Is Eurail really the best option for travelling in europe?

[The_Madz]

i'm planning a trip to europe this may/june.. probably going to be a 2 month trip seeing pretty much every country in europe plus many parts of eastern europe.

I have been reading that going by train is the better way (unless ryanair goes there) but my skeptism arise when i see how pretty much everywhere pushes the eurail for close to a grand.

i'm planning to hit most major capitals in europe, starting out in london then flying to spain by ryanair (only $60 tax in :) )

can anyone comment on prices? is it worth buying the pass or are there better ways to go about.

even then, are eurail prices set by someone or are there deals to be had

[lanky]

I'm going at the end of April for 3 or 4 months and wondering this as well.

[Carnage]

Ryanair is dirt cheap if it works for you.

When I was looking at flights to the UK a flight on Ryanair from Glasgow to London was 3.5 pounds. After taxes and conversion that came to $38 canadian.

[samzor]

Eurail is too expensive.. unless your a full time student under 25 + train rides can eat up a lot of your precious time (every minute counts when traveling) + it's almost cheaper to just fly around europe using low cost airlines.. best deal is to flight to london and from there you can go almost anywhere for cheap..

Check www.easyjet.com, www.ryanair.com these are the most populars but theres a lot of other lowcost airlines..


hope this helps

[The_Madz]

yeah i'm thinking of flying to london first using somehting like canadianaffair.com (which seems thus far to be the cheapest)

then in london for a few days and flying with ryanair to the contienent.

that wya it eliminates the need for having a british rail pass.


however, i do wonder of the costs going around by rail, i'm young, under 25 and so is my friend so we do quality for youth passes, but still it's about $1000 and do not cover all the countries we plan to visit.


anyone know a cheap outleft for eurail passes? if they even exist

[misterchill]

Eurail is TOTALLY worth it.

First off, if you want to hop from place to place, you'll never find cheap flights to do a round trip. By train you can do a nice circle or whatever you want.

Second, you don't have to plan too far in advance. Some trains don't even *take* reservations, so it's easy to get on. For the really busy ones, I found that 2 days ahead of tiime is good enough. When you arrive in a city, and you think you know where you want to go next, book a reservation before you leave the station.

Third, night trains are great accomodations! I had one from San Sebastian (Spain) to Valencia, and it was only a few Euros for the reservation. Much cheaper and less hassle than searching and paying for a hotel.

Fourth, the trains usually hit the centre of town, close to hotels and hostels. It's much easier to transfer, and you don't have to pay for a cab or bus out to the airport.

Fifth, the SCENERY! You're there to enjoy Europe, so why not look at it? You;ll miss a lot of the great countryside by flying everywhere. Trust me, even the bullet trains made me kinda sad.

What we did is book the air (Zoom) to London, Easyjet cheap light to Amsterdam, Eurail pass took us all the way around to Italy, and then we flew back from Venice to London with Easyjet again. It worked out marvelously!

And if there are certain countries that aren't covered (such as Czech), just pay for the extra trip or two on top. It's not that bad.

[ericw]

One problem with budget airlines is that they usually fly to small airports that are far from the city centers. You might have to pay extra for the airport transfers. But they do save a lot of time.
Unless you wanna save on accomodations and sleep on the train, my recommendation is to fly to major cities and then travel regionally by train or bus.

[GaspeLisa]

I actually work for a company who sells Eurail passes based in Montreal.
If you are under 26, the passes can be worth it for you.
If you are traveling in groups of 2+ people, then you can get saver passes, and save yourselves a bit of money as well.
It will be cheaper for you to get a pass before you go as apposed to getting it while in Europe.
Also, keep in mind reservation fees. A lot of the time, (esp. for TGV trains) there are reservation fees. You can pay these before you go at time of booking your pass, OR if you are more the type to just wing it, you can make your reservations a couple of hours before your planned journey.
You can always PM me for more details, OR I can even give the number for our company.

[beemer2005]

Eurorail passes give you access not just to the main trains but other attractions along the way included in the price.
For instance, going up to Zermat. Depends what you want to do and your budget.
Also consider First class travel...

