Plane or train

Use rome2rio.com to help you decide. Flying will definitely be faster since those are spread apart locales, but R2R will help you estimate cost.

"It seems to me that trains are always going to be less money than planes. You might look into some of the different rail passes available."

This is not necessarily true which is why OP should do some research on this. There are a number of low cost carriers who may fly a route that will be cheaper than a train fare ALTHOUGH since you are closer to travel time you might have missed the lowest LCC fares.

Time-wise on a Paris to Rome flight you are looking at a 2 hour flight + time to go to the airport, be there ahead of time plus time from the airport back tothe city VS 10+ hours on a train. Ugh to the 10 hours on a train. Six hours is about my break point on fly vs train. More than 6 hours...definitely I would fly. Your decision might be different BUT you need to base it on facts.

Rail passes - my schedule is always fixed so I don't look at rail passes. It's better for someone not to recommend a pass unless you have used one and know they apply in this situation. For instance, there are charges for mandatory reservations on fast trains in France and Italy when using a rail pass.

There may be a more sequential way to organise this- working from south to north- Paris, Rome, Venice, Prague, Krakow and Warsaw.

Once you've got to Prague, then the last two legs would certainly be by train, as the cheaper option (and probably faster as well).

Is cheapness the only driver here?- eg Venice to Prague will take around 14 hours on the train, by plane it will be around 5.5 to 6 hours (taking transfers and waiting time into account), but if the train was cheaper (it would likely save you one hotel night) would train still win? Plane will also often sacrifice comfort and seeing the scenery.

What I am saying is that cost should maybe not be the only driver in the decision making process.

Rome to Venice would always be train.

Paris to Rome is a lot harder of a call- but you can do it in a day from 60 Euro, taking 11 hours. It's doubtful you would beat that, for cost, by plane-https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/paris-to-rome-by-train.htm

The notion that "trains are always going to be less money than planes" has not been the case since the advent of low cost carriers. In my experience, with the need to compete with low cost carriers, many full service airline prices have also become more reasonable since the days when they held a monopoly.

This is a mistaken notion - train must be cheaper - that I frequently hear US travelers state. I've flown multiple times in situations where the flights were more convenient, even with the noted security issues and need to arrive early for flights. I've certainly booked some very good airfare rates. Some of those European trains, especially when booked last minute, are ridiculously priced!

OP needs to lay out an actual itinerary and do some research. All the ticket prices will be available for a September journey.

It's also mistaken idea that rail passes are a good idea. Quite often, point-to-point tickets will be cheaper than a railpass.

The best thing to do is to figure out how long each train journey would be and the cost. Then compare that to flights.

Rome2rio may not be the best place to get info as it has a lot of errors.

This is not necessarily true which is why OP should do some research
on this. There are a number of low cost carriers who may fly a route
that will be cheaper than a train fare ALTHOUGH since you are closer
to travel time you might have missed the lowest LCC fares.

Just remember to look at the total cost of the journey, i.e. including the cost of getting to and from the airport. I've encountered people booking a flight because it was €30 cheaper than the train, and then spend a combined €70 on taxis to and from the airports…

I second what Badger said. And, in addition to cost, be sure to compare the actual time of the train from city center to city center vs the time getting to and from airports plus additional time at airports for security purposes. Just remember 'cheaper' isn't always 'better', and sometimes your actual sightseeing time is also worth money.

Hi,
Paris - Venice or Rome is probably more convenient and cheaper by plane. Even with luggage fees, if you book soon you should not pay much more than €120 for a one-way flight, and less than €100 if you are lucky.

Within Italy, the train is quite cheap and efficient, so I would not fly between Rome and Venice.

Italy to Poland is definitely a flight.

Within Poland, train. And Krakow to Prague has affordable direct trains...but also some dirt-cheap Ryanair flights on some days (not daily).

A train pass is likely to have no value whatsoever in such a trip.

Travel has changed in 55 years. A lot.

In 1968, there were no discount airlines and flying within Europe was very expensive. There were few cheap train fares. There were no high speed rail lines.

In 1968, it was standard practice to get a Eurail pass. Not anymore. Now it's prudent to cost out each leg of a trip and compare prices of trains vs. planes. It's also prudent to look at times. There are also discounted long distance bus lines.

And the OP stated he/she is looking for cheaper. Although as also previously stated, cheaper is not always better.

I second the advice of Pam, Nancy, Ordtraveler, Badger and Balso.

There appears to be a tendency to toss out personal bias as fact, and that doesnt serve anyone in a good way. Its a pretty complicated question and the answer is subjective.

