Google maps for planning

www.bahn.de

When driving, I use: www.mappy.com

For rail, the previous reply
notes the best site.

Before every trip to Europe, I estimate my travel expenses.

For expenses by car, I use ViaMichelin (www.viamichelin.co.uk). It not only gives me time and distance but estimates fuel cost for my trip. Then I add in the cost of car rental from several sources (autoeurope, etc). I try to include complete collision coverage for an equal comparison, although I find that hard to get.

I figure rail expenses several ways, including a railpass and P2P tickets, including regional day tickets and discount fares I can get by buying in advance.

I always find that P2P rail travel saves me about 2/3, even without full auto collision damage expense exemptions (I have no liabilty with the train).

I, too, like ViaMichelin. It's easy to change your route by clicking on the map to include another place. And I also like the cost-estimating feature.

rac.co.uk or theaa.co.uk are both good for checking mileage. The rac.co.uk site seems to think it takes longer to drive places than it really does. When you go to their sites, click on travel planner.

I use theaa.co.uk. I print an itinerary out for each leg of my trip so that I can estimate time between destinations. We do use a GPS while there, but I have this for back-up just in case something goes wrong - hasn't yet.

Hm, maps.google.com works just fine over here and the distances and driving times are pretty accurate. That's for car travel though. Their estimates on public transport aren't that reliable yet. Also I find bing maps to be quite helpful...

I usually use mapquest or viamichelin to map out driving routes and estimate time enroute.

For trains, I just use the train schedules.