We are planning to make day trips by train from Roquebrune-Cap-Marten in October for 5-6 days. RailEurope here in US is charging $186 pp (+$15 S&H) for 4 days 2nd class pass. And $24 pp per each additional day. Please help us to decide: should we purchase these passes here in US, buy similar passes when in France (are they available there?), or just get tickets one at a time as we go? Thanks in advance for help.

Alex, it's usually less expensive to buy point-to-point tickets when you get to Europe. Unless you're covering l-o-n-g distances, a pass is usually not cost effective. You can type your itinerary into www.railsaver.com for a comparison. In any case, Rail Europe's mark up and fees are exhorbitant.

You can also use www.railpass.com to check the economy of point to points vs passes. The word "exhorbitant" is subjective at best..use one of the two references and decide for yourself.

I can't price your itinerary for you but can answer a couple of your points -- first, you can't buy passes over there, at least not easily, and if you do, you aren't going to save anything. If you are mainly going to use them for day trips, I can pretty much guarantee a railpass makes no sens. The extra $24 per day isn't bad, and would be convenient, but the inital 3 days rate is only good for longer trip plans.

Raileurope's fares are not necessarily exhorbitant at all. I think their addon fees are a ripoff, but the passes are the same price as anywhere and single tickets aren't always marked up that much, some only 10 pct. Most people just compare them to cheaper advance purchase tickets rather than std. fares. Still, there's little reason to buy single tickets from them.

The longer the trips the better deal the pass becomes. But for four or five day trips out of Roquebrune, a pass doesn't make any financial sense at all, unless you plan to head to Paris or Lyon or Bordeaux and back in a day!! Just get tickets there.