Paris to Rome, September 15

By air, prices begin at $40. You have three departure airports to choose from and two arrival airports to choose from. Flight time is 2 hours. Add 4 more hours to to and from airports and its a 6 hour trip.

By Train, prices begin at about $100. 11 hour trip so maybe 13 hours total with going and coming from train station.

So, depending on how you fly (heavy or light) vs how much comfort you want on a 11 hour train ride vs how much you value 7 hours (pretty much a full day) of tourism time; either can be "best" and "cheapest".

My general rule is that I take the train when the trip is less than 6 hours and I fly when it is more. My rationale is that even a short flight door-to-door will generally take a minimum of 4 to 5 hours (30 min to 1 hour to airport on both ends, 2 hours waiting, 1 hour flight). Flights are also more likely to be delayed than trains. I’m willing to spend a little more time on the train because it is more comfortable. My other general rule is that when I do need to fly within Europe, I make sure to take non-stop flights; this can mean rearranging the order of cities.

Assuming that your flights are into Paris and home from Prague, I would suggest the following:

For your trip, I would suggest the following:
1) Paris to Venice: fly
2) Venice to Rome: train
3) Rome to Warsaw: fly (there are no non-stop flights between Venice and Warsaw, so it would be better to fly from Rome)
4) Warsaw to Krakow: train
5) Krakow to Prague: train or fly. The train is about 7 hours and I would probably choose the train.

With the exceptions of Rome-Venice and Warsaw-Krakow, your destinations are widely dispersed so you are going to lose a lot of time to travel between locations. I don’t know how long your trip is. If it is only a couple of weeks, I’d consider cutting Italy out and saving it for another trip and spending more time in France and/or Poland/Czechia. On a trip of 3 weeks or less, I generally limit myself to no more than one flight within Europe. Flying almost always means giving up most of the day.

Which reminds me of another point - be careful which airport you are flying from/to. For instance, in Paris Orly and de Gaulle are easy to get to by public transportation, but Beauvais is very far away and not well-connected to central Paris.

If the difference is 1-2 hours, unless the price substantially saves money, I prefer the train. I dislike all the hassles and discomfort of flying, not to mention delays and lost luggage. I find train travel relaxing. The seats are wider, there's more leg room, there's often scenery and it usually takes but a few minutes to transit a train station.

The Frank II's post is so very apt.

I was also one of those whose first European trip was Eurail, back-pack, hostels, and lots of other young people sharing discoveries and advice. Planes within Europe? Not a consideration - too expensive.

I've seen so many changes! For instance, the opening up of the Eastern European bloc countries in the 1990s and adding those folks to the tourist mix made a big difference in the crowd levels I observed. My kids as young adults first solo trips to Europe in the early 2000's were quite different than mine - but I think no less enjoyable. The world moves on. There are replacements for the Eurail Pass and Europe on $5 a Day. (Does anyone remember that?? I think I had a $10 a Day book with me!)

It's too easy to think that a trip even 5 years ago is still going to be relevant and provide the best advice. Within a 3 - 5 year period, I went from travel in London with Oyster to ApplePay to Contactless Credit Card. There's probably some new iteration even now!

Arthur Frommer

"Maybe, like me, the OP has not had a chance to travel much."

All of us here want to help the less traveled forum members. That's why when giving advice on specifics, experience comes in to play. If someone hasn't compared the prices of air vs train for certain areas then randomly throwing out advice based on a long ago trip may not be helpful to a poster. As indicated from other posters, the ground has shifted drastically from 1960's/1970's. It's even shifted quite a lot since pre-covid.

Of course anyone can contribute anything they want and it's really up to the OP to decide what advice will work for them.

And yes, laughing....this last trip to London I used up the remainder on an old Oyster Card and switched to contactless. So easy and you never have to worry if you have enough GBP left on the card for your ride.

bostonphil7, first, my apologies. When you siad "trains are always going to be less money than planes" it sounded as though you were imparting somethng factual. Since the OP is new to the forum I was afraid she/he/them would assume we knew what we were talking about or take us too seriously in our comments.

Then about which is cheaper or better, I did not give an opinion. Like I said, too subjective; which includes as you correctly pointed out the value of watching the world wizz by out the window of the train, or talking with the other passengers. I dont travel as much as most on the forum, but I've been to Paris and Rome enough and have seen enough of the tourism sites that sitting back on a train for a few hours just contemplating life isnt a bad idea for me.

I can tell you that there is no joy in a 5+ hour train ride, especially when it's crowded. Take a flight - it will be easier, probably cheaper, and simpler. And with all the time you've saved, you have more time to see the wonderful sites that are in the cities you are visiting.

