I am at the very early stages of putting together a 3 week trip to Scandinavia in September (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and/or Norway). I will spend some time (though not a lot) in the major cities, but also intend to explore smaller cities and towns by train, take ferries (Swedish islands near Stockholm, perhaps the ferry between Helsinki and Stockholm and in the Norwegian fjords), etc. Possibly do a slow version of NiN.

Since I prefer train and ferry travel to any other form of transit, I am trying to figure out how useful an Inter-rail Pass is in Scandinavia. Does anyone have experience using an Inter-rail (or Eurail) pass to explore the Scandinavian countries with a loosely defined agenda, rather than buying point-to point rail and ferry tickets?

I know this is a very broad and vague question but at this stage I am trying to decide if it is worth my while to spend my very limited planning time digging into rail pass or p2p tickets, or if the value proposition of a pass is clear, as it was for my most recent trip for Japan (JR pass = yes since I moved around quite a bit).

(And yes, I qualify for an Inter-rail pass, so no need to buy the more expensive Eurail pass if I choose to buy a rail pass).

Thanks.

check out the Scan Railpass too - valid on trains and some key ferries - vs Interrail but trains are expensive unless booked on stone well in advance - beauty of pass is you can just show up and take trains and ferries - giving total flexibility. Anyway for lots on trains check www.seat61.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com. Sounds like you only have a handful of trains and ferries and few long-distance ones so discounted tickets booked in advande may be the best deal.

Thanks for the tip on the Scan Railpass which I had not stumbled across.

I don't like to book my trips in stone -- especially when weather can be iffy -- but rather just plan 3-5 days out, so unless rail passes are exorbitantly expensive or have significant exclusions, I'll take the flexibility. over the "best deal."

But check walk-up fares before buying any pass too!

" but check walk-up fares before buying any pass, too!"

This certainly works if if you can tie down your schedule and book well in advance. Then you know exactly what your costs will be.

For estimating whether or not you're better off with a pass or P2P, a couple of bloggers suggest looking at all the segments you are likely to take, plug in "tomorrow" and 90 days from tomorrow to get highest and lowest possible fares, and use those to bracket the value of a pass. If you can't commit, then at least you know how a pass pans out in a worst case scenario.

I'm not ready to commit yet: this trip, for Aug 26 departure, just materialized yesterday (yikes!). Still trying to figure out if I should fly USA -- ARN --<train , etc> -- CPH -->UK or switch ARN and CPH. I am planning in pencil with a very large eraser....

Interrail and Scan Passes may have different coverage for ferries so check each on that. Trains all covered by either.

Thanks!

I am now trying to whittle down the list of things I'd want to see/do. Next task will be to figure out whatday trips out of Stockholm and Helsinki are local transport rather than covered by a rail pass.

Sooo much to see, so little time..... and I have 3+ weeks!

A consecutive-day pass - ot sure those options have one but think InterRail might solves all those decisions. Flexipasses harder to judge.