western Europe at the distances you're talking about, with the amount of time you have, I could only recommend the train. Cars are great when you have time to explore the countryside and lounge a bit in the smaller towns. For a 10-day blitz, the trains are awesome! Most stations are centrally located and the trains tend to run on time in the countries you're considering. (It's not Amtrak over there). Enjoy!

I don't know which would be cheaper, I have a feeling renting a car. I do however think it will be more of a headache for you. My fiancee and I just visited 5 countries in 2 weeks and we used the train. We paid a lot of money for a rail pass, but it was worth it! We wemt to a LOT of places and the train was super easy and comfortable. We could plan what we were going to do next while sitting back and getting waited on! With a car you will be battling lots of traffic, no parking and slower travel time.

You need to plan your itin.route first. then work it from there. you do not want to drive in most big cities ie Milan, Zurich etc.I go every yr to Europe and usually do a combination of train & car rental when 2 pedrsons are traveling. realize also that car rental can be very expensive espec. Italy and when picking up and dropping off in another country.Also parking can be expensive and difficult to find.No shortcuts to deciding it is imp to plan routing in advance.