Train travel in France

Dorothy , ticketing and purchase works somewhat differently in France . Go to the " Man in Seat 61 " website for all the details .

I last used the website a couple of years ago. At that time the option to print the tickets appeared at the last stage before payment. Advance purchase can often save some significant money. You can get up-to-date information on Trip Advisor France forum.

We booked our train tickets in advance and on SNCF. We saved a ton of money as we already have a semi-set itinerary, or at least we know when we will leave the city to the next. Some trains allow you to print at home, some don't. For the country of origin, I always choose France. If you choose UK it will take you to TGV Europe, if you choose Canada or US it will take you to RailEurope. So choose France to stay on SNCF. For the ones that don't, I chose the option to pick up at the machine kiosk. Knowing my American Credit Card without Chip and Pin won't work at the machines. I just print out the confirmation and picked up all the tickets at a booth in any of the train stations. Since you are from Canada, you can prob just use your chip and pin card and pick it up at the machine.

Dorthy - Try using TGV Europe to book your train. When asked for your ticket collection country specify Great Britian, otherwise you will be routed to Rail Europe and end up paying more for your ticket. I believe you can book tickets up to 90(?) days in advance. Check for PREM fares, they can provide great savings on first class travel. The only down fall for PREM ticket is the ticket cannot be exchanged and is non-refundable. Hopefully Nigel or Tim will see this post and respond. They are both very knowlegable on train travel

Frank: Canada has been liberated from the RailEurope bump. For a giggle, you can specify that you live in
Antarctica. Works fine.

Thanks to everyone for input. www.seat61.com very helpful. Used the TGV site for booking - no issues when using from Canada, as Frank indicated. I was also able to get electronic tickets, which I like to have.

Use www.tgv-europe.com. For your ticket collection country, you can put in most any country other than USA. I personally use Great Britain. Next, you can purchase the TGV tickets online and print at home. Been there done that. What's different from Italy is when you purchase a run that has train changes and one or more of the trains is a Regionale-class train. In Italy, you can't purchase Regionale tickets more than 7 days out from the day of travel. But, if you have a train change to or from a high-speed on the run, yhou can buy online and print at home. I've done that as well. My experience thus far with the SNCF is that you cannot print out tickets for a Regionale train whether by itself or in combination with a TGV train. You should receive a validation number that you use when in France to pick up your ticket(s). Two things on picking up tickets in France. 1) You may need to show the credit card that you used to purchase the tickets. It has nothing to do with the ticket; they just want to know that you are the right person. Most people say that they can show most any ID but the big hint is to use the same credit card. 2) You may not be able to use the ticket machines to get your ticket as the machines may want the chip and pin credit card. Even if you have one in Canada, it may not work there. The station with a staffed agent is best.