Poland covered by Global Eurail pass

According to the eurail website itself, the answer is "Yes". Note the text under the map, which states that a Global Pass is valid in all the countries shown on the map except Great Britain; Poland is shown on the map. I have no way to verify that the website is absolutely up to date, however.

Please do some research on the cost of the train trips you plan to take before buying a rail pass. Rail passes rarely save money. They do not cover the cost of seat reservations, which are sometimes required and (depending on country) can be surprisingly costly. If you are prepared to book at least the most costly travel legs well ahead of time and buy non-refundable/non-changeable tickets, you may be able to travel at far less than the cost of the rail pass. Even if you buy last-minute tickets, it's entirely possible that you'll be wasting money on a rail pass.

Trains in Poland (as well as in many other countries in central Europe) are inexpensive enough that the more time you spend in that country, the less financially helpful the rail pass is likely to be.

I traveled in Poland this summer, buying my train tickets no more than a few days before my travel date. This is what I paid in zlotys, with the current US dollar equivalents:

Warsaw-Malkinia-Warsaw 48.00 zl ($12.71)
Torun-Bydgoszcz-Torun 15.73 zl ($4.17)
Gdansk-Poznan 62.00 zl ($16.42)
Poznan-Wroclaw 30.10 zl ($7.97)
Wroclaw-Zgorelec-Wroclaw 40.32 zl ($10.68)
Krakow-Tarnow-Krakow 46.00 zl ($12.18)

Those are the tickets I have a record of. A good bit of my travel within Poland was by bus; the Global Pass will provide no benefits if there are travel legs for which a bus works out better for you.

Just to echo acravens, you need to do the math on train passes. They ceased being a non-brainer good deal about 20 years ago. Just do the math.

Prices are best checked at the website of the Polish railways. Tickets cost next to nothing on regional and normal Intercity trains. Some flashy new Intercity trains come more expensive, but even with those, like the others, I seriously doubt whether a rail pass will come out more cheaply.
Please remember that 2nd class is comfortable enough, also on Polish trains. While travelling in Poland I had the routine to buy train tickets the afternoon or evening before. Write down date, time and train number to be sure to get the ticket you need. In my experience you can't assume English being spoken at the ticket window.

Since Ton and I have both mentioned buying tickets quite late, it's only right to warn you that I had a problem doing that when I was ready to move from Wroclaw to Krakow. I showed up at the Wroclaw train station about 6 PM on a Thursday in late July, looking for a Friday ticket to Krakow. No dice. Nothing available (except perhaps a very, very early train that I wasn't willing to take). I had to take Flixbus instead, which was fine. Friday train tickets had been available online when I checked on Thursday morning, so they didn't sell out early. I just pushed my luck a bit too far.

So I have been lucky with my travelling in Poland...

Thanks everyone for your replies. I will only be visiting Poland for about 8 days. Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Krakow (with a day visit to Auschwitz). I am planning to be in Europe for 90 days which is all I think the Schengen area visa allowing Planning to visit quite a few cities and countries but probably spending most of my time in Germany, France and Spain.

I travelled around Europe in 1979 using a Eurail Pass so the concept appeals to me. Then it was pretty much hop on when you wanted. Only booked once for a Talgo train in Spain and a sleeper in Norway The 3 month continuous travel pass which is what I am looking at is on special at the moment so would cost me $22 (NZD) a day if I was travelling most days of the week. When I was in Europe in 79 I based myself often in a city and hopped on the train and visited nearby cities which probably would have cost me a lot more for accommodation. Bern in Switzerland and Augsburg in Germany to mention just two cities.

If I just purchased point to point over 90 days would I still save rather than using a global pass?

Could I put together an itinerary using point to point ticketing. I am ending my trip in Madrid so planned to stay there about 7 days and visit nearby towns. I am aware from the seat 61 website that a lot of trains I am planning to travel on will require reservations and additional costs. By the way my 90 days will start in early April .

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

Some more thoughts:

• One thing that has changed since your earlier trip is the availability of low-cost flights within Europe. Flying a few of your longer legs may turn out to be a viable option, and that would sharply reduce the average cost of your trips. It's impossible to say for sure without have a fairly solid proposed itinerary to comment on. (This is not a criticism; I usually am a wing-it traveler myself.)