But you need to get on it now. As others have pointed out, the closer you get to your travel time, the more expensive transportation gets (and that applies to both planes and trains).

I'll comment on all the cities minus Rome.

The other cities listed I would travel to by train, flying in Europe is not an option. Regardless of the distance, you need to plan the routes carefully, since your itinerary is a pretty good stretch, ie Rome to Warsaw. Paris to Prague is easily done by a combination day and night train. There you can tailor your routes, not just following the websites. How much time do you have, 4-5 weeks ? If not, I would suggest dropping a city or two.

I have the Senior Eurail Global Pass, and use that for day train connections plus night trains, if that is an option for you. OeBB and EN offer night train connections to Venice, Krakow, Prague, Warsaw and Paris, depending on your departure point. I used the Pass this time going by night train Hamburg to Vienna. The other planned night train route, Vienna to Krakow , I bailed out on, basically lazied out. Doing a couple of night train rides will more than pay for the Pass, assuming you qualify for the discounts, I did, ie 20% total

@bostonphil7- I would hate you to think that you felt that you were being corrected.
More being educated, is the better word.
Every day is a school day for all of us. No-one is any more right than anyone else with this kind of question, where we don't know the OP as they are a new poster with quite an open and blanket question, and understandably so.
You are the second person I have seen this evening, who thinks that they have been "corrected" by another poster, which is a bit unfortunate.

oh boy, thank you all so much for your responses. I will need some time to digest all this really helpful info. My itinerary is flexible, and I am not wedded to the order I'd initially set out. On doing some train research, I see that I've actually started this trip the wrong way and need to first head to Warsaw after Paris (possibly via Berlin) down and around and ending up in Rome and then flying home. I'm in Toronto, Canada. Time frame is about 2 1/2 weeks but the first few days in Paris are work related so that is the only piece not flexible. I have, in the interim, done some pricing, etc. on trains, both the Eurail pass for 14 days vs each leg of the trip. So far, unless I'm doing something wrong, it's almost half the price to pay per leg rather than getting the Eurail pass, although I'm having to guess for some of the trains since the reservations only go out two months. I have not yet looked at planes. I'm also "lucky" that hubby and I now qualify for senior's pricing on the trains even though we're really young at heart seniors. Not sure if this is available for airfare.

Maybe, depending on length of trains, it may be a mix of trains and planes.

Again, thank you all for your responses. And, to answer someone's note, i am overwhelmed with the info (plus i'm working so sneaking this in when I can ;) ).

Getting somewhere fast is not important to me. I prefer enjoying
getting somewhere

Bostonphil7, thats what makes it so difficult to be helpful. We are all different animals and even then each trip is different. I spent a week in the Albanian Alps in a hotel where I shared a bath with the cleaning staff and had a great time. Now I am working on a trip that involves a 5 star hotel with a pretty sweet rooftop restaurant bar and music all night long.... Also will be a good trip.

But for prices and times, the internet searches take minutes ..... of course I would love to tell the OP to do their own research but I found by doing it for them I learn a lot and that improves my own trips.

I don't trust Rome2Rio for fares, travel times or frequencies. I don't think it will be useful to you here.

It is easy to check current airfares within Europe for the anticipated travel dates on skyscanner.com. In most cases the lowest fares will be on budget carriers and won't include seat selection or a checked bag. In some cases those fares will have a very low size and/or weight limit on what you take into the cabin.

As noted, not all airports are created equal in terms of convenience and cost of access. For major airports, if your flight is at a reasonable time of day, there should be well-priced public transportation available. If you have a crack of dawn departure time requiring you to be at the airport at a crazy early hour, or if your flight lands extremely late and public transit has stopped, a taxi trip between airport and town can cost more than the airline ticket. For the obscure airports sometimes used by RyanAir, you need to research the ground transportation situation before buying the ticket.

Italian train tickets can be purchased from trenitalia.com or italotreno.it (two different companies).

Train tickets for trips within Poland are available from www.intercity.pl. The extremely useful train web site, www.seat61.com, suggest using www.polrail.com for trips between Poland and other countries but warhs that time must be allowed for tickets to be mailed. It suggests 10 days, but I'm not sure that's sufficient time if you're in the US.

To give you an idea of the costs of discount air carriers. I didnt look too hard but I dont think you will find a train for this route that is less expensvie than the most expensive of the flight options below.

Paris to Budapest
WizzAir
Travel light (underseat bag only) 24.99 euro
Pac and Save (underseat, carryon and checked bag and seat) 92.85 euro
All In Full Flex (same as above with free changes) 114.40 euro

Ryan Air
Basic (underseat bag only) $27.37
Regular (underseat bag plus carryon bag plus seat assignment) $61.37
Plus (same as regular with one checked bag) $63.37
Flexi Plus (same as Plus with free changes) $131.26

Presumably you've already got the Transatlantic air fare sorted out, on an open jaw basis.

