(From Canada) My husband and I are travelling to Italy in August. We know the days we want to travel by train from Venice to Florence and from Naples to Rome (car rental in between). My question is - should we purchase our train tickets in advance? Has anyone done this from N.A.? If you've waited and just bought the day of, any problems with travelling at the time you wanted?

I have used RailEurope.com with much success. I feel better having tickets in hand before leaving. If you are like me it is even worth a few extra dollars (I didn't even compare but I think it was comparable in price). Rail Europe recently charged me in US dollars for some tickets in France (which I didn't even notice) and they quickly noticed their mistake and sent me $10 worth of Tim Horton's gift certificates as compensation. Imagine my surprise! Rail Europe will charge in Canadian.

Should you?
You will get diverse opinions depending on the type of traveller.

If you are the type who do not want to put any advance payment on anything, then you can get them in Italy, either at stations or at in town travel agencies. The drawbacks of this approach are likely long ticket line, not able to sit together (both issue on or during holiday season or weekend or generally afternoon trips) or not able to get on a desired train/class.

I usually buy directly thru www.trenitalia.com, a quirky site, to get online tickets without raileurope markups. My trip days/destination are fixed, and I usually know the latest train I want to take. If I want to travel earlier, I can change the reservation to an earlier train at no cost before the reservation time at a ticket counter.

In some cases, RailEurope will cost you twice as much! Definitely buy from www.trenitalia.com if you want them ahead of time. If you know for sure which train you want, this isn't a bad idea. Choose the ticketless option, then print out your confirmation email and show it to the conductor on the train when he comes around. If you're not sure which train you want, most people say just buy them when you get there, although I have read reports of people finding a train fully booked and standing for the three hours from Venice to Florence (not saying this happens frequently).

Hi TB,

If you know which trains you will want to take, I suggest buying the tickets now.

Look for 29E ES* 1 cl.

I think the earlier you buy the tickets, th more likely you are to ride sitting forward.

Our day before purchased tickets resulted in riding backward.