Hello there, I'll be traveling across europe and want to buy a flexi pass that allows me to enter multiple countries, can you recomend one. Also, do these have to be validated as well. thank you
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
Yes, passes need to be validated. You have some homework to do. Click on the Railpasses tab at the top of the page you're reading now and study all the information you find there. Go to www.seat61.com (a great train site) and read everything you find in the Railpasses section there. If you still have questions, come back here and fire away.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
The "Flexi" pass is a global (20 countries) pass. It comes in 10 and 15 day (days of use in 2 months) passes, Adult for individuals, Saver for 2 or more people traveling together, and 2nd class Youth (under 26). So, no recommendation. Are you under 26 - get the Youth pass. If you're over 25 and alone, you have to have the individual (1st class pass). If you're with someone, you get the Saver pass. Will you really have 15 days of travel, or do you only need 10?
A 10 day Saver pass will cost almost €50 per day plus the cost of "reservations". In many cases, particularly in Germany and Italy, that's more than you would pay for P2P tickets.
If you want a 10 day pass, an Adult Global pass for 20 countries is $939. An adult Select 5 country pass is only $879, so if you don't need the additional countries, look at the Select pass.
Posted by
Charleston, SC, USA
174 posts
karen,
I am in the process of getting my rail pass and have opted to go with the 21 day pass, youth 2nd class. We'll be traveling 22 days, but won't validate our pass until our 4th day when we leave Paris, which is where we're flying into. We'll be traveling to Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, and lastly to Italy. We'll be doing day trips often, one overnight train, as well as 2 long haul day trips. The pass covered everything for us except one or two reservations, which no rail pass covers. We'll be living in Florence, IT from 9/2 - 12/23 and have opted to not buy a rail pass ahead of time being that we aren't sure of how much travel we'll be doing outside of Italy. The 21 day pass seems as though it's going to cover everything for us, and for $670 we aren't complaining - it's giving us lots of travel options and flexibility to go where we want.
I'm not sure if that helps you at all, but I wanted to give you a feel of what we're doing and how the pass worked the best for us.