Rail passes vs. Car rental (5 prs)

It's hard to say without more information - where you are going, when you are traveling - but you're giving a false dilemma here. It's not between car rental and rail passes. Point to Point fares in Italy are low. Individual tickets might be the best way.

In Germany, there are a plethora of discount tickets, all-day passes, etc. You will probably be better off in Germany with those tickets vs a rail pass or a car rental. Many of the passes in Germany are the same for 5 people as they are for 2. Also, children under 15 travel with their parents (who pay full fare) for free in Germany.

We will be travellng in July/August. Landing in Munich (3 days) and then head to Venice, Florence,
Tuscany, Rome and possibly a few places in between.

Thanks for the info. It sounds daunting.

It's impossible to know the answer to "is it cheaper" without knowing every detail of your trip - yes, it is daunting. But approach it as a challenge, taking it one step at a time;

1) Under absolutely no circumstances will you have or use the car in any large city. So do not expect a 3-week rental. What you CAN do is organize your trip into a series of urban experiences (where you will use the train) and rural experiences, for shorter car rentals.

2) The Rick Steves books (and somewhere on this web site) have a page which shows rough costs for point2point rail tickets city to city. That's a good quick tool for estimating rail ticket costs.

3) If you insist on getting full insurance coverage on your car rental, it will add 40% to your rate. Manditory theft insurance in Italy will add another 15%. Then there will be significant toll charges and parking charges to go along with $8/gal gas. So there is no question that renting a car is not cheap. But neither are rail passes.

4) Germany and Italy are particularly bad values for rail passes because the typical 1-day journey is not usually long or expensive from one tourist stop to the next.

5) Almost any choice can work, but some choices are definitely easier than others. One option many people choose is to identify one region which will be mostly rural visits and rent a car for that small portion (rural rentals can be a bit cheaper, you aren't driving as far, so less gas, you are in small towns and rural roads so few tolls or parking fees - plus the driving is pretty and you can decide to be adventurous and just wander on your own schedule), and then use the train for everything else. The question then becomes rail pass or not, and I am certain it would be somewhat cheaper to just purchase point2point tickets as long as your routes are sequenced rationally and you look for family & regional deals.

You can do it. Keep telling yourself "this is fun"

You must also pay for a vignette (road tax sticker) for car travel in Austria.

I can't imagine a car in Rome or Florence. You can't take one into Venice, of course.

I don't think a railpass would be the most economical way, but you can check. Don't forget to check point-to-point prices.

Italian train prices are generally pretty reasonable. Use this site for tickets within Italy: http://www.italiarail.com/

For Munich to Rome or any other Italian city, advance-sale point-to-point train tickets from the German Railway system for your family of 5 could cost as little as 98 Euros total. I punched in your data and came up with several dates in March for Munich to Rome on the overnight train at just 118 Euros for everyone. Use this page for schedules and advance-sale tix:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

The Italian Rail page above hightlights a Rome - Venice price of 55 Euros.

You can also find the price of tickets at the counter in Italy at www.trenitalia.com.

Russ, does Italiarail show you the price for which they sell tickets, marked up like RailEurope does, or do they show the counter price over there?

Lee: The trenitalia fares for Rome to Venice run between about 40 and 75 Euros one way. I have no personal experience with Italiarail - which incidentally has a nice English-language link to trenitalia itinerary searches - but I imagine you're correct to assume that they mark up tickets and that trenitalia tix are generally a better deal.

It would be good for Lisa to look at both sites and see which outlet works best for her, naturally, in terms of price and service. Either way, she's likely to save over car travel or railpasses, as I see it, by using point-to-point tix; multi-country railpasses, would run over $1000 for the family. Even with Italian Rail passes (about $825 for the family) and the Europa Spezial ticket for getting to Rome, she'd spend about the same and would be money ahead with the point-to-point + Europa Spezial option.

Don't know about Italy, but in Germany your 7 and 10 year old will need to be in booster car seats unless they are tall enough not to need them. I believe it is 1.50 cm, or 12 years old. So, consider whether you will want to schlep those around. The car rental places charge a lot to rent a car seat.

Don't forget to look at all of your options. With the lo prices that many inter EU airlines charge, parts of your trip can be cheaply handled using this option.

Jo!

1.5 cm is about 6/10 of an inch. So only embryos have to be in car seats?

