Travel plan

Many people here have used that website, at least for planning purposes.

I have used this website a lot to help plan our itineraries, routes, and approximate travel times. I don't trust their pricing though so for accuracy I use the website of the rail or bus company I plan to use.

I've used them for planning transportation, but I always double-check the routes and pricing using the various rail or airline website. I prefer to book directly with the hotels on their website, and "eliminate the middleman".

The rome2rio site has links to booking/reservations sites, you are not buying from rome2rio, at least not for transportation; I have never used the hotel-finding option so I don't know how that works.

Rome2Rio don't ask for enough date, time, or traveler information to give you very accurate options in most cases, but they give you the links to confirm their proposals, which is a necessary step. For instance, when specifying a Sunday date for a bus route in Tuscany, Rome2Rio displayed buses that only actually run Monday-Saturday. (They did not promise more; they only said the date feature was for finding airfares, not buses.) Another (unsophisticated) way to find regional bus companies is just to Google two points, such as "Florence San Gimignano bus." And most guidebooks will provide bus operator names or bus station contacts relevant to destinations discussed in that book.

If you're pretty sure that your route is served by train and want to see schedules and connecting points, the DB train schedule link at How to Look Up Train Schedules and Routes Online is the most comprehensive and detailed one-stop source. If you know you want to compare budget flight prices, then we prefer to start at www.skyscanner.com. Most ticket prices in Western Europe will vary depending on how early you reserve, especially for faster trains.