My interrail europe travel plan
 

Hi

I am planning an interrail europe trip with family (5 of us) from beginning of august. We are planning on getting 15 days continuous pass. My plan so far is below:

Day 1: London --> Paris --> Berlin (no stop in paris)
Day 2: Berlin
Day 3: Berlin --> Munich
Day 4: Munich --> Zurich
Day 5: Zurich
Day 6: Zurich --> Bern
Day 7: Train travel in switz
Day 8: Bern --> Zurich --> Rome (no stop in zurich)
Day 9: Rome
Day 10: Rome --> Venice
Day 11: Venice --> Milan --> Barcelona (no stop in milan)
Day 12: Barcelona
Day 13: Barcelona --> Madrid
Day 14: Madrid --> Paris
Day 15: Paris
Day 16: Paris
Day 17: Paris --> London

I will be using pass for first 15 days. Any suggestions to this plan? The problem I am coming across is that most of these trains require reservations. Some are reasonable prices but the one's in spain and spain to paris are super expensive. I know this is a lot of travel but hopefully its doable.

Have any of you been to any of these cities before? If not -- you still won't have really after this hectic plan.

You will have 1 day in Berlin; less than 1/2 a day in Munich; 1 day in Zurich; 1 day in Rome; less than 1/2 a day in Venice; 1 day in Barcelona; 1/2 a day in Madrid; 2 days in Paris. More time on trains than actually being anywhere.

Too many trains, too little time to get to know where you are passing through. It's doable in the sense that a 26-mile marathon is doable. But I can't imagine how a family of five will be on speaking terms after enduring this schedule.
A single day in Berlin will teach you less than you can get in a TV show. Venice overnight allows just enough time to get frustrated at how much you missed. Ditto Madrid.
If you really love trains you might enjoy the trip because that's where you will spend a great deal of your time.
Or did you design the trip to make use of a pass? If so, I urge you to reconsider. Choosing a rail pass should wait until you have picked a reasonable number of places your group really wants to see. Only then can you tell whether a pass is cheaper than point-to-point tickets (which often include seat reservatons.)

I know this is a lot of travel but hopefully its doable.

Are you going to these places to see them? Be in the cities? Why are you going? Who are you? What is the purpose of this trip? Are you kidding?

Go to London for 5 days and the rest in Paris. Fly into London and fly home from Paris. Use the multi-city tool when searching for flights. Take the train from London to Paris. Buy train tickets in advance to get the best price.

Save the other cities for future trips.

>>Go to London for 5 days and the rest in Paris. <<

Since the OP mentions Interrail -- I assume they are based in the UK. If so, London/Paris probably isn't what they are looking for. But the trip they have laid out isn't really doable.

Forget about the pass. Pick 3, at most 4 destinations. Quality trumps quantity!

I am not trying to be mean, but this is the most nightmarish itinerary I believe I have ever seen come up. Going all the way to Rome for 1 day, all the way to Venice for not even a day, same for Madrid, etc. you have about 7 days of sightseeing time and 10 days of time traveling out of the 17 days.

Is that what you actually want - 10 days on trains? Perhaps it is. Some people do love just riding on the train and that is their trip - no major sightseeing, museums, churches, castles, cafe sitting, strolling in the evening. If that is your travel style, you are set, but how does the rest of the family feel about that? How old are the family members?

In two weeks, two to four bases are great, five doable. That is about it.

Hi everyone

thanks for getting back. I appreciate your honest opinions about this plan which is the main reason I posted this here. Right first of all I don't need to see london as I live in UK. Secondly, I have bought euro rail return ticket from london to paris so I don't even really need to use the pass to stay there.

In regards to the destinations I picked, I wanted to see as many places (countries/cities) as possible. I don't necessarily want to see every single attraction in that city but just the main one's. The point of the tour is to get a feel for europe as a whole and see the similarities/differences. We have never been to any other country outside UK in europe.

If you ask me I will say I can definitely do this tour up to Day 10 with no problems. I have all the trains and their times and I don't think its that bad. I am generally not a train person and no I don't want to spend all the time in the train buts its a sacrifice that has to be made.

What would you guys say if I get rid of spain in this tour and assign them days to rest of the cities/countries? Would that make this a suitable/doable tour? So basically day 11-13 and then I go back from italy to paris rather than spain.

Or alternatively, get rid of germany and carry on with switzerland, italy, spain and paris. Please show your opinion in order for me to fix this plan.

