I am an 18 yo female leaving this June for Europe. I 'm confused as to how much to budget for transportation, and for which parts of my trip would be best point to point or with a pass. I am looking for the cheapest ways possible! I will be in Pamplona for the first part of the San Fermin festival and Montpelier for Bastille day but I am unsure of when I should start booking my transportation for these parts. My itinerary is as follows:
London (8 nights) - Paris (7) - Madrid (2) - Pamplona (4) - Barcelona (3) - Montpelier (3) - Munich (4) - Berlin (5) - Amsterdam (5)
I would LOVE suggestions about side/day trips, which train pass to get, thanks!
Posted by
Vienna, Austria
5508 posts
I highly recommend reading through the information found on the man in 61 website. Very unbiased; he is also not in the business of selling rail passes (like this website is).
http://www.seat61.com/Railpass-and-Eurail-pass-guide.htm#Should you buy a railpass or pay-as-you-go
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
Here's a direct link to the page Emily recommended. I can't emphasize enough that your first step should be to read that page thoroughly and make sure you've absorbed what he has to say: http://tinyurl.com/bkw4u6c
Unless you need flexibility more than you need savings, you will most likely do best with advance purchase, non-refundable, non-exchangeable tickets, bought online as soon as they go on sale. In exchange for the restrictions, they're much cheaper, and will beat the price of a pass. Here's The Man In Seat 61's list of where to buy tickets for each country: http://tinyurl.com/bo8x6o6. To get an idea of prices, look at tickets for tomorrow (those will be maximum price) and for 90 days out (those will show you the discounts available for advance purchase).
I want to emphasize that if you get a pass, you need to buy your reservations for any trains in France (for you, that's Barcelona to Montpellier and Montpellier to Munich) at the time you buy the pass. So, you give up flexibility on those legs no matter what. They limit the number of passholder seats on French trains; once those are gone, you have to take another train (if there is one that still has passholder seats) or else buy a separate, last minute ticket at a much higher price.
To find train schedules for all of Europe, use the Bahn site: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en. Here's Rick's tutorial on how to use it: http://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/online-schedules. However, that site only has prices for trains that start or end in Germany.
I haven't looked at train times, but Paris to Madrid (and possibly Montpellier to Munich) may be faster and cheaper by discount flight. To find these, use Skyscanner: http://www.skyscanner.com/.
If you want to fly from Montpellier to Munich and can't find flights from Montpellier's airport, you could look at Nimes, Beziers, and Marseille airports (remembering, of course, to consider the time, money, and hassle involved in reaching them from Montpellier).