Car or Train for 2 weeks in Europe?
 

Our primary area of focus will be the region from Venice up to the Netherlands (Switzerland, Alsace, Rhine).

Can anyone tell me what the best mode of transportation would be for 2 adults and 2 kids (5 and 15)?

Because of FF miles we're pretty much stuck flying into Munich or Amsterdam.

"Can anyone tell me what the best mode of transportation would be for 2 adults and 2 kids (5 and 15)?"

Impossible to say what's best since you don't say exactly where you want to go. Countries and regions is too vague a description. Some areas/regions don't have comprehensive train service, and you could spend/waste a lot of time covering the last leg or exploring the immediate area by bus. FYI, if you pick up a rental car in one country and return it in another country, you'll likely be hit with a large surcharge.

Have you visited Europe before? I think you're trying to cover too much in 2 weeks.... Four to five destinations within one country would be difficult, and you're talking about that many destinations spread across a large part of the continent.

I agree with Jean on all points.

I have to agree that you're being a bit ambitious having included five countries in your wish list. If you narrow it down (a lot) it will make for a better trip. Generally speaking I'd recommend using trains in Europe. We've done both many times (hire car and public transport) and the benefits of using trains are - no need to navigate, no arguments with "do I turn left or right here", everyone can look out the train window at scenery instead of concentrating on traffic or a map, you can take your lunch on board the train and eat while travelling, if you book ahead you can save a lot of money, no problems with parking, no unexpected fines.

If you hire a car you'd need space for luggage for four people. A small car is best in Europe as some roads can be very narrow, particularly in villages, so you may have trouble fitting everything in the boot. If you leave luggage in the boot while exploring for the day, there's the danger of theft. On a train you can keep your eye on the bags. I'd still suggest travelling lightly though as you have to climb a few steps up to the train and navigate narrow walkways with luggage at times.

This is an excellent website for train travel, hugely informative -

https://www.seat61.com/
Kay

“Four to five destinations within one country would be difficult, and you're talking about that many destinations spread across a large part of the continent.”

I agree that car vs. train vs. other options depends on where you are going. More important question is not what some others would or would not do, but what kind of travelers are you and your family?

In 2015, we did a blog on 16 countries in 30 days which actually turned out to be 14 countries due to some border closings. In addition to 11 airplanes, we took 32 trains and metros, 9 buses, 8 taxis and had two rental cars. We put nearly 1,000 miles on the rental cars that we drove in Austria, Germany and Italy. And, we walked a total of 300 miles or an average of 10 miles per day. This past fall, we did six distinct fall trips, the first of which was three countries, eight places (5 bases) and eight nights; the third one, just the two of us, included one base, but 20 places in 8 nights (Italy). The first one included our daughter but she is over 30. All of our trips, by our own measure, were highly successful, thanks, at least, in part to great weather. You can see our trip reports in the link to our name. Our method of travel is not for everyone (or even most), but it can be done.

With your FF Miles, are you also stuck doing RT into and out of the same place? If you can do multi-city, into one city and home from another, you can cover more places. If you are stuck with RT into and out of the same city, then two weeks is not enough time to go to Venice and work your way up through Switzerland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. You would have to spend time and money backtracking.

You need to be in the city of departure the night before. That eats up time and a hotel room. It would then probably be best to land wherever you must and proceed directly in to the first place of interest. End with time in the departure city.

If flights are really limited, you can't make an itinerary until you know exactly what your options are. Until you have a more specific itinerary, you can't tell if a car or train is better. That is a later concern.

If you arrive in Munich, perhaps see a little of Germany and a bit of France, and end in Amsterdam if that is where you must depart. In that case, skip Venice. You might want a car in Germany and use trains for the rest of the trip going North.

You might land in Munich, fly directly on to Venice, spend a few days there, then a few in Switzerland and a few in Germany. You might, once again, want a car in Germany, but perhaps not. Depends on what you want to see and do.

