Hi, I'm planning a trip in April w/ a friend of mine and we have never done the Eurail. I've travelled all over Europe, mainly because I lived there once and my parents now reside in Germany, however my friend has never seen anything in Europe.

Our base will be out of my parents' home in Dusseldorf (northwest germany) and we are only looking to use rail (if we actually use it) for areas south of there, like italy, austria, switzerland, czech republic, etc. (because we can drive a couple hours to see most of germany and the benelux area).

I'm wondering if someone can give me advice on how to plan it out. I've looked over the Eurail select passes (probably what we'll get) but am curious on how long it takes to travel when you take the trains from country to country. We have about a month's time to travel in, and I want to develop an itinerary and get things moving.

Thanks.

First of all, there is no "Eurail", each country has it's own rail system, but they interconnect.

For a quick estimate of time/cost for train trips between many cities:
http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/timecostmap.htm

For schedules all over Europe, not just Germany:
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

For prices of various night trains, and other info:
http://www.euraide.de

For help deciding if a Railpass is the way to go:
www.railsaver.com

All of these sites have other good info, too. Just about anything you need to know about trains in Europe can be found on one or all of them.

www.raileurope also has the train schedules.

Raileurope has SOME schedules. Not a good source as far as I'm concerned...

For a trip like this, you really should buy a rail schedule IN PRINT.

I'll share these two excerpts from http://www.epinions.com/content_1304469636

"The Bottom Line: You can plan your European travel itinerary and buy rail passes and point-to-point train tickets online. But the best resource is still one great printed timetable."

and

"The Forsyth Travel Library at www.forsyth.com is a very useful resource for rail passes, maps, travel books, and hostelling information. You can't order on-line, but you can do so by email or telephone. Forsyth usually throws in a free copy of the Thomas Cooke European Timetable, the authoritative guide to European train schedules, if you order one or more rail passes. Even though you can't order on the web, I've always liked doing business with Forsyth. They charge $10 per order regardless of the number of passes ordered, and will do rush delivery for $25-$35."

Of the websites cited to you so far, www.railsaver.com is the most important.

A rail "pass" almost never seems like a good idea to me, unless you are a traveling salesman needing to move on to a different city every day.

Any itinerary that is served well by a rail pass needs to be trimmed down.

See where you are more, move around less.

Best wishes,

Rex

While I normally agree with Rex, this is one point I'll take issue with. I have done the comparison and often have used rail passes. Some of us really do enjoy a major rail trip between cities and then enjoy staying in one city or town and doing a number of rail day trips from there. While some may want to concentrate on staying in one locale for a two or three week vacation, others are perfectly justified in making their three week vacation one that spans a variety of cultures -- say concentrating on stays in Berlin, Vienna, Venice, and Madrid (five days in each). While some may prefer to fly between those destinations (and new low budget airlines are making that option more attractive all the time), others would prefer to spend a relaxing down day between busy destinations and watch the European scenery roll by and take a vacation that has a lot more variety than studying one culture in depth. To each his own.

I have never enjoyed a summer so much as the year I had a three month rail pass and traveled extensively over much of Europe. I wouldn't trade that experience on a bet to have stayed in just a couple of destinations. I knew I'd be going back, and to this day it is that trip that I still base all my other European travels on. And believe me I got my money's worth out of that pass.

I think it's wrong to make a blank statement like, "any itinerary that is served well by a rail pass needs to be trimmed down." Maybe for you, Rex, but not for all of us.

By the way, last summer I used a German flex rail pass. I spent five nights in Berlin, three nights in Munich, seven nights in Garmisch, and three nights in Stuttgart before also using the pass to go on to Basel. I don't call that a trip that needed "paring down", and again our savings in the "two traveling together" rail pass, made our trip far cheaper than any other way we could have done it -- trust me! We counted the days when are trips would be over a certain amount that made us determine how many days to buy the pass for. We bought 7 days on the pass and just two of the trips point to point would have cost us as much as the entire pass did. That's like getting 5 days of free travel.

Olive branch, Patrick. I plead guilty to over-generalizing. How about this retraction: 90% of the time...

And the ten % for which it is true might have a diaproportionately high number of trips taken by an individual traveling solo. I tend to have amnesia about how it feels to contemplate an extended solo trip to Europe (robkoval is not traveling solo, though).

One issue I failed to mention is that travel withIN europe has changed dramatically in the past ten years with the emergence of new low-cost AIR travel options. Many times, an itinerary that has a segment of 500 miles or more can take advantage of a cheap flight and/or open-jaw air travel to/from europe - - or both. And still benefit from train travel - - whether by pass or point-to-point purchases.

I put the sentence that was my most important contribution as my FIRST sentence.

robkoval might or might not benefit from car rental - - it is also something that was not such an attractive option for the under 25-year-old set, a decade ago (though oddly enough, I still have my "Let's Go, 1969" and it is full of ads for car rental companies - - many touting $ 1 day!)

I hope robkoval gets a Thomas Cooke guide, and visits www.railsaver.com