Travel Basel to Friedrichshafen

That could be because Rail Europe is a travel agent - a ticket reseller, not an operator of trains. They don't always show all available trains. If Deutsche Bahn is the operator of that train, then their site should tell you all you need to know. Just put in your departure station, Basel SBB, and your destination, and you don't need to figure out the details.

Whether a Eurail Pass is the best option is a question you didn't ask.

I believe it is used by Rail Europe as well.

"Used by Rail Europe as well". I never fail to be amazed at the misconceptions people have. Rail Europe doesn't "use" or run trains, they sell tickets for trains run by other railroads, kind of like your travel agent sells tickets for United Airlines. And their database does not include every train, just the trains for which they want to sell you a ticket. Usually the most expensive trains.

Generally, passes will cover all trains in Europe, although in a few countries (France and Italy, to name a few) they consider their express trains to be too good for the rail pass holders and, to ride those trains with a pass, they make pass holders pay a big premium, sometimes more than a simple ticket would cost.

And, BTW, Basel Bad Bahnhof and Basel SBB Bahnhof are a little more than 1½ miles apart. In addition to trains, there are trams between them (not covered by your pass, but inexpensive) or you could even walk.

If you are planning to use your pass for Marseille to Basel it will cost you lots more. In France you have to buy a seat reservation for every TGV train you want to use, a new fee (quite expensive) for every leg. In your case, 2 reservation fees because you will be on one train from Marseille to Mulhouse, and change to another TGV for the hop to Basel.

If you had bought real tickets - probably quite cheap if you knew when you wanted to travel a bit ahead - the fare would be low and the reservations included.

That journey may cost you significantly more than if you had bought a ticket.

Walk away from RailEurope. You pay more and get less there.

You say you are planning on getting a pass. Maybe you don't have it yet. Very knowledgeable people here with no stake in the industry can help you decide if that is the best idea in your circumstances, and can help you find all sorts of ways to save money.

If you'd like to share your whole itinerary we can give you feedback.

When are you travelling?

If you get a Global Pass, the train will be covered by it.

Whether you need such a Pass is another story. Are you 27 or under? If so, the Youth pass is worth it.

I use a Pass but have yet to need the Global Pass even though now it covers the EuroStar and traveling in Poland, both of which provide a lot more incentive to getting the Pass plus the discounts offered on using the ferries.

Okay so the following is my Itinerary and thanks for any help. First I was not planning on buying tickets ahead of time. I used Rail Europe just to find the train schedule of trains all around Europe. Would like a suggestion of which Web site to use for that.

So I am 65 and can get a senior pass which is a little cheaper. To play it safe I was thinking of getting the Global Eurail pass 10 days for 2months. I am planning on being in Europe about 30 days. My plan is to fly into London and immediately take the underground tube to Penrith where the next morning I will join a trekking group to hike for 8 days on the Coast to Coast trail.

May 16th - tube to Eustin station and train to Penrith
On May 25 I will end trek in Leeds and plan on taking the train to visit a friend in Oxfordshire
May 27 - train to Oxfordshire to London where I will stay a few days. Any recommendations for reasonable and nice air B&B to stay would be appreciated. I thought in the Tower Bridge area.
May 31st - Train from England to Paris
May 31st - Possibly a train to Brittany from Paris with my friends
June 2nd - Train back to Paris and then on to Aix en Provence (high speed)
June 5th - Train Marseille to Friedrichshafen to meet friends there and will stay in Oberstdorf till the 11th of June
June 11 - Train to Munich (suggestions welcome for reasonable but nice places to stay near the airport welcome)
June 12 - Go to Munich airport and fly home.

Also need to buy a sim card for my iPhone 8 that first day either in London airport or Eustin train station or in Penrith, since I leave the next day for my trek. Thanks for any suggestions on this as well🙃☺️

Thanks so much!

If you haven't already bought your flight to London, I would suggest looking into flights to Manchester or Glasgow, which are quite a bit closer to Penrith.

June 5th - Train Marseille to Friedrichshafen

That is a long way for one day on a train. I would consider flying (to Zürich) and taking a train from there.
If you are going via Basel, it has TWO stations, on opposite sides of the city centre. Basel SBB and Basel Badischer Bahnhof.