One of the problems with a railpass is the need to make quota controlled seat reservations at a supplementary charge.

If you feel a railpass is not cost effective, that seems to chime with most of the respondents here.

Paris to Warsaw for instance by train will take you from before 8am to 11pm at night, with 2 changes- and, looking at 15 September cost around 170 to 180 Euros.
Before Covid and then the war in Ukraine there used to be a through RZD (Russian railways) sleeping car from Paris to Warsaw (for Belarus and Moscow), but that is no more.

I'm going to bow out of the discussion here as well, as my experience is not current enough to help you with the minutiae.

So far, unless I'm doing something wrong, it's almost half the price to pay per leg rather than getting the Eurail pass, although I'm having to guess for some of the trains since the reservations only go out two months.

You are not wrong. For most people, point-to-point tickets bought in advance are cheaper than a railpass.

For researching flights, I like to start with googleflights.

For researching trains, I generally start with the rail carrier in the country of the trip’s origin (e.g., check Polrail if your trip starts in Poland). If you want general info (e.g., how long will a particular train route take), Deutsche Bahn (bahn.com) has a very easy to use interface that I find convenient for doing general research on how to order cities when traveling by train.

If you decide to fly from Paris do check flights from Orly. It may be closer and easier to get to from your lodging than CDG. It’s also smaller and supposedly more manageable.

Enjoy your trip.

I have flown only twice before inside Europe--Paris to Vienna and Berlin to London. When adding up how long flying might take, you do need to consider the ride to the airport, arrival at the airport well before your flight, and then the ride from the airport once you arrive. I find train travel in Europe so much more pleasant than the flying experience that I do not consider pricing and would have to save at least a half day by flying for me to fly.

If the train trip is six hours or less, I take a train. If the train trip is seven hours, I will consider how scenic the route is and whether I have to change trains, though I suspect I will still travel by train. If the train trip is eight hours, I look at flight schedules. If the train trip is nine hours or longer, that's too long, and if feasible, I will fly.

Maybe you have already seen this. It is on the forum. Might help you with any decisions concerning trains.

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains

millerhruns, I get that you are overwhelmed, so you might want to digest this (at least the substantive information here) then look at your itinerary and work on that a bit. After that maybe start a new thread that will not have a lot of extraneous responses and will be tailored more to your updated itinerary.

Generally speaking, it's cheaper to buy point-to-point train tickets instead of Eurail passes. Plus the earlier you book them, the cheaper they are (at least the long distance ones). You may or may not be able to get senior discounts depending on which country you are in. Some allow tourists to use senior fares and others do not. But if you can book them early enough, the senior fare may not be needed anyway.

I would suggest starting with this website - https://www.seat61.com/european-train-tickets-online.htm - the Man in Seat 61 has some very good tutorials for those traveling by train in Europe; and specific advice for each country. Spend some time here - he has excellent and well-written advice.

Lastly, keep in mind that with only 2 1/2 weeks of travel (and part of that devoted to business in Paris), you may want to consider omitting one or two destinations. Travel time really eats into sightseeing, and most travel from one city to another will take at least a half day and sometimes a full one depending on the distance. So focus on the places you really want to see. 2 weeks would give you approximately 4 nights in 3 cities or 3 nights in 4 cities, but that works out to 2 days of sightseeing, which isn't a lot.

Hey folks, lots of good advice here, and there is also a lot of side discussion which can be unhelpful to the OP and others.

Guideline #1 is to stay on topic. If you're posting more than twice in a Q&A thread, please consider the value you are adding by posting more. There is a point where it can be a turn off to other forum participants when a handful of people dominate a thread. We never intend to have a heavy hand re guideline #1 when it's still related to travel and we're all being friendly, but I'm hoping we can reign it in a bit.

And please don't respond to this post! Thanks to everyone for helping the OP.

Here is the challenge.

You have a fixed sum of money
You have a fixed period of time
You have a list of places you want to see that is too long for either the funds or the time.
You arent sure if you are ever coming back.

Now you have to balacne quantity and quality and dreams and desires and asperations.

I do two regions connected by air from time to time but three is really pushing it.

I guess if I had to do the trip I would first look at: fly into Paris, then flight to Venice (EasyJet I think does it cheap) and train to Florence and to Rome. Then Ryanair to Krakow and Ryanair to Prague (or if you just had to ride a train, you could do this on a train).

I think a train would be a once in a life time experience.