What Eurail Pass Should I Get?

Is there any one of those trip-days that would cost less than $270? That's what you would be paying for that one extra day. In other words, just skip using the pass for one day, if you have to. Pick the cheapest trip.

PS You didn't ask, but did you look at the various one/two country passes, combinations of which may give you more flexibility at lower cost (second class, e.g.)?

PPS why would you route through Lyon if you're not stopping there?

The obvious first question: "Are you sure a Eurail pass is the best option?".
Read this webpage first: https://www.seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm especially the section "Should you buy a Eurail pass or regular point-to-point tickets?"

You are doing a lot of travelling, so a pass may be the cheapest option, but it is best to do the arithmetic to prove it is. Allow for adding seat reservation costs for High Speed trains, which cancels the flexibility.
If you have 16 days travel planned, you could split it, 15 days on the pass plus one trip on normal advance purchase tickets.
You have a chunk of arithmetic to do - sorry.

"If I get the 2 month continuous, I don’t have to worry if I take an extra train or two somewhere..."

If you pay the $270 additional, you're not paying for just one day - you're paying for the option to travel on roughly 45 additional days if you so choose. Right now you're thinking it might be 1 or 2 more days. But you were talking about hosteling and whether you should pre-book in your previous post... So maybe it's not a bad investment in the event that later, you discover you have nomadic tendencies - or it turns out after your meticulous planning that you don't want to spend 4 nights in some city or town you really don't like - or you fall in love and you're suddenly chasing your love interest around the continent - or you completely overspend your budget and you need to sleep on a train overnight here or there - or you just have a big change of plans because of... whatever. You're no senior citizen, right? It would certainly not be the first time that a young first-time traveler threw his playbook to the winds of fate!

Chris assumes you haven't done the math. Maybe you have. But either way, it'd be wise to share those 15-16 journeys you have in mind on the forum if you're leaning toward that 15-day pass. Chris and others here can provide information about making those journeys that you cannot get from the rail pass website comparisons!! There are very likely some journeys that could be taken more cheaply than you think - without major sacrifices - in the absence of a rail pass.

Keep in mind that the French railway only has a small number of seats for railpass holders.

Have you factored in the charge for any required reservations when you compare the cost of a Eurail pass against the cost of point-to-point tickets? In France in particular, there are limited reservations available to people traveling with Eurail passes. If you have a schedule already, you may not be drawn to the Eurail pass for the spontaneity it could provide.

I have traveled with a Eurail pass and honestly, I wish I hadn't. Aside from spending too much money, the worst part was listening to conductors telling me that I shouldn't have bothered with a Eurail pass!

Hi,

Be advised that even though in France the French Rail limit the number of pass holders for a particular route, that only pertains to the specific departure time. If that happens to you, you can choose a different departure. No big deal, I've encountered that. If you are 27 or younger, get the 2nd class Youth Pass.

Are you sure you really need the Eurail Pass. For example - your trip Paris -> Bern can be had for as little as 29Euro which INCLUDES the required reservation www.sncf.com. Be very very sure you actually need this behemoth of a pass before you plunk down the money.

Another reason why the pass may not be the best choice is the existence of discounted tickets. We were going from Munich to Zagreb. There was a deal - if we left at 4 PM instead of 5:30, we could get 50% off tickets.

I've summarized your itinerary notes from your previous thread, but with the knowledge that some plans may change. I agree that there's not much point in going to Lyon unless you have a night or more to spend there. The most direct route from Paris to Bern and the Berner Oberland is via Basel, instead. Or you can go via Strasbourg with a cheaper seat reservation.

I’m 18 so I’m buying the youth Eurail Global pass. My plan is to start in Paris, go to Lyon, Bern, Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples, Rome, fly to Athens, Bucharest, fly or night train? to Budapest, Vienna, Munich, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, fly to Edinburgh, fly Dublin, and fly back to Paris (in that order).

I see the roughly 15 train travel days in the plan above, connecting those big cities. The big cities could easily keep you busy for the whole trip, but as recommended before, I think you need some small towns in the mix, whether as day trips or stops along the way. A 15-day pass could be considered a "safety net" to cover the 15 longest days of travel. If your destinations change, you can re-assess exactly which days those will be. It's fine to buy a regular ticket one day for a short trip and then go back to using the pass on a longer travel day. The pass also gives you discounts on some Swiss mountain rides around Interlaken and Luzern without using a counted travel day of the pass.

