Book trains in advance?

Hi, Buying the tickets at the station for Vienna (Wien Westbahnhof) to Villach and Villach to Ljubljana (Laibach) is fine, esp for the first one.

Easy way to tell: look at the website of the country where the train originates, and check prices for tomorrow and for your date of travel (or, if you don't know, try about 60 days ahead). If you can live with the prices for tomorrow, which are last minute prices, no need to buy ahead. If you see substantial discounts and can commit to tickets that are non-exchangeable and non-refundable (or have significant restrictions on these actions), book now on the web. For trains starting in Austria, use http://www.oebb.at/en/index.jsp According to The Man In Seat 61 http://tinyurl.com/lowkj9b, you cannot buy tickets ahead for Ljubljana to Zagreb, and they only cost around €18. For trains starting in Italy, use Trenitalia, following the advice from Ron In Rome: http://tinyurl.com/c4t693b

For the most part, no reservations necessary. And when you buy the ticket the day before or,the day of travel, there are often special discounts that you can frequently get.

What Kay is describing above does not hold true for Austria. As mentioned higher up, for travel originating in Austria, buying in advance online from www.oebb.at will be approx. half the cost of buying at the station.