I think you mean 1.5 meter tall, 150 cm. That's about 4'11".

With the European convention of using a '.' where we use a ',', maybe that's 1,500 cm, 49 ft tall. Nah.

If considering the flight option, understand that the ES* trains make the trip from downtown Rome to downtown Venice in less than 4 hours. If flying, time to get to the airport, checkin time, security time, flight time, and getting to town from the airport will take longer than that, particularly if you use the lowest cost carrier, RyanAir. Ryan uses distant Treviso airport, not close-in Marco Polo. There is only bus service from Treviso. The bus leaves 20 min after the flight lands (better hurry) and takes 1h10m to Venice, so you get into Venice 1½ hrs after landing at Treviso.

Ryan also doesn't fly from anywhere near Munich. They use Memmingen and Salzburg, both hours from Munich, and no Ryan flights from those airports go to Italy.

Air Berlin does fly between Munich and Marco Polo, VIA DUESSELDORF. Takes 3½-4 hours, just the flying part.

People always forget the bus. Look at Eurolines.com and see what bus tickets would be. They can be more or they can be really cheap. Ex. We went from Nice to Grasse for 2E round trip, per person. Much cheaper than driving or the train.

I posted this elsewhere but it applies here also.

With that many people and luggage, a van probably makes more sense. Make sure everyone takes only 1 suitcase and 1 backpack. Maybe even less. Maybe the older ones can combine to one suitcase and the girls also, plus husband and wife. That makes 3 suitcases and 5 backpacks. That might fit ok in the back of the van. Taking a van also saves lugging stuff up and down stairs in a station, and getting from the station to the hotel, which might be quite a hike and you might have to take a cab or two with all of your luggage in tow, which increases costs. Also the narrow isles on the train, are a pain to haul luggage up and down and trying to put a 50 lb suitcase on overhead rack can be dangerous to say the least. On the train bathrooms, I hope the ones they are talking about are better and cleaner than the ones I encountered in my train travels in Europe. Nough said on that stinky subject!

Once in a major city, you might want to turn the van in. You will not need it in the city. It becomes a liability. No free parking. Parking decks start at 20E per day and up. When leaving the city, if a short haul, take bus or train. For longer trip, rent another van. Also, look at local tourist information on your computer for the towns you want to visit. If the towns have a park and ride, find it and take it. Parking a van in small German villages . . . . NO WAY, unless life depended on it. Remember fuel-gas in Europe is around 8.00 per gallon. If you have a choice of fuels, diesel is cheaper than gas and better mpg too.

Just for fun I thought I would add that if you were traveling by train in Switzerland your 3 girls would travel for free with you wherever you go...just a thought in case Switzerland might be in your itinerary somewhere.

I believe children of that age are either free or greatly discounted on trains in much of Europe.

Not everyone likes to be as thrifty as we are, but when we rent a car for our family of 5 (children the same age as yours) we get a compact and squeeze. We also pack very light. The last time I saw a quote for a van rental, it was 3x the price of a small car.

Granted, we won't be able to get by with that much longer, as the children are still growing. But we will do it as long as we can. I also would not like driving a large vehicle anywhere in Europe if I could possibly avoid it. When you go, take a survey of all the vehicles you see on the road. It is amazingly different from here. I'd say maybe 2-3% of all non-commercial vehicles on the road have 3+ rows of seating. Here, it's probably 30%. You will see very few vans and almost no SUV's.

I think, like others have mentioned, you have to consider the towns that you're staying in. Most of these are big cities with excellent public transportation systems. You won't want to drive while you're in places like Munich, Florence, Venice, or Rome. It's too confusing, and you'll spend more paying for the daily cost of renting the car plus parking.

Minivans are way too expensive to rent and very hard to come by. My sister rented a "7-seater" for her family of 7 in Ireland this summer, which was a Hyundai Santa Fe with an extra row of seats in the back. We rented a compact for our family of 4 and ended up with one of hers in the backseat, too, since there wasn't room for all of them and their luggage in their car. Our car cost about a third of what she paid for hers.

I'd definitely look into other transportation options, like trains or buses. For getting in between the major cities, trains are a great option. If you're wanting to explore the countryside in Italy a little more, you can look into buses or possibly renting a car for a couple of days there. Other than that, I think a car is going to be more of a liability where you're going.