Stopover on train journey

Generally, if you want to do that, you buy a ticket from A to B and then one from B to C. Germany might allow it if it is specified on the ticket and you arrive at C by 10 am the following day, hardly "a day or two". Switzerland, the journey must be completed by the end of the day, but you can stop over without it being on the ticket as long as it is on the same route shown on the ticket.

"Europe" is too general a term. Each country has its own rules. Anything with a mandatory seat reservation, definitely not, as you lose your seat reservation if you stop over. These would be French TGV's and IC trains, Italian Freccia and IC trains, and the Thalys train between France, Benelux, and Germany.

Thank you Sam! I posted the query thinking of an addition (or alternative) to an interrail 2-month pass. Clearly, the latter is what I need, with the occasional short trip paid for out of my pocket.

I don’t know which countries you’ll be visiting but before purchasing a rail pass, see if you can price out your trips by buying single tickets. Purchasing tickets in advance can really save money (especially in Italy and France). With a pass you also might have to pay additional fees for mandatory reservations on some routes and that can add up. Buying single tickets includes the reservation.

The initial reaction to a rail pass these days is that it is not cost effective unless you are doing several long distance trains rides. A rail pass does provide some convenience but you pay for that convenience. So to answer your question, more travel details are needed. A very general answer to your first question is NO. Generally a ticket is specific to a specific day, time, seat, etc. For a ticket not specific to a date and time, will have a max time it is valid -- 4 hrs, 6 hrs, 12 hrs -- depending on country and train system. One the trip starts no ticket is going to be good for a couple of days.

It is really critical for a decent answer to this question to understand where in Europe you are considering, and how far apart these intermediate stops are.

For example, if you get Super Savers (old name, now Super Off Peak Returns) the trip may be broken on the outbound, and you have 30 days to make the return journey and can stop as often as you like on the return as long as you are travelling in a straight route. But that is in the UK. Different countries all have different rules.

Luckily there are folks here who know most of the rules for most of the countries.

Try us.

Each of the 40 European countries with a railway has its own rules for domestic tickets, and these rules may be totally different.

Standard international tickets(SCIC-NRT) are valid for 4 days and you can do as many stops as you wish. Unfortunately these tickets are not as useful today as they used to be until a few years ago. Many countries totally pulled out of this tarriff system(Spain and Portugal, Norway, UK) and others allow only limited use(France, Italy only regional trains can be used), but the most annoying is that a few years ago these tickets used to be valid for 2 weeks and before that 1 month and that was when you could really use them as a cheap rail pass substitute, but the days are over.

http://www.europetrainsguide.com/Advice/Tips-for-Western-Europe/Tips-for-Western-Europe.html

Thank you everybody for replying to my question. In fact, I am only at the beginning of planning a longish journey and have not even decided whether I shall go north or south (starting in Geneva), and I now appreciate that it was difficult to answer the question as given.
I am rather discouraged by the cost of food and board in Europe, especially as I am used to spending several weeks in Thailand on a much more friendly budget. But I want to cut down on my flying!

"I am rather discouraged by the cost of food and board in Europe, especially as I am used to spending several weeks in Thailand on a much more friendly budget."

Accept, right now, that Europe has European prices - not Thai ones. If you don't do this, you will spend your entire trip unhappy and distressed by sticker shock. I met someone in Eastern Germany in 2004, who was very upset that things were more expensive there than in India (why this was a surprise to him was unclear, but it clearly was). He simply could not let go of this, and it was ruining his trip.

Don't let this happen to you. You can certainly save money in various ways. Supermarkets are cheaper than restaurants; hostels (and sometimes apartment rentals) are cheaper than hotels; buses or trams are cheaper than taxis. More and more attractions have discounts for advance online booking. But, things cost what they cost. Learn what this will be in each country, and be prepared to pay it. Rick's books are great for guidelines about what restaurants and hotels cost in various places. If the prices you are seeing upset you, don't go - or you'll have a unhappy trip.

Sorry to be so harsh, but I really want you to have a good time. And I'm not immune from this problem myself. I live in New York City, but even I had sticker shock at some prices in Switzerland and Norway. Luckily, I was able to find ways to save money on some things, and commit to spending the high prices on others, and had good trips (really great in the case of Switzerland). But through my research, I knew in advance that some things would seem very expensive, so I wasn't upset (mostly).

Thank you very much, Harold. I don't think you are being harsh, just telling it as it is!

The strange thing is, I am a European myself, a Brit living in France. But at 81 years of age without a large income, my problem is that while I can afford a five- or six-week holiday in south-east Asia, I don't see how I can take advantage of my two-month Interrail pass without doubling my daily budget, and that would be impossible for me over a similar amount of time.
Perhaps I should mention that, influenced by Greta Thunberg, I want to fly less for ecological reasons. I'm only a tiny drop in a huge ocean, but every drop counts...

Obviously, southern Europe is the better choice. Your ideas are great, but my research shows that even the cheapest hostels there cost more than twice what I pay at a guest house in Thailand... I am sure I can find more affordable walk-in homestays in countries like Greece or Croatia, etc. I also realise that I can do my own cooking in some hostels, and night trains seem to be a good option, but I have not yet worked out how to find them.

So, any tips about all the above and anything else will be very welcome! It's great to have the forum available.

Have you thought about couch surfing? Would you be able to reciprocate? There are a lot of people who do this and love the cheapness of it, plus making new friends.

Jo, thank you for the tip. Here is my immediate response after some research. It would be very interesting to read travellers’ comments on couchsurfing on the forum generally, and I am starting a new topic with that name.

First impression of their site: “Get verified, Find hosts up to 2x faster”.
I followed the link to PayPal, to find a bill for a 52.00€ payment for life! That may be legitimate, but why was payment not mentioned at the time of the link? It would have been all too easy for me simply to click on the blue button in Paypal without having noticed this little figure!
Apparently the fee was optional until not very long ago.

Second impression, many very negative reviews and horror stories (mainly from the outfit itself): see https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.couchsurfing.com
and even:
https://www.businessinsider.com/couchsurfing-the-best-hook-up-app-2013-12?IR=T !!!

It looks like the (now a for-profit corporation) is truly on the make, on the way up there with airbnb and blablacar. Older reviews are generally far more positive.

Did the train stopover but it has been over 10 years so not sure if this is still an option.

We were traveling from Zagreb to Ljubljana to Salzburg. Checked at the TI in Zagreb and they directed me to a very competent travel agent who knew all the tricks of train ticketing. She easily booked us a straight tickets from Zagreb to Salzburg - I believe the validity of the ticket was at least 30 days. She then booked two separate sets of reservations for the different days for the 2 segments we wanted. Didn't have any issues with the train conductors who understood what we were doing.

Not sure if these types of tickets are still around and if there is a way to book these online without going through a TA

Thanks for that one, Arnold. I'll see what I can find.