As Russ noted, the larger pass gives you 45 more days of coverage and flexibility. You don't yet know how or if you'll use those, but if you ended up using 10 days for something, then the extra $270 averages out to $27/day. If you're aiming for flexibility, I'd want the extra coverage. (For a working adult, and in the scheme of most 2-month travel budgets, it's not a big expense.) If you're leaning toward reserving more and more of your big city accommodations, then you may be less likely to change plans along the way.

@ codyw...Keep in mind that if you go for the discounted tickets, booked at 90 days out, you've locked yourself in to a specific date of travel at a specific time of departure. You've sacrificed flexibility for savings. If you should miss the train for which you have the discounted ticket, that ticket is worthless. I use a rail pass, a ten day in 2 months Pass, 2nd class.

For a 2 month trip , ie, 60 days, at your age qualifying for a Youth Pass, get the Pass. Keep in mind too that you have the EN night train options, (lots of them covering Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Switzerland, Czech Republic), just reserve a seat (4-6 Euro) and you can board the night train sitting in the general seating area in the same manner as everyone else. Boarding is covered by the Pass. Take the night train to get an extra travel day

Yes, of course, if you purchase a ticket on ANY high speed train that requires a seat reservation then you must travel on "that" specific train. Makes sense, right? You don't purchase a plane ticket and then show up to take a different flight.

Personally if I buy a train ticket then I get on that train. I've never in my life "missed" a train for which I have purchased a ticket, and I really can't imagine what would make me miss a train. I don't view that as sacrificing freedom at all. Your freedom lies in the fact that you just saved a tremendous amount of money and can spend it on other things.

I think locking down the entire itinerary on a 2-month trip is a very different matter from doing so on the typical 2- and 3-week vacations most Americans are limited to. For one thing, the planning burden for a 2-month trip (especially one that covers a lot of countries) is really significant.

A 2-month backpacking jaunt is just a totally different kind of trip, and I see the advantage of a rail pass's flexibility here. You meet someone who had a great time hiking in a place you hadn't previously heard of--you can just go! The question is: How much extra (if any) are you willing to pay for that flexibility?

I take long trips myself and do not schedule very much in advance, but because I tend to cover limited territory on each trip, I spend much less on spur-of-the-minute tickets than a rail pass would cost. I often choose a slow train that takes 3 or 4 hours instead of a fast train (or combination of the two) that takes 2 or 3 hours, just to save money. That's not a practical option if most of the travel legs are long ones.

Hi,

For a two month trip I would not advise locking in all your train rides unless flexibility is not an important factor for you. If so, then you can go ahead sacrifice that for savings. I wouldn't. Of course, there are some long distant rides you could use the discount tickets along with the Pass. Determine which rides are those. How far is the geographic extent of your trip?

Maybe if you're a student or a senior? I haven't used a rail pass since 2001 because, when I price it out, the pass costs more than all but the longest train trips (and I avoid any travel longer than four hours).

Cody W has not been back, but I'll just throw out some thoughts as an exercise.

The 15 day out of 2 month Eurail Global Pass is US$609. That comes to $40.60 per trip, not bad. In EUR, that is about 35 EUR per day. Factor in that you'll need to buy reservations in France and Italy to ride the fast trains.

In Europe, short trips are often cheaper than that. Examples:

In Italy, Regionali are very cheap, and if you take a Regionale Veloce, they are often nearly as fast as Freccia high speed ones. Venice to Verona is 8.85 EUR in 90 minutes vs 70 minutes on the fast trains, Venice to Bologna is 12.50 EUR and takes 2 hours, while the Freccia trains do it in 1 1/2 hours.

In Germany, they have Laender tickets where you can ride regional trains all day within a given "Land" (ie Bavaria) for about 25 EUR all day until 3 am the next day. You just have to travel after 9 am weekdays (anytime weekends). The land area of Bavaria is about 50% more than Switzerland.

In Austria, the half-hourly Westbahn trains run between Salzburg and Vienna for 26.50 EUR.

Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia trains are very cheap. It would be hard to spend more than 35 EUR for a 2nd cl train ticket, except perhaps in Poland, which is a big country.

