Eurail or point to point?

I would not buy a Eurail, but I am somewhat biased, as I have never bought one. But to point out a few things:
1. Italy rail tickets are not expensive. Even full fare 2nd class are not that dear, and you can buy advance nonrefundable tickets for very cheap. If you try to use a Eurail pass for the fast intercity trains, you will still need to buy a 10 euro reservation for tickets which you can occasionally get for as low as 9 euro when you buy advance P2P. Regional trains are very cheap.
2. Bavaria has a Bayern ticket for 23 euro and travel all day on regional trains after 9 am. If there are 2 of you, the second person only pays 4 euro. So if in Munich, you could do day trips to Neuschwanstein, Bamberg, and Rothenburg using this ticket.
Divide the cost of the pass by the number of days you will travel and see what it is costing per day. Then compare with point to point. Remember to add reservation fees for Eurail tickets.
And yes, intercity trains are valid with Eurail passes, not just International trains.
Read the lowdown at www.seat61.com

Yeah I did a rough calculation for point to point and the eurail pass so the pass isn't so cheap because of the limited travel days on it and added cost of reservation that might be required for some trains. However the thing now I'm debating is since our itinerary isn't concrete and there is a possibility of having an extra day to maybe add another city so having the four country eurail pass would help with that. However again I would still have to spend money on some of the shorter days in order to not use up the limited number of travel days on my pass.
What I'm debating now is the pass is giving me the convenient option and freedoms of taking trains everywhere and without the pass there might be situations where I have to take the bus which could be really inconvenient for long routes. I'm just assuming that I have no experience of travelling in Europe so obviously don't know what the buses are like.

watch out for adding France to the plan for passes. If you are doing long distance French trains you will want fast ones. That means the TGV which are rationed and expensive for passholders. That means you have to buy their reservations ASAP so there goes that flexibilitry right out the window, and the cost savings with it.

As was said above, Italy is another loser.

I don't see where you would be on a bus.

You could look at night trains, Florence to Munich, and Prague to Basel/Mannheim
(for connection with TGV/ICE to Paris).
Total of 5 sectors I am counting ... Rome >> Florence >> Munich >> Prague >> Basel >> Paris
If you consider Eurail you will need 5 countries - Italy, Austria, Germany, Czech Rep, France.

Just forget railpasses in general (except in Switzerland). Point to point tix are cheap and if your distance is too great then just fly on a budget airline.

I sat next to an older couple on a train from Munich to Neuschwanstein and they were in love with their Eurail Pass as they used an entire day of it to travel roundtrip to Neuschwanstein thinking they were using it wisely. Of course I the rest of my group had a Bavarian Pass for the day at a fraction of the cost.

Eurail Passes are a thing of the past - just like Traveler's Cheques. Don't get caught with "either" of them :-)

Careful about the city night line train from Florence to Munich. They are cancelled into Munich at the moment, and only run as far as Kufstein.

I second the warning about trying to use a pass in France. Don't. The number of seats available to pass holders is very limited. The one time I tried to use a pass in France, all seats for passholders had been sold. Consequently, even though there were plenty of vacant seats, I could not use the pass to get one so I had to buy a full fare tickets to travel on the train. And this was when I tried to make reservations a number of days before the trip. Never again…

I don't see a reason to buy passes with your itinerary, for the reasons stated above.

The distances from Florence to Munich and from Munich to Paris are considerable, and in my experience, flying is sometimes the cheaper and most sensible option.

Air Dolomiti flies from FLR (or also PSA) to MUC (www.airdolomiti.eu)
Air France (www.airfrance.com) and Lufthansa (www.lufthansa.com) fly from MUC to CDG.
Transavia France flies from MUC to ORY (www.transavia.com).

Check their prices for your dates of travel, they might save you money and time over the train option. I see prices of under €50 one way in December for either segments (with possibly €25 on top of that with checked luggage fee)

With advance purchase, right now you can get tickets for two for the daytime EC train in late December from Bologna to Munich for 78€ or from Florence to Munich (with a change in Bologna) for 98€.

The Bayern-Ticket is currently 23€ for one, 5€ more for the second passenger. In addition to city to city, a Bayern-Ticket will be valid for all transport (S-/U-Bahn, streetcars, and buses) in cities like Munich or Nürnberg and for a lot of regional buses, like RVO (Regionalverkehr Oberbayern) inside Bavaria. A rail pass is only accepted for the S-Bahn.

Thanks for all the responses guys. And yea looks like eurail pass is useless for me. My two main journeys are Florence to Munich and Munich to Paris. Now i heard there's a youth pass that u get for 50€ and that gives u a discount on trains in France and Germany? Is that correct? Also I'm trying to go over all the transport options for all of my cities
For Germany there's the Bavarian or Bayern pass for unlimited travel in a day so looks like a good option to use it for my Munich to bamberg trip?
Any ideas for similar passes in Italy? I know there's a Roma pass but only for Rome.
Secondly for the long journies yes there are some cheap flights but really I wanna avoid flying if I can so I think night train is the best option.

Hi,

There is a night train option you can take, if that is under consideration, ie on the CNL that goes from Munich to Florence direct. I would not advise a rail Pass since your itinerary doesn't included enough zig zag traveling outside of Italy.

Now i heard there's a youth pass that u get for 50€ and that gives u a discount on trains in France and Germany? Is that correct?

No, I have not heard of this and would be interested if you could share the details.

In Italy, regional trains are quite cheap already. For instance, Rome to Orvieto is only 7.50 euro on a Regionale Veloce anytime.

nanwar1214: Please see my PM note to you.

Hi Sam!
Actually I have no idea myself my friend who lives in France said there's this yellow card called carte de jeun? Not sure about the name but apparently u purchase that and get 50% on ur other train tickets :/ again I'm not sure how accurate this is!

Got it. Looks like it is only good for France, but may work on TGV trains that go into Germany, namely to Frankfurt and Stuttgart. Here are the details: http://medias.sncf.com/sncfcom/pdf/cartesco/3VOLETS_JEUNES1827_EN.pdf

Edit-No trains outside of France. Terms and conditions:
http://medias.sncf.com/sncfcom/pdf/cartesco/CGV/CGV_JEUNE_18-27_EN.pdf

Re-edit- Yes, TGV's to Germany. But with 3 weeks at most, will you take enough trips inside France to justify the 50 euro cost of the card. You have a lot on your plate already.