• To the extent that you travel mainly to larger cities, you'll probably be spending a good bit of time in each place, so the $22/day cost of the rail pass isn't really a useful number to look at. You will not be using the pass every day.

• If you are making day-trips, in many cases the walk-up cost of some of those trips (some of which may involve buses in any case) will probably be less than $22 each. Although last-minute fares on fast trains like the French TGVs and the Spanish AVEs can go quite high, your day-trips may include some smaller towns that don't have fast-train service. Tickets on regional trains remain at the same price no matter when you buy them, and that price is rather low.

• You'll have to pay the previously-mentioned reservation fees to ride the fast trains, and those fees in some cases are about as high as the ticket price you would pay if you bought a non-refundable ticket well in advance. If you want to take advantage of the flexibility advertised by the rail pass folks to get seat reservations on the fast trains at the last minute, you're taking a chance, because trains do sometimes sell out.

This webpage has links to seat-reservation fees so you can see how much extra you might need to pay above the cost of the rail pass. By comparison, if you simply buy a ticket on a train that requires seat reservations, the seat fee will be included in the ticket price. One example: the 2nd-class seat-reservation fee between Paris and Barcelona is 34 euros. Even on domestic trains 10-euro reservation fees are common.

• Germany is sort of a special case because the country has so many regional-ticket deals that beat the standard ticket cost. I am not well-informed about those, but others on the forum are.

I know how tempting sale prices can be, but we've had quite a few new posters on this forum who only arrived here after having bought a railpass (often at this time of year, when they are sold at a discount but are non-refundable). They thought the pass was a great deal because they got a discount and they were going to go so many places. They often changed their minds about their itineraries after we pointed out how much time they were going to be spending on trains and how changing hotels constantly eats into your sightseeing opportunities. So their itineraries shrank and the rail pass--which had not really been a good idea in the first place--turned into a very costly unnecessary expense.

Acraven, thanks for some really good advice. I will try to minimise the use of superfast trains as, apart from some longer and perhaps less scenic trips where faster journeys would be preferable. I quite enjoy watching the countryside pass by.

Other than busy intercity or international trips eg Madrid=Barcelona or Madrid =Lisbon in your experience generally how far in advance is it necessary to pre-book tickets or reservations?
I am planning to stay in Airbnb accommodation which probably means I will need to work out a reasonably structured itinerary.

I have rarely bought a train ticket more than 4 or 5 days in advance. But the type of traveling I do is a significant factor: I'm retired, take long trips (like yours), and don't tend to cover territory rapidly. My overnight stops are typically not very far apart at all, so I don't have many long travel legs, and I'm not seriously pressed for time. If a regional train is a lot cheaper than the current fare on a fast train (assuming the fast train even goes to my destination), I can afford the time needed to take the regional train.

I've only once faced a sold-out train (Wroclaw-Krakow on a Friday in mid-summer), and I had to wait an hour or two for the next bus when I was traveling out of Bilbao and tried to buy the ticket only an hour before departure time. A bigger risk, in my experience, is that if you cut it too close, your train will depart while you're still standing in the ticket line (definitely a risk in some places in Italy and Spain). It's often easy to buy tickets online, and I've done that several times to avoid the hassle of making a trip to the train station a day or two in advance. Buying just one day earlier can often have significant effect on the fare, too.

I like to use the Deutsche Bahn website for checking schedules. I find it very user-friendly. For fares on non-German trains I normally go to the rail company operating the train (Seat61.com will identify them for you, and that website has tons of very useful information). Websites like trainline.eu and loco2.com handle many countries' tickets and are good options for checking current fares. In general, though, I like the often-more-detailed information I get on the websites of the train companies themselves (Renfe for Spain, SNCF for France). It seems to me they show the availability of the various types of fares more clearly, so I'm less likely to jump on a just-released high-priced ticket, not realizing that the cheap promotional tickets haven't been put on sale yet.

I used Eurail passes in the early 1980s and they were a great way to get around. I think times have changed and they are no longer the bargain they used to be, for reasons you have already discovered. On many routes, you will need a reservation, so you have an extra expense and you lose the flexibility you used to have. Also, now you can buy discounted tickets in advance. The discounts can be substantial. Again, you lose flexibility. And now you can get cheap flights for longer distances.

