i'm traveling all over italy for three weeks and will be taking the train to get from town to town. I've read that buying individual tickets are cheaper than purchasing an italy pass and i liked the idea of not having to book all my train rides in advance in case my plans change or i decide to stay an extra day somewhere. but now i'm also concerned that since i dont have much time in each town to begin with whether i will have enough time to go to the train station to purchase tickets in advance before heading to another town. it seems like a lot of running back to the train stations. how much time in advance do i need to purchase tickets? with the italy pass i do have to let them know which dates i'm traveling and to where right or can i just hop on the day of? is there a simpler solution? thanks!
Posted by
Portlandia
3313 posts
Just buy your tickets when you're ready to leave. What you might want to do when you arrive in a town is make sure you know the departure schedules for the day you'll leave.
Otherwise, just go to the train station when you're ready to move on and buy the tickets. Don't let it become complicated.
Posted by
Wichita
831 posts
Helen,
Most towns you will probably visit will have a travel agency where you can buy the train tickets at the same cost as at the station. You can check this at http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=29e23bf7c819a110VgnVCM1000003f16f90aRCRD
Posted by
Portland, Oregon, USA
306 posts
My advice is to buy your train tickets point to point. There will be no need to make multiple trips to the train station because you should be buying your departing ticket when you arrive at the train station. Use the automated ticket machines. They are very easy to use and after you use it once you will be a pro and can purchase a ticket in about 5 minutes.
Posted by
Los Angeles, CA, USA
1449 posts
What we've done in the past is look up the train schedules for the different legs on Trenitalia and print them out (putting them in a spreadsheet makes that easy). You'll want the weekday and weekend schedules based on where you are roughly planning to be. So if you decide to stay longer or leave early you know when the trains out of town are.
Knowing what time the trains leave we just head down to the station with an extra 20 minutes or so leeway to buy the tix at the automated machine. It used to be you could get a discount buying at least the day before but that is gone, and train travel isn't that expensive anyway.
Using the automated machines is easy & 2nd class is fine. The rail pass doesn't really buy convenience; for the trains you can just hop on with the pass, you could buy a ticket right at the station in 5 minutes. For the trains that require a reservation even with the pass, there is no advantage (and an extra cost). Don't forget to validate (stamp) your tickets in the yellow machines before boarding.