Here is more detail that has been requested, but these plans are very fluid:

*We can fly an open jaw into Amsterdam and out of Munich or vice versa.
*The plan was never to hit the entire region but rather drive/train and fairly direct line from Venice to Amsterdam with stops along the way. For instance, Venice to Lucerne to Colmar to Strasbourg to Bacharach to Brugge to Amsterdam. Again, these plans are very fluid which is why I'm here …. almost all of my trips have been altered, some dramatically, from the advice provided on this board.
*I really don't have much interest in Munich, it's just a landing spot to me.
*My current thought is to possibly pick up a car in Munich (which is cheap so long as you drop it off somewhere else in Germany) and use the car until I drop it off in Cologne. At that point I would take the train to Brugge and Amsterdam. This option would cut out Venice.
*Another thought is to take the car from Munich and drop it off in Stuttgart, taking a train to Paris, train to Brugge, train to Amsterdam?
* Lastly, I've thought about taking a train from Munich to Venice to Zurich at which point I would hire a car to explore Switz/Alsace - drop the car off in Zurich and continue on by train to Brugge and Amsterdam?
Thanks for your insight!

I completely see and understand the benefits of train travel but the concerns I have are:

A) How does a family of four navigate once you get off the train with luggage?
B) Is it time consuming and complicated to get to smaller towns and villages using the train?
C) If I decide to use the train, is the Euro pass my best option or point to point? I understand that I'd have to price these things out sooner or later but as a general rule of thumb, would a two week trip from Munich to Amsterdam with multiple stops along the way be better served with a train pass or point to point?

By the way, I plan on using the seat61 site when I have more time, thank you!

ad A) In the case of European families, every family member takes it's piece of luggage or wheeled bag and carries or pushes it up to the hand luggage lockers in the railway station or to the bus or taxi stop.
ad B) All depends on the town and on the train you choose. A train ride from Zurich dp 11.00 to Bacharach for example lasts 5 hrs and needs a train change at Mainz at the same platform (3a). A train ride from Venice dp 15.20 to Zurich lasts 6 1/2 hrs and needs no change
ad C) all depends on the trains you use. A Eurailpass is seldom a good solution. For Munch - Amstedam, check the different passes of German railways
https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml
For more information, check the man in seat61

I would say most of the time the five of us took trains. If it was more of a countryside/small town trip we took a car. If it was both we might take a car, and then take the train into cities.

I like the idea of using a car in Germany and returning it in Germany. The Trains are good in Germany but they are very good in Netherlands and Switzerland. But all this is generalisation, you probably need to sit down with bahn.de and try some train options. Alt the Venice to Amsterdam train line is pretty sensible line. I would say that don't turn down the idea of local car hire (say in Colmar) just to get out and about.

5&15, well the 15 year old should sort themselves on the train, the 5 will need help (I've had to give Americans back their young kids when left on trains...) In the big stations announcements will be in the local language and then English, but generally you wait on the platforms and if everyone starts to move you start to worry. In the small stations announcements may only be in local.

A rail pass is unlikely to be a good idea, but yes, you have to do the math.

If you're going to be on trains a lot, practice before leaving home (all members of the family, including the 5-year-old), pulling the bag and lifting it up onto racks or seats or wherever, going up and down stairs. If you can't do it at home, you'll be totally distressed when you're on the move in Europe.

With two kids including a 5-year old, I'd definitely go the car route. It's going to be significantly cheaper, it gives you enormous flexibility and freedom not only to experience a combination of town and country, but it also lets you change things on the fly to some extent. And of course it simplifies logistics tremendously - no schlepping of suitcases on and off trains, looking for taxis that can carry four people and bags...

