My wife and I will be arriving in Germany (Ramstein) in July. We plan to tour all over Europe and have several "must sees" on our list. These are Paris, Rome, England (I have friends there), Venice and Athens. We also want to visit Spain, Poland, The Low Countries, Austria, the Balkans and Denmark. We are planning on staying the entire 90 days allowed. Our schedule is very flexible but we want to hit Paris first. We will be traveling together the entire time.
Which rail pass would possibly give us the best deal? How far in advance can rail passes be purchased?
Posted by
Grand Falls-Windsor, NL, Canada
307 posts
Check out the 'Railpasses' tab at the top of the page....it appears that the Eurail Global Pass is the only pass that has a 3 month option available. It's worth your while to review the information on that page to see if a rail pass is the best option for you based on the amount of train travel you'll actually do during those 90 days, or if Point to Point tickets would be better. Another excellent resource on European train travel is The Man in Seat 61 (www.seat61.com), everything you ever wanted to know about riding the rails in Europe..
Posted by
San Francisco
14980 posts
Hi, One big drawback in getting a Global Pass in light of your itinerary is that Poland is excluded from the Pass given the distances. The point to point tickets are needed for cover the Polish part of the train leg. If your flexible 90 day constrained trip might include Sweden, be sure to look into the ferry connections between those two countries. Fantastic that you'll be on the road for the allowable time of 90 days...definitely can be done.
Posted by
San Jose, CA
1994 posts
Rick, I found the folks selling rail passes in the Rick Steves office to be very helpful in deciding whether it made sense for me. You might want to give them a call. One point that did surprise (and cost) me is that France (and as I understand it, some other countries) limit the number of seats available for pass holders. Consequently, even though I had the pass, when I tried to reserve a seat about a week before traveling, I couldn't use the pass and had to buy a ticket (double paying, since that left me with an unused segment on the pass). So if you buy a pass, find out which countries have these limitations and make your reservations there as soon as possible.