[The_Madz]

well i'm under 26 and i will be travelling with a friend.. i have read that there are discounts? what exactly are the saver passes, are they the same as normal ones but just discounted further?

where can one find a list of attractions that you save with as well?

[misterchill]

well i'm under 26 and i will be travelling with a friend.. i have read that there are discounts? what exactly are the saver passes, are they the same as normal ones but just discounted further?

where can one find a list of attractions that you save with as well?


I think Travelcuts sells them as cheaply as you can find.

The flexipass flexi youth is a great one, 15 days of travel in 2 months of travel for all participating countries for 700 bucks.

http://travelcutsca.raileurope.com/canada/rail/passes/eurail_youth_flexipass.htm


Or, if you think you're doing only 5,4 or 3 countries, get the youth selectpass. No more than 633 bucks for 15 days of travel.

http://travelcutsca.raileurope.com/canada/rail/passes/eurail_selectpass_youth.htm


For bonus attractions, go to http://travelcutsca.raileurope.com/canada/rail/passes/eurailpass.htm and click on "complete list of bonuses".

[asdfvcx]

Rick Steve's website:

http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/rail_menu.htm

has a great section on rail passes. Probably the best on the web. His prices are in $US, but you can use the Travelcuts site or RailEurope:

http://www.raileurope.com/canada/index.htm

to get the Canadian prices. RailEurope is the official North American distributurer of European rail passes, and you are going to find the the prices of the passes are pretty much the same, no matter what travel agent you go to.

[afong56]

having done the eurail thing, i'd recommend it, with the primary reason being flexibility:
--regardless of how much planning you do, sometimes things just don't turn out the way you want them to. sometimes you don't like a place, and want to leave much earlier than planned (venice), or sometimes you find a place to your liking, and stay much longer than you intended (sevilla), or sometimes you just have a whim and want to go somewhere totally unplanned (budapest).
--when you travel, you meet people, and sometimes they become good friends--with a eurail pass, you can keep travelling with them without tonnes of tricky rescheduling or waiting.
--yes, time on a train is longer than time spent on a plane, but train schedules generally are much more accurate than plane departure times, and you can really save time spent in terminals. plus, you can see the countryside in much greater detail than from a plane. furthermore, longer journeys can often be covered by overnighters, when you would be sleeping anyways.

[lanky]

Does anyone know if Sears Travel sells Eurail passes? What about for air travel, if I find a price I like online, will they match it?

[lordloveaduck]

I hate to tell you but eurorail is really the way to go...it's cheap, flexable, and really fun i've done it about 22 times! really, made really great friends got really great info and learned a lot..you'd be pretty silly not to give it a try.!

[rewardscanada]

If there is 2 or more of you consider renting a car, it is a great way to get around (don't have to use it in the big cities, just to get between them) plus you can pretty much go any place, more then rail, or flying. For two months you can "buy" (lease) a brand new Peugeot for probably under C$2000 which includes all insurances (incl going to Eastern Europe), you don't have to be 25 years old, you get roadside assitance etc. etc. Of course you have gas and tolls but it definitely can be worthwhile especially for the freedom associated.

Check out Auto Europe Buy Back (http://www.autoeurope.ca/buyback_home.cfm?&aff=rewardscanada)

[gacomeau1]

I've been to Europe four times and I've tried all conceivable types of transportation: bus, Britrail, point-to-point train tickets, car rental, easyjet, ryanair, cruise ship, ferry and donkey.

I would never rent a car again. It was a "rookie mistake" that I did during my first trip overseas. It added an element of stress to the trip that I didn't need. Agreed, it's convenient, but driving in Rome just to find the parking garage (to leave the car while in Rome) wasn't worth it.

I would recommend not buying a pass and just buying your train tickets once you get there. The point-to-point train tickets were surprisingly affordable and hassle free. Keep in mind I'm over 26, so perhaps a pass would be cheaper for you.

