Any thoughts? Son will be in Germany for one month: January. Want him to be able to travel while there on his two free wknds (but he doesn't know yet where he would be going) and during week on free afternoons. However, before that, he will be in Switzerland w/ 3 of us - for us it appears I will be getting a Swiss Pass for (travel from zurich to lauterbrunnen, to bern, to basel, to konstanz, to zurich and wherever in between day trips). Should I be buying him the same Swiss Pass AND separately some Eurorail pass ? Or should I just be looking into a straight Eurorail type pass for him? (which if I understand correctly doesn't include any discount for jungfraujoch/schilthorn so I'd pay for those separately for him) but would include all our Switzerland travel plus whatever else he does rest of his stay? Most importantly, if I get him separate Eurorail - does that make it harder to book him on same pre-reserved first class sections so he will seated with us on Swiss trips and if not, then does that mean definitely get him Swiss pass and rezzies w/ us and his separate Eurorail pass for his month alone. Yes, for anyone who has seen it I have a post up for Advice in Switzerland that helped me figure out our Swiss passes, but not to confuse the issue but to clarify just this question I thought perhaps better to post this question separately.

Buying a rail pass, without a pan to use it almost daily... is just asking to waste a lot of money.

Let's say that McDonald's offered a "pass" which offered all you can eat... $175 a week. Would you think that this is a good way to provide for meeting the "dining needs" of a traveler?

Best wishes,

Rex

Hi Es,

It is highly unlikely that for two free weekends any kind of railpass would save money over point to point tickets.

Enter a possible itinerary at www.railsaver.com to see if a pass is worthwhile.

thank you ira, i will check that site out. I just didn't want to buy him the swiss pass to find out some type of rail pass that went to more countries would cover his time with us in switzerland plus his time in germany and perhaps a few other trips for less than a swiss pass and some other type of pass. but it sounds like point to point passes for his time in germany might be more cost effective.

Your son can travel on weekends on the "Happy Weekend Ticket", a daypass you can purchase in Germany for unlimited one-day travel on local and regional trains. It's 30 Euros/day and can be purchased at a ticket machine or counter, and he can take up to 4 friends with him for free.

Russ thank you! that sounds like the perfect solution.