Rail pass for Italy during Study Abroad

Kelsey, where will you be located in Italy? Distances will affect pricing and whether a railpass is a bargain or not. Generally, train tickets in Italy are much cheaper than a railpass. For travel to other countries, you may want to look into the individual country passes or discounted tickets (for any train system, you can buy them online, sometimes as low as 9 or 19 euro one way if you buy them well in advance). If you can plan far enough ahead, it can save money, but you can't get a refund or change these super-saver tickets in any way. You may prefer to wait until you get there and find some fellow students to travel with, so I'm not sure how much planning ahead you want to do, unless there's someplace really special that you don't want to miss.

Kelsey, I doubt that a Railpass would be cost effective, especially in Italy and especially as you may not have a clear idea on which other countries you may want to visit. With the "premium" trains in Italy (ie: Freccia or others), there are considerable savings when pre-booking tickets well in advance, as the "Super Economy" or "Economy" tickets are heavily discounted. Unfortunately, those usually sell-out very quickly. Tickets for the Regionale trains are usually very cheap, well below the daily cost of a Railpass. It's just as easy to buy those at the time from one of the automated ticket Kiosks. DON'T forget to validate tickets on Regionale trains prior to boarding! Without knowing the specifics of the rail journeys you'll be taking, it's difficult to have enough information to calculate which option is better. Cheers!

I'm not certain about Italy, but several other countries offer youth and student discount cards. These would probably only cover domestic trains, however. Depending on your location in Italy, you might do better for weekend trips to the rest of Europe by taking discount airlines. Rail-wise, the Alps make Italy somewhat isolated from the rest of Europe.

This is a case where the right railpass might make sense. A 5-country Youth pass for 15 travel days costs $664. This would cover travel in Italy, Switzerland, France, Austria, and Germany, which are the countries you are most likely to visit by train. That is $44 per day's travel, and if you use it to go outside Italy you will be getting travel which is worth way more than the 32 euro equivalent. That would cover 7 weekend trips, plus one daytrip, which is reasonable during a 2.5 month stay. Or if you get 3-day weekends, do "triangle" tirps and use 3 pass days. But remember that you will also have to pay reservation fees, at least in Italy. Not in Switzerland, and not in Germany if you use regional trains. Before you buy make sure it will work in France. There was something posted about French rail not accepting Eurail passes, but I think that was only the Global Pass. pass specifically for France should still work. Discount prices on P2P tickets are great, but you must commit in advance, and as a student who wants to travel around, probably with friends, you won't be able to do that. For example, to head into Switzerland, you would have to get to Milan, and then head to Spiez. Regulaar fare on that train is 59,50 euro. The Smart 2 fare, for advance purchase, is 29 euro. By the time you add the extra travel (to Milan from your campus, and from spiez to wherever you are going in Switzerland), it is going to be way more than the cost of one day on the pass (32 euro) plus the reservation fees (10 or 20 euros, depending on the type of trains you take in Italy).

Thank you for the replies and tips! During the program we will be based in Padova and Rome with excursions to Venice, Florence, and Verona. We will have around 5 weekends I believe that are free for us to travel after classes and I have been look at the mentioned countries- Switzerland, France, Austria, and German, because they seem to be easily accessible, but I don't have a huge preference. I recently went to Scotland and Ireland so I know a bit about the cheap inter European flights, and have also been trying to figure out if flights out of Italy would be a cheaper option. I for sure will be traveling to Portugal after our program is over and flying home from there, so finding the cheapest way to also visit some other countries would of course be ideal. Thank you for the suggestions and help!