The budget airlines are okay if you're travelling long distances, but for the type of trip you're taking, I doubt you'd be travelling very far each time you change cities. And as others have mentioned, the airports are so far from the city centre that you may not save much time or money anyway since you have to find a way into town.

But most important of all, have fun!!

[The_Madz]

Thanks everyone for hte valuable input.

I have been looking into it and it appears that travelling by eurail is one of thee best ways (even though it's still expensive)

the rick steeves website is defintely great for figuring out what option is best. i compared travelling by using individual tickets to a eurail pass and based on us being nuts and wanting to see almost all of them the eurail came out top by a saving of close to $300 and that's just point ot point and not little side trips if we decide on those.

also for flying in europe i noticed that with ryanair.com the tickets were cheap but the taxes and fees made the price go from 0.99 pounds to 30 pounds whereas easyjet.com fares were closer to 25pounds but only had fees and taxes of 5 pounds making it sometimes less expensive.

[adre77]

Does anyone know if Sears Travel sells Eurail passes? What about for air travel, if I find a price I like online, will they match it?

yes, they do and you can get Sears points if you buy them with them

[Talamasca]

It also depends on what countries you intend to visit. Northern Europe (Scandanavia, France, Benelux, Switzerland, Germany) has the most expensive train tickets. And the UK isn't even covered under Eurail last time I checked. Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Balkans, Greece) tend to be quite inexpensive and a normal point-to-point ticket may often be the cheapest way to go.

But yeah, if you're going to do a long loop around Europe (have a great time!), some sort of rail pass would probably be a good idea. You can mix it up by taking some cheap flights (check skyscanner.net) when you want to make a big jump somewhere.

[fireguy9]

another airline is deutsche ba,, I flew them dirt cheap (berlin-munich for 20 euros including tax one way)

there are a few other really good ones as well but cant remember the names right now

[asdfvcx]

another airline is deutsche ba,, I flew them dirt cheap (berlin-munich for 20 euros including tax one way)

Just so there's no confusion, I'm going to guess you meant to type deutsch bann. And that's actually the German railway company, not an airline. You probably flew Germanwings or Air Berlin. Anyway, as mentioned above, http://skyscanner.net is a good search engine for European discount airlines.

[heymikey]

Yup! Eurailpasses are worth it especially if you're under 26. Even though I got a Eurail flexipass for free (Travelcuts had this contest where they were giving out one Eurailpass everyday for about 2 weeks back in early 2004), I would definitely have bought one if I didn't win it. Besides, the type of Eurailpass to get depends on where you will be going. I found the 15-day flexipass for 2 months well worth it even though I traveled for about 3 months. Train travel in Spain, Portugal, and Italy were relatively cheap so I didn't use a day for those.

A disadvantage of taking budget airlines as your main transportation around Europe is that it doesn't go to small towns or even cities that isn't serviced by the airlines. Another is that you might have to do a lot of connecting flights because direct routes aren't always possible for where you want to go and since it's a budget airline, you'd have to book those connecting flights individually yourself. Plus, there is a chance of missing your connecting flight because your previous flight might get delayed. Third, there is always a possibility that the budget airline might lose your luggage, which actually happened to me. Easyjet lost my backpack when I got to Madrid from London (so did another backpacker who took the same flight), but to be fair, they did find it and sent it to me at the hostel I was staying at 4 days later.

Plus, your pass is valid for other stuff as well. I took this ferry in Lake Geneva (which the pass covers) that stopped at some small towns along the way and it was nice just to kick back on the deck while doing a little bit of sunbathing while watching small picturesque towns go by. It also covers the S-Bahn in Berlin and Munich.

[jayk]

how much do you save on trains with the ISIC card, if you're traveling in eastern Europe?

[b166er1337]

how much do you save on trains with the ISIC card, if you're traveling in eastern Europe?

Nada. Zip.

point to point ticket is cheap already.

[jayk]

Nada. Zip.

point to point ticket is cheap already.

cuz I remember someone showing their ISIC card on a trip from Krakow to Budapest and I think it must've done something?