I'm wondering if it is more cost efficient to purchase Eurorail tickets before I leave. Do you need to know all of your destinations in advance? Does this cut down on the flexibility of your trip? Any other pros or cons about this method of travel? Thanks for your help and advice!

Hi Michelle, <BR> <BR>the answer to your question is, it depends on how much travelling you are going to do. You can buy a pass before you leave which may save you money if you are going to make a lot of trips. You can buy point-to-point tickets before you leave which probably won't save you money, but may save you time and effort. Here's a couple of websites with tons of info that can help you more than I can: <BR> <BR>www.railpass.com <BR>www.raileurope.com <BR> <BR>these can give you some comparison costs, and myabe help you decide if you need a rail pass or not.

Michelle, I suspect you don't know what the term "Eurail" means. That's just a marketing term for a particular kind of rail pass put together and sold by some consortium of national rail companies. Eurail is not the name of any railroad in Europe, and you can't buy Eurail tickets in Europe. In fact, you can only buy a Eurail pass outside countries they are used in, I believe, but it is a very expensive railpass, that's all for hundreds of dollars worth of travel. Eurail is not a railroad.

Michelle, <BR>Firstly you need to decide how much and how far you are travelling. There are websites which you can enter you travel destinations and then approx work out point to point fares, as I did and found a eurail pass was much cheaper. For example - my itinerary: I am eurailing (eurail flexi-pass-more than one person travelling so you get a discount) with my husband for 19 days - Denmark-Germany-Austria-Italy-Switzerland-Denmark. I dont know about the U.S. but we in Australia, just had a 10% special on all passes which helped bring down the price. What you need to do is work out how much the pass costs for one days travel.. In Aus dollars it costs $70/day. Two of my train days were going from Verona/Venice area to Florence, and then Florence to Rome. point to point tickets were actually cheaper. So I worked out my travel days excluding these two days, and was able to go from purchasing a 15 day in 2 months pass, to a 10 days in two months pass. Yes the more days in the pass (extra five days) wasn't a great deal of extra money, but nonetheless it was an extra cost, which I frankly didn't need. Do your homework. During my two month trip we then train from amsterdam-brugges-paris-calais-london, with our two children. Point to point tickets for this part of the journey was cheaper to buy than paying for a five day Europass for my children, as they only needed 3 train days. <BR>I have also booked train reservations for a small fee, as I want to know we WILL get on our train. Also as most of our hotels aren't booked, it was one less thing I have to worry about when arriving at the next desitination - not having to line up to purchase/reserve tickets. All I have to do is arrange accommodation, without having to worry about the trains. Yes its not as flexible, but we are on a fairly tight travel schedule (2-3 days in each place) so for us, it seemed the best thing to do. Also, if you do reserve a seat and someone is in it - kick them out nicely, as I hear it's quite common. <BR>Have a good trip. We leave in 3 weeks time ourselves and I can't wait. <BR>Lisa

I agree with the above posts. First you need to establish a tentative itinerary so you have an idea how much time train travel you will require. Next, sort out the pass or passes which will work for you. Then, if needed, see if buying tickets as you go is cheaper. You may not need to do this. A few helpful sites I have run into include <BR> <BR>www.raileurope.com <BR>www.footloosetravel.com <BR>www.ricksteves.com <BR> <BR>Good luck!!

Michelle: the previous posters (Beth, Lisa, Ann) gave excellent advice and websites (a couple were new to me, so they are bookmarked! thanks, goils!). Also, check out individual country passes. If you're doing lots of travel in France, for example (including the TGV), it might be cheaper to buy a FranceRail pass in combination with individual tickets for other parts of Europe, etc. <BR>I like passes for the convenience; no waiting in lines, I can go/leave when I want, no pre-arranged itinerary (passes don't have cities or must-dates - except for valid/expiration dates), and they oftentimes give discounts on other things (like Rhine River cruises, etc.). <BR>If you have a pass or a ticket, you can ship your luggage ahead (for example, you are going from Nice to Marseilles, and want to stop off in Cannes, you can have your bag sent to Marseilles, where you pick it up when you arrive. There are other details involved, but that's the concept). You've got your work cut out for you! It involves - eeeyuu - math....