You asked where to look for train times. Answer DB (German Railways): https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml

When you do a query, do not guess the separate legs, search the whole trip. I put in Marseille to Friedrichshafen for a random date in May, and got a number of options, including:

Marseille-St-Charles dep 08:14 TGV 9582, Mulhouse Ville arr 12:52, Transfer time 14 min.
Mulhouse Ville dep 13:06 TGV 9211, Basel SBB arr 13:26, Transfer time 47 min.
Basel SBB dep 14:13 ICE 276, Basel Bad Bf arr 14:19, Transfer time 23 min.
Basel Bad Bf dep 14:42 IRE 3049, Friedrichshafen Stadt arr 16:42

Personally, with those waits at the two Basel stations (47 and 23 minutes), I would just get the tram, they run every 7½ minutes.

Thanks for the information. I had actually finally found out about Deutsch Bahn and had seen that train. It doesn't matter if I take the tram or not, as far as I can see, as that is the earliest train I can take to Friedrichshafen. I will have to wait at the train station for that train. I am planning on buying a Global Eurail Pass so I believe I would not have to pay extra for the train.

Someone had mentioned the reservations fees on the French high speed trains and it seems that I would need to pay $35 for the one from London to Paris (I think) and then for the one from Marseille to Basel. After that I am no longer in France and it seems that I would not have to pay that fee. Any trains within France, from what I see would be $11 (ex: Paris to Aix en Provence) It still seems the pass would be worth it. Input welcome. Thanks again.

If you are paying an extra €35 to go on a TGV, no way take a TGV from Mulhouse to Basel (Mulhouse Ville dep 13:06 TGV 9211, Basel SBB arr 13:26). That would be a silly price for a 20 minute trip. Look up the next train from Mulhouse to Basel, they are frequent (one express and one locale per hour, usually). You have enough buffer time in Basel to do this.

Chris, I am confused. Since I am stopping in Basel (which is in Switzerland) it seems I should not have to pay the reservation fee for the train from Basel to Friedrichshafen. Should I just make my reservation from Marseille to Basel and then make another reservation from Basel SBB or the other station to Friedrichshafen. Can I do two separate reservations to avoid the fee and do I make that reservation on line? Or I could go to Basel and just buy my ticket to Friedrichshafen at the Basel station and avoid the fee. This is quite complex🙃

mozwoeld, reservations are per train. They are only needed on some trains, for example TGV's in France
If you are using the option I listed (are you?), 4 trains are involved:

1) Marseille to Mulhouse - French TGV - reservation required
2) Mulhouse to Basel SBB - French TGV - reservation required
3) Basel SBB to Basel Badischer Bahnhof - in Switzerland no reservations needed.
4) Basel Badischer Bahnhof to Friedrichshafen - This is a German IRE train, no reservations.

What I was suggesting was using a different (non-TGV) train for leg (2) and avoiding the second reservation fee.

The "elephant is the room" here is the Eurail Pass. Why are you using a Eurail Pass? Have you costed out just buying normal advance purchase (discounted) tickets? Normal tickets include all reservations, so it ceases to be an issue.

The train from Basel Badischer Bahnhof to Friedrichshafen actually crosses the border 3 times. Starts in Switzerland (Basel), crosses into Germany, later crosses back into Switzerland (Schaffhausen), and finally back into Germany again. It is run by DB (German Railways).

Yes, there's a Big Elephant in the room.

Have you checked that your - either GWR or Chiltern depending on where in Oxfordshire - train on the Monday of the Late May Bank Holiday to London won't be caught up in the usual bank holiday confusion and engineering works?

Boy what a BIG ELEPHANT! I really appreciate that people on this site have so much information that most of us do not know. Usually I travel by car with my husband and this time it is trains on my own🙂

So I don't know that I want to make reservations for all the trips. When I arrive in London at 10:00, I will need to get luggage and go to an exchange to get some pounds and then I will catch a train. Not sure if I would make the 11:15 tube on not and so not sure which train I will be able to catch to Penrith. I hope I don't need reservations for that. I also am not sure when I will leave London for Paris on the 31st, probably in the afternoon sometime. Same goes for train to Aix en Provence. The only trains I can make reservations for is the trains from Marseille to Friedrichshafen (required) and from Oberstdorf to Frankfurt (don't believe I need to reserve that one). If I don't reserve ahead of time, my concern is that the train tickets will be more expensive. Are the prices I see when going on the Is that true. I apologize for all the questions but trying to figure out my best plan of action. I plan on shortly going over the costs of each main train that I plan on taking and seeing if the pass is cost effective. I do believe it is because from Paris to Aix en Provence is about $100 and probably the same for train from London to Paris. I have to check it all out and thank you for your advice. Could you also tell me the best site to use to check pricing as DB does not give pricing.

for pricing use the website of the train provider.