Day 1: London --> Paris --> Zurich (no stop in paris)
Day 2: Zurich
Day 3: Zurich --> Bern
Day 4: Bern
Day 5: Bern --> Zurich --> Rome (no stop in zurich)
Day 6: Rome
Day 7: Rome
Day 8: Rome --> Venice
Day 9: Venice
Day 10: Venice --> Milan --> Barcelona (no stop in milan)
Day 11: Barcelona
Day 12: Barcelona --> Madrid
Day 13: Madrid
Day 14: Madrid --> Paris
Day 15: Paris
Day 16: Paris
Day 17: Paris --> London


Does this look better? What would be the best way to travel? Still worth buying the global pass?

Better than the first itinerary but for me train rides are wonderful if they take up to maybe 4-5 hours. They're preferable to flying since you have more flexibility, the train takes you right into the city etc.

A train ride like Venice to Barcelona or to a lesser extend Madrid to Paris or London to Zürich are experiences which leave me wanting only a shower and a bed.

If I was you, I'd think about:
- using some flights in between
- take a flight at the beginning or end of the journey to or from the farthest destination
- skip Spain
- a combination of above

If you go for example London, a few days in Paris, a few days in Switzerland, a few days in Italy and the flight back to London, I think you have a wonderful experience.

Another time you can go from London with a cheap flight for a long weekend to Spain and spent as much time there as with your current itinerary.

Flying is also often cheaper than long train rides.

Hi Hans

Sorry but I have already booked a return train journey from london to paris at a reasonable price(just in case the ticket goes expensive). It's only 2hrs 20mins so not bad at all. Paris to Zurich can be really quick too if I spend money to get the high speed reservation.

With regards to flights I was actually considering it at one point. It would make perfect sense to use it to travel from spain to paris. I really don't want to skip spain as it is the second main country I want to visit (first being italy). This is why I got rid of germany so I can visit spain instead.

I am confused if I should still get an interrail pass with all these changes especially when I am also considering flights. But the pass would still be very useful to make local travel within the cities?

Been thinking about this and I think if I want to use train with no flights involved than this might be a better idea.

Travel:

London to Paris
Paris to Madrid
Madrid to Barcelona
Barcelona to Milan
Milan to Rome
Rome to Venice
Venice to Zurich
Zurich to Bern
Bern to Paris
Paris to London

Another destination that would have potentially taken too long (in spain) has been cut out. Now I have 7 cities left to cover in 17 days. Some are really close to each other like in switzerland. I am also thinking in terms of costs. If I buy the pass than I would like to make full use of it and use the train to go to all the following places. I really do not want to reduce the tour to any less places than this. Can you please advise if buying a pass would be worth it if travel by train?

Travel:

London to Paris

Paris to Barcelona

Barcelona to Milan

Milan to Rome

Rome to Venice

Venice to Zurich

Zurich to Bern

Bern to Paris

Paris to London

Have you ever ridden a train more than a couple of hours? This still sounds like torture for children. You have 17 days and 10 days are spent riding the train. That leaves only 7 days to see things. With only 17 days, you need to limit your places you stay to 4 or 5 cities and have more time in the locations than on transport. Venice/Zurich is 7-8 hours on trains (with multiple changes). Barcelona/Milan is 12-20 hours. Do you really think your kids will enjoy sitting on the train all day?

Let me try to make my advice about rail passes clearer: You seem fixated. Nobody -- NOBODY -- can fully judge the value of a pass until they have researched the point-to-point ticket prices. Plus train travel in France by pass is fairly restricted. And you already know that a pass will require extra nuisance and expense to obtain reservations. I join with the others in suggesting three or four cities max for the time you have. Shifting every day or so involves more than the actual train ride. There's going or coming from the stations, finding your hotel, doing a bit of packing or unpacking, picking places to eat. Slow down and enjoy more.

But its not really 10 days that are spent riding in the train is it. Two longest journeys would be Milan to Rome and Bern to Paris.

London to Paris is only 2.5hrs.
Paris to Barcelona is about 6.5hrs.
Barcelona to Milan is probably the longest 14.5hrs.
Milan to Rome is 3hrs 10mins.
etc.

I will always have a night's stay at least after each of these journeys.

I can easily say that I will visit 1 city in switzerland and that will bring the locations down to 5 from 7. But in truth those locations hardly take any time to get to it so I would still be spending more or less same amount of time traveling.

hmmmm I don't know what to do now lol These are all the places I wanna visit and it would be difficult to make decisions where NOT to go.

@southam you are absolutely right and I agree with you. I'll have to think about it properly because I don't know what to change anymore.