However I'd suggest you look at reversing your route and start in Amsterdam. Why? Because it's probably the best city in Europe for the jet-lagged. You don't want a car in the city, it's totally walkable (or use trams) so you wouldn't need to worry about driving while groggy. Spend a couple of days in the city, then either take a train to the airport and pick up a car there (from which you can blast off to the south or wherever) OR do some car pricing for a round-trip rental from Munich or some other place where you'll end up. You could take the train from Amsterdam to Munich and get the car there, returning it when you leave, and maybe save some rental expense in the process. However I'd also price a one-way rental, including having a look at the "lease" options such as Renault's - https://www.renaultusa.com/

If you want to visit big cities, my recommendation would be to consider staying in a village or suburb with easy public transit options into the central areas. Not only will this (probably) save money over staying in the expensive core, but it will keep you from having to break camp and navigate to a new location every day, will save on parking costs, and probably will save numerous hairs from turning gray while you navigate city traffic.

But much has to do with your choice of destinations and routes, and which month (presumably summer) you're traveling. If you started in Amsterdam and ended in Munich, you could visit Brugge (although frankly I find it crowded and touristy while there are some terrific Dutch alternatives such as Delft) and south through Alsace, maybe as far down as Annecy and the French Alps, then through Switzerland and ending in Munich. Or whatever. Just playing, here's an imaginary map - https://goo.gl/maps/GrDHYWGeAeo

Another completely different option, one that's budget-friendly and allows more focus, but perhaps at the expense of variety, would be to pick some location that has lots of interesting things nearby, and rent a house for a few days or a week and do day trips. For example, look at this place, on Lake Annecy near that beautiful city, and within easy day-trip range of Geneva and Lausanne, Mt. Blanc, Lyon, etc. https://www.vrbo.com/85487ha . Or this cool-looking place in a village not far from Colmar in Alsace - https://www.vrbo.com/1280291a - from which you could day trip around Alsace, into the Black Forest, etc. This approach would give you the option of having a (brief) experience of living as a local - shopping for groceries, visiting tiny cafes.... more of an immersive experience than going from one downtown hotel to the next.

Just some thoughts, anyway.

If going mainly to cities take the train but with a family car is always nice if you want to slow down your itinerary a lot and do more non-city stuff. For lots on trains yes www.seat61.com is great and BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com. two weeks no more than 5 bases with a day of travel in between. Maybe fly into Venice take train to Switzerland and up thru Germany to Amsterdam - but cut off Venice and it becomes more workable - Munich- train to Switzerland and thru Germany to Amsterdam.

I prefer to travel by train but that's because I'm solo. I think for a family the car rental, as long as you are comfortable driving in a foreign country, would be ideal. That said...

A) Same was as 1 or 2 people do really. Nothing complicated about it, if everyone only has one bag they can manage (backpack or wheeled).
B) There isn't one answer for that. As long as the small town/village has a train station in or nearby, it's easy.
C) Probably not, but again it's a math problem, you'd have to know where exactly (or at least approximately) you are going, how often, etc. to know which approach is better.

ps - don't skip Venice :-) but yes you'd need to figure out the non-car for those days.

<<However I'd suggest you look at reversing your route and start in Amsterdam. Why? Because it's probably the best city in Europe for the jet-lagged. You don't want a car in the city, it's totally walkable (or use trams) so you wouldn't need to worry about driving while groggy.>>

Agree about starting in Amsterdam, but there's plenty you have to look out for there, groggy or not. It would be ever so easy to lose a 5-year-old , never mind adults, to the bike and tram traffic.

consider camping! Rent a camper van or RV and use Europe's zillions of campsites, including on edge of all cities and close to public transit to the center. Great for families as kids can mix with other kids at playgrounds or for older teen soccer fields, etc. Camps have nice cafes, snack bars and easy access to autoroutes - I camped a lot with my once young son and for him camps were exciting - all in warm weather areas seem to have swimming pools. Anyway thinking outside the box.

I must have missed it. Do we know the month of this trip? Spring, summer, fall, winter??

Are you aware of the large drop fee for renting a car in one country and dropping it off in another country?