I will be visiting Europe in late April for the first time and my first stop is London. How does the Eurail work? I was hoping that I would be able to ride it all over Europe for day trips. Is it like the subway or is like Amtrak with sleeper cars. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Hello coctulips. The title of your thread "HELP" really does not convey what you need to know.

May I suggest that you repost after going through the titles on Fodors and seeing which threads give a title that tells others what they need to know. Then repost with an informative question. That way you will catch the eye of those that have the answer to your question. Have fun planning your trip.

Hi C,

Good advice from loveitaly.

Before buying a railpass, enter your itinerary at www.railsaver.com.

First of all, I'm not sure what you mean by "eurail". There is no train system called that. Eurail is the name given to passes that can be used on various trains, usually partially funded by individual countries. Some trains are high speed, some aren't. Some have sleepers, many don't. While a Eurail pass makes for somewhat convenient travel, you can't always just hop on a train at will. More and more, a lot of trains require a reservation for which you'll have to pay a small supplement and get in advance of boarding that particular train. And you have to use the trains a LOT and for long distances in order for the pass to pay for itself. Most often, most travelers will save money by just buying individual tickets for the train trips they want to take.

Look at www.raileurope.com which will answer a whole lot of your questions and explain many of the different passes.

I did this many years ago, so some things have undoubtably changed, but what we did was to use the map provided by Raileurope as a starting point. You will begin to see where you can go by train. Then start studying which places interest you, and plot out the order you hope to travel. Once you have gotten that far this forum will become more helpful to you, as you will be able ask more specific questions, which people will be happy to answer.

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