So that is the kind of arithmetic you should do. Maybe you only plan on 10 major trips in those 2 months. Of course the price per trip goes up as you reduce the number of days. A 10-day in 2-month is $46.50/day (40 EUR). But you don't want to be using expensive pass days for short, cheap trips.

Thanks for the advice everyone! I’ve been reading it all and after some thinking I ordered a 2 month continuous global pass. I figure that I’d regret not getting it more than I’d regret getting it, especially if my itinerary changes.

@ Codyw... If you broaden the travel plans to include Poland, the Czech Rep, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Germany and Hungary, go to a OeBB train office in Austria to pick up the brochure booklet on the EN night trains operating in these countries. With your Pass you'll be surprised at how many of these night train rides may fit in your travel plans giving you extra days. . I usually ride two night train routes on the Pass per trip sitting in the general seating area or in a six seat compartment, as do the locals. There are certain cities that serve as night train hubs/junction points, Munich (especially in all directions) Budapest, Wien Hbf,

I’m very curious how much these passes cost.

@emily My 2 month continuous global pass I just bought was $891 when all was said and done. They’re on 20% sale until December 31st too.

So that’s $59.40 for each day of travel? Ridiculous waste of $$$ as train journeys are never that much even when bought at the station on travel day. You might as well have thrown your money into the Seine.

Eurail Passes are left over from the olden days and still have a toe-hold in the market...appealing mostly to the uninformed travelers unfortunately.

$891 seems pretty good to me for a first-timer with a tentative plan for 2 months of travel.

Your trip is 4 months out. The detractors here are comparing your rail pass to travel choices you might still make before/during your trip, factors that are completely unknown to them. The flexibility you'll have is enormous if the comparison is pre-purchased p2p saver fares that lock in your all your dates, travel times and trains. You can now travel on any additional days you like, at any hour, on almost any train you like. Or you can take additional trips on the same day of your planned trips, if you like. Use the pass only a little more, and that fake price per day of €59.40 starts to drop. You might have to waste a little of your Euro-time at a ticket counter getting a seat reservation for France or wherever, but otherwise, your time is yours - no fussing with long lines or ticket machines, no hassle with the pre-purchase and handling of multiple tickets, no worries about ticket costs. Good for you!

You are not "uninformed" just because you've made a choice that differs from the consensus on this little travel forum. You've thoughtfully taken into account your own inexperience as well as the experience of your co-worker who recommended going with the flow. You've read all the advice here. You have determined that the pass is within your budget. And you've decided that all those train details should not be set in stone. Maybe you didn't look up every last possible bargain fare, but then maybe you just didn't want to get tangled up in all those weeds... And it's your trip, your cash outlay, no one else's.

As I recall my first global rail pass (2 months continuous, youth price, circa 1975) was $260. I considered that a lot of cash at the time - that works out to $1183 in today's dollars thanks to inflation - but over the last 40 years I have not once regretted that expense. The pass for me was my passport to a huge and unforgettable adventure, one that might have been compromised if I'd had to fuss over p2p ticket prices and purchases the whole time. (While I don't normally buy rail passes now, it's because my travel needs are now different - but even now, I still look into the rail pass option.) My guess is that you'll have a great time and won't regret your cash outlay either.

Happy travels.

Russ - even a walk up fare won’t be $60. He hasn’t factored in reservation or other costs either. Face it - the romance of the rail pass is long dead.

"Russ - even a walk up fare won’t be $60."

Take a peek at his preliminary itinerary on the other thread. Let's say he did those... I won't research all of his journeys for you but I happen to have a DB window up. 3 of his trips average €117 if bought walk-up style:

Vienna - Munich = $115
Berlin - Amsterdam = $155
Prague - Berlin = $81

Those 3 trips constitute nearly 40% of his railpass outlay. After buying those, he would have $540 left over for the hypothetical 12 additional journeys. So those additional journeys would have to average less than €42 each in order for the walk-up strategy to be financially more desirable (and he'd still need to spend time in line at at ticket counters buying tickets on 15 separate days.) That may or may not be possible.

But like I said above, while some see only cost factors, the total price alone is NOT the only consideration for everyone, perhaps not even for most. We just don't all share the same travel priorities.

"The romance of the rail pass is long dead"??? That's a topic that's completely disconnected from pricing. Whether railpass or pcp tickets, I'm sure that spontaneous, flexible, unplanned train journeys are still romantic for some (why would that have changed??) whether they buy as they go or use a pass. It's just that the pass allows and encourages more such journeys, and with less hassle.