The only way to figure it out is to get on some websites and price it out. Poland is not expensive. We paid USD 113 per person to travel Warsaw-Gdańsk-Wrocław- Kraków-Warsaw. I bought our tickets on line in advance (discounted).

The Eurail Global pass has covered Poland since 2015 and that has not changed. It's also the only single pass available in a 3-month duration. There is a sale on this month, but it probably won't be the last, so don't rush to purchase if you don't have trip planning fairly well underway.

Hi,

If you are only visiting Poland, then I would not suggest a Pass, much less the Global Pass, which presently offers a 45% discount.
I use a Pass but for zig zag traveling in Germany and Austria, to and fro, etc. but certainly not for 8 days

Bottom line here....no need to get a Global Pass unless the trip is 6 weeks or more covering both UK to Poland, Hungary and everywhere in between, eg, taking the train from Paris to Warsaw or Budapest, or the night train from Vienna to Gdansk.

Hi Fred
I will be in Europe for 90 days so Poland is only one of the countries I wish to visit.
And regarding the global pass I am looking at the point to point options to possibly
avoid purchasing a global pass.
Thanks for your input anyway

@ istvan...Sorry, I misunderstood since you mention that your stay in Poland would last 8 days.

With 90 days that's a different story. Does the 90 day trip involve taking the EuroStar or traveling in Germany, going to Norway, Sweden, Finland, or Switzerland, taking a ferry or night trains? What's the length and breath of the trip?

That the Global Pass is valid in Poland and the EuroStar provides much more incentive to consider one since there is presently a 45% discount provided you order it prior to the expiration of the 45% discount...a first!

I've already purchased my two country Pass, with the on-going discount (certainly not favorable as 45%) paid $100 less than I did for the identical 2018 pass. My 2019 trip won't be as quite as long as yours ...you're lucky...but it's being planned for a max 65-70 days, including the UK, using the various modes of transport, the EuroStar, buses, ferry, night trains.

Fred,
I was actually planning to spend about 3 1/2 months in Europe with just a few days in London where I have been twice before.
But I am only allowed to spend 90 days in the Schengen area.
I am still tossing up whether to purchase a Global Pass for rail travel or whether I go the way of point to point rail ticket purchases.
Both seem to have advantages and disadvantages. Obviously with a rail pass the need to pay a supplement and in many cases secure a seat reservation mitigates against the purchase of a pass. But locking oneself into a pre-purchased rail journey may also prove problematic eg perhaps train travel in France if the yellow vest issue becomes more widespread.
But weighing up the pros and cons has meant now focussing on creating a fairly definite itinerary. I have been to Europe before so some of the sights I have already seen. No desire to see the Mona Lisa again but would like another visit to the Louvre. So i am focussing on cities I have not visited and a lot of smaller towns. Some cities I will visit again but just to wander around.
I will start with a Eurostar trip across to Brussels, work my way through Belgium, Netherlands, visit some cities in Germany including Berlin and Dresden, see a bit of Poland, some of the Czech Republic, go to Budapest, a short stay in Switzerland visiting a couple of towns on Lake Geneva, re-visit Vienna and Salzburg (both of which I have visited before), some of the smaller scenic towns of France and then finishing my trip in Spain and Portugal. I fly home from Madrid.
I will no doubt continue tweaking my travel plans until the point I need to put in place bookings for accommodation etc.

I have seen a bit of Scandinavia when I first travelled around Europe. I was a lot younger then and with my eurail pass it literallywas a case of showing up at the station and finding a seat. Things were certainly different then. The rumour was that you could then do Europe on $10 a day.

At this new price, if you split out the cost of the 3 month pass by even just 30 or 40 likely rail travel days, and even with some reservation fees added, I think you'll still find it a good value.

April-May-June are busy travel periods in those countries where passholder reservations can be limited, such as in Spain, or on international trains to/from France. Lots of holidays and events attended by locals as well as lots of tourists.

@ istvan...I do both, ie using the Pass and for some rides buy point to point tickets from machines or the train station ticket counter. It all depends on the ride and your priorities. Then I also use the adv. purchase discount tickets too when I want to lock myself in to a specific date and train departure, mainly for crossing between Paris and Frankfurt.

The night train rides I save for the Pass, just pay for seat reservation, if you don't want the sleeper or couchette. That's way cheaper than staying the night in a hostel dorm room.