Because UK trains are fragmented but still have a very powerful trade body and are extremely tightly regulated use nationalrail.co.uk

The links are in The Man in Seat 61.

For Eurostar (London to Paris, Lille, Brussels and Amsterdam and also seasonal extensions) use eurostar.com

Switzerland - sbb.ch (careful, assumes half fare card)

Germany - https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml

Italy - trenitalia and/or Italo

etc.

get luggage and go to an exchange to get some pounds

don't do that. That's the worst way to get cash. Use an ATM, or some people get it from their banks at home

Okay so are there banks at Heathrow that I can bring American dollars into to exchange? Or an ATM that is there that I can withdraw from? I also might be able to charge my train ticket I assume. It seems that the exchange rate, doing it in the US, would not be as good as in England. Am I wrong in thinking that?

So I have checked train costs on the sites and it seems like it would be close to $600 and as a senior my pass is $417. France was the only country where I saw a senior option for pricing. It seems like the train from England to Paris and Mulhouse to Basel are the only two trains where I might pay up to $35 per train reservation fee. The one from Marseille to Mulhouse and Paris to Aix en Provence are within France and should be cheaper. The only thing I don't know if the fares I saw online are the cheapest I can get.

plenty of ATMs at Heathrow.

Don't bring dollars, bring cards. No banks that I am aware of at Heathrow, and you wouldn't have an account so it is unlikely they would help you.

Either get your European currencies (£,€, etc.) before you come (from your own bank) or use ATMs (known as cashpoints here) here and as you go.

Worst is cash for cash at a currency exchange.

Or just use your cards. I rarely pay cash for anything, either here in the UK or in many parts of Europe. Just got back after having no issues using cards, and specifically contactless and Apple Pay throughout Germany (that's new, they used to be extremely cash only), Switzerland, France, Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg. Just have enough local cash for any cash-only transactions or a pack of gum or sweets.

There are plenty of TER trains from Mulhouse to Basel that you won't have to pay a reservation fee on. It's not far, so it's particularly unnecessary to waste money on that.

Philip thank you for that information. I have been doing a lot of checking and it seems that if I take the TGV train to Mulhouse, there I could buy the rest of my tickets (or do I have to wait to get to Basel to buy the train ticket to Fredrichshafen to avoid the fee since I would still be in France). I am so sorry for all the questions but this reservation piece and fees is quite complex. Can I actually reserve my slower train from Mulhouse to Basel in my original reservation -they automatically show the faster train on the booking information. The other question is, it seems like I will need to buy the ticket from Basel to Friedrichshafen (both from Basel SBB (where I arrive) to Basel Bad Bf and from Basel Bad Bf to Friedrichshafen when I arrive in Basel to avoid paying the French reservation fees. Does it take a long time to wait in line to get the tickets. I will have a Eurail pass. I may have to do the same thing in Mulhouse if I can't reserve the slower train from Mulhouse to Basel when I reserve my ticket from Marseille to Mulhouse. Basically in mid day will I find long lines in early June at these train station ticket offices? Hope this is clear and someone can answer. Thanks again. This site has helped me enormously. I don't know that I would have known all about the reservation hassle in France.

TER trains like the slower train from Mulhouse to Basel don't need (don't offer I don't think, and certainly don't need at most times) reservations. Just hop on with your pass.

Always have to reserve TGV and Teos. Never have to reserve TER or RER.

So with my pass I don't need to go through ticket lines? Does the same apply to my train in Basel to Friedrichshafen. I can just board the ICE and IRE trains with my pass. Wow, that is great news. So if a train doesn't require reservations I can just board a second class car with my pass? It seems that once in Germany, I won't need to reserve or wait through ticket lines for my train to Frankfurt.

yup, that what you are paying the premium price for the pass for.

Just to correct a possible misapprehension - I have never experienced particularly difficult ticket lines in France (don't use the station use the SNCF Boutiques), Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg or Belgium. Just once, at Gare du Nord during the strikes last summer. But what do you expect - it was strikes - and anyway the Chef du Train got my wife and me on.