I'm with Fred and Russ on this one. Also, you made a choice that gives you complete flexibility and let's you know more of your costs going in.

Russ - you’re a bad shopper. Vienna to Munich is a little over 30 Euro on Westbahn and Meridian - walk up fares.

Westbahn is great but pretty much all the other trains to/from Vienna use Wien Hbf. It's possible in certain places to undercut the normal last-minute price with individual strategies, like using Wien Westbahnhof, but there's usually a trade-off in terms of convenience of some kind. You don't have to pay full fare for Berlin-A'dam at the last minute either - as long as you're happy with a train trip that takes twice as long (or longer) and puts you on a series of regional trains with multiple changes - and basically you end up with a ridiculous trip once you start doing that with so many countries.

but now you don't have to go to Westbahnhof to take Westbahn. They can go from Hbf too.

News flash! Westbahn is now serving Hauptbahnhof and many other train stations OeBB doesn’t serve, so Westbahn is now hugely convenient.

Cody got his pass, so we wish him a good trip.

Many first timers get Eurail passes because they don't know what to expect when they arrive, don't know how all the various ticket systems work, and it seems to relieve a bit of stress. Remember, you are not really saving money with a pass, but paying up for convenience. Hopefully, this will be the first of many trips, and then he'll know how things work for the next time.

@ Cody...Save more money with the Pass when you take the night trains, plus you 'll have the flexibility too. Best to get a seat reservation for 4,50 Euro before boarding. The Pass takes care of the rest.

If it now serves Wien Hbf, Westbahn will be great for that specific route - but it will only become a significant factor in the railpass/ticketing decision for Euro-trips like Cody's once it starts discount service between Berlin, Paris, and Amsterdam. Otherwise it's a minor blip in the budgeting decision overall. But it's just not all about economy anyway.

The rail pass is valid on Westbahn. They changed to accepting it in 2011.

Cody, have a great trip! I think you'll be happy with the convenience and flexibility of using the railpass. I used a railpass for numerous trips and loved the convenience.

Convenience is expensive.

@ codyw....Be advised that your Global Pass is valid for the EuroStar if you intend on crossing from Paris to London or vice versa but that ticket has to be ordered on-line, gives you more incentive for buying the Pass, doesn't it?

Have a great trip Cody! Even though I bitch about the EuRail Pass, it did give me an added layer of comfort on the trip.

When you get back from your trip, please come back to this forum and let us know how the Eurail Pass worked out.

Global Pass is valid for the EuroStar

after the additional purchase of a Passholder Ticket.

Nigel - I think Global passholders only a need a reservation for the Eurostar trains.

From the Eurostar website:

Can I use my interrailing pass on Eurostar? Yes, of course. We
recommend booking your Eurostar tickets in advance though. You can
travel between London, Ashford or Ebbsfleet and Paris, Brussels,
Disneyland® Paris, Lille or Calais for a seat booking fee of just
£26.50 (€30) in Standard for 2nd class pass-holders, or £33.50 (€38)
in Standard Premier for 1st class pass-holders. You can either book
at one of our stations or by calling 03432 186 186 (+44 (0) 1233 617
575 if you’re not in the UK). Make sure you have your pass to hand so
we can take down all the details. Unfortunately you can't book these
tickets online at the moment. Please note that a service fee of £10
per transaction applies to Standard and Standard Premier bookings and
exchanges made over the phone or at the station.

£33.50 plus £10 (€38 plus £10) sounds pretty close to a ticket to me. Certainly not any small €10 like in Italy.

FYI, "pass holder ticket" is a common industry term for pass holder seat reservation. But I think "reservation" is more clear for our readers. The price of these varies by train, as you see from above examples and details on our info pages. In addition to the sources listed by Eurostar, the reservation is available online through our Rail Europe link.

Whether it's a good value to use a Eurail pass on the Eurostar partly depends upon the other Eurostar ticket prices available when you're ready to reserve, whether you're buying a larger pass just to cover that trip, and whether you'll travel further by train with your pass on the same day (e.g. to Normandy or another destination that you wouldn't just fly to).

When I order and pay for my EuroStar tickets on-line, say London to Paris, r/t, or one way, I am charged a fee using a credit card to pay for the tickets. An extra fee for that luxury...a given.