Car v Train: Confused by Prevailing Advice
 

We are contemplating a two week trip to Europe and have sought much needed advice from the experts on this forum. So far, the prevailing advice is train over car and point-to-point over Euro pass.

I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong but here is what I've researched thus far:
1) Car seems to be significantly cheaper than train travel. For instance, I can get a one week car rental for around 200. Even with high gas prices and tolls it still seems significantly cheaper an option rather than having 4 people take the train? I completely get the stress free factor involved in taking the train over the car when it comes to actual travel, tolls and parking but I also think the restricted mobility of train travel is stressful as well.

I know some will make the "driving around Paris or Rome or Amsterdam with a car is a nightmare" argument but that's not in our plans. Our travel is primarily going to be countryside/small towns and villages. At this point I am thinking about picking a car for one week, hitting the small towns and villages of Germany and Switzerland and then taking trains from there to larger cities.

2) With that being said, the train prices seem astronomical! For instance, I am currently getting a price of about $900 to go from Freiburg to Venice next summer, that's one-way for four people, two of whom are children. That's only ONE leg of the trip!

3) The prevailing advice I've been given is that the Euro pass is rarely ever a deal. A couple weeks ago Euro pass was on sale .... I could have gotten the Global pass for around $700 for four people. Am I misunderstanding something? Will the point-to-point prices go down as we get closer to the travel date?

Appreciate any help or clarification you could provide!

Inter-city train prices only go up. German train tickets are on sale 180 days out so you are a little early. I used www.trainline.eu to look at late May. The price appeared to be about $90 a person (I don't know about kids' fares.) 10 hours travel with two changes.
If you want to drive to Venice (where it is literally impossible to drive in the city centre -- no roads) you should be wary of an extra fee for ending in a different country than where you started.
The alternative: Google Maps says there is a train from Freiburg to the Basel airport taking about 75 minutes. easyJet's lowest fare to Venice, if bought now, is about $50 or so, depending on the surcharges. That price will go up too.

www.trainline.eu

www.skyscanner.com

For cars, see Google Maps.

I am sure you will get better advice from more knowledgeable forum members, but a quick check on Trainline gave me the cheapest one way adult fare from Feibourg to Wien as $59.73 usd. As you know,the cheapest fares are usually posted about three months in advance and the price goes up significantly as the departure date approaches, so I picked a random date in March for my search.

It looks to me like you'd rather drive. So I'd drive. It's a perfectly legitimate choice.

>>> the train prices seem astronomical! For instance
As is the case of this type of post, the crucial info is missing. Where are you looking to find these atronomical prices? When and where precisely are you going?

German train prices are found at www.bahn.com
Swiss train prices are found at www.sbb.ch
Italy, France, Austria, Netherland, etc. have their own web sites. For schedule only outside Germany, www.bahn.com is easiest to use. Trainline site is good once you are ready to buy tickets, but it offers little help when you are still researching options.
Do I presume you only looked at Raileurope?

Rather than choosing the means of moving around at this stage without specific destination and timing, it would be more productive to string together several itinerary options, then consider how you connect them. Then the answer to your question - which mode of transport - naturally falls out compatible with your itinerary.

For some people, driving is the reason for trips while for others driving is just one of the many ways to move around. I cannot mind read what a car means to you.

Cars ARE significantly cheaper, and more convenient.

Personally, I don't care what others find hard or stressful.

Most of our trips to Europe are about a week long, and they have yet to end up as originally planned.

Most hotels have parking, most cities have parking .

Ultimately it is your trip

Just checked again and I got a quote for $1163, one-way from Freiburg to Venice for 2 adults, 2 kids .... this is on Raileurope.
I did see the fares you spoke of on Trainline, what's the difference?
Thanks

Greg, you said you "presume" I'm using Raileurope without any explanation for why you presume this or details as to why this is a bad choice. Could you be a little more specific?

The other issue at hand is the value, or lack thereof, using a Euro Pass?
So far, using Trainline, I have priced out two legs of my journey and am already saddled with $500 .... compared to the Euro Global Pass I could have purchased for $700 - four people. I realize that's a sale fare but I'm just confused as to how the Pass isn't considered more valuable? As mentioned, the cheapest tickets I could find for 2 legs of my journey already have me at $500 and that requires me adjusting my schedule in order to get significantly cheaper trains.

Again, my primary question is whether I am doing something wrong. For instance, Greg mentioned that I must be using Raileurope. Why would that matter? In the states it would not make much of a difference if I used Expedia or Orbitz or Travelocity.

Without knowing your itinerary, it's hard to give advice.

For example, you do indicate that part of your trip is in Switzerland. Where you are going matters. If you want to go see the mountains, you can only do so much of that by car in Switzerland--the best sights are mostly rail only. Furthermore, a lot of those sights are not covered by Eurail passes.

I realize that a group of four has economies of scale that make a rental car more attractive than for a couple (or single traveler), but one of the attractions of Switzerland IS the rail system itself. To go to Switzerland and not ride the trains is a bit like going to Paris and only seeing the sights on one side of the Seine--it can be done, but its not really the most logical choice. If rail travel costs are that much of a factor for you, maybe Switzerland isn't the right destination for this trip? Just a thought.

In general, never ever ever ever use RailEurope.

Use the national train operators in each of the countries you want to visit. One of the posters above has listed some for you. If for an international journey, use the one for the country you are leaving.
Rail passes are rarely good value.

And if you want to drive, then do drive

Why would that matter?

Have you looked at the regular train booking websites that Greg gave you? And compared that to the prices you are finding with RailEurope (a North American distributor).

Rail Europe adds additional fees to the fares. Trainline.com and loco2.com are two companies that do not add additional fees to the fares. I usually check the local rail websites to find the route and train I want to book, such as those provided by Greg, and then for ease of booking (no language or website issues) use Trainline or loco2 to book the fares. As noted the discounted fares are available about 3 months in advance. With loco2 you can set up alerts to be advised when they are available.
I also highly recommend this website for lots of very helpful information about travelling by train https://www.seat61.com/

Suze,
Thanks to Greg I did look at those sites! But prior to that I was only aware of Raileurope. All I was simply asking is why there is an $800 price difference for the same transportation using different sites.

You ask, "Why would that matter?" Because the price difference is alarming and I'd like to understand how everything works over in Europe while I'm travel planning.

Thanks Andee01, your advice is precisely why I am here! That helps me so much.

Before drawing any conclusions about train prices, please read this:

https://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm

If you don't want to read the whole thing at least read this: https://www.seat61.com/Europe-when-d...kings-open.htm

If RailEurope is showing a price for a train with a 90 day booking window outside that window, it is the highest possible price for a train that isn't available for regular booking yet.

With four people the train may well be cheaper, but it will be a nuisance in cities and unusable in some parts of Switzerland.

One thing that can really cut travel costs for four people is to narrow your focus to smaller areas geographically, rather than trying to see things/places that are far apart. If you feel you absolutely can't enjoy a trip to Europe without far flung destinations, then look at flying as well as train and car. Booked far ahead, there are major discounts on domestic airlines in Europe. Some do have pretty strict baggage allowance though and some do not use major airports, so you would need to be aware of those two things.

Thank you thursdayd. The article was clearly written for someone like myself .... clears up much of my confusion. Apparently the reason I am seeing such high train prices is because I'm outside of the traditional booking window. This explains why my premature research didn't seem to align with the advice to skip the Pass. I feel relieved to have some clarity and now I can, as the article stated and Andee01 suggested, be patient and set up a loco2 alert.

I think your last comment about the "train" being cheaper and unusable in parts of Switzerland was actually meant for the car?

Oops! You are so right!

If you are interested which towns or villages in Switzerland will NOT let you use the car to drive there, here's the list:
https://www.myswitzerland.com/en/car...tinations.html

It's not exactly a widespread phenomenon in Switzerland, but since Wengen and Mürren are on the list, it may feel for some as it was half of Switzerland ;-)