I must say I was very excited to find this forum!

We are looking at taking 3 weeks to travel Europe by ourselves (Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland) by train stopping along the way to spend a night at a hotel or so in 1 or 2 places and spending 4 days snowboarding at one of these destinations. Maybe doing a guided tour in other places.

Coming from South Africa, we have no idea about the rail systems, pricing, accommodations and thus can't even begin to get an accurate budget together.

My question is: Are there any travel agencies that you can recommend who will be able to put this itinerary together for us including hotel accommodation, skiing package, train routes, tour options etc? No one in SA seems to be able to do this.

Thank you !

If you know your itinerary, enter it on Railsaver and be sure to click "only if a pass saves me money". This will give you an idea whether you need a pass and which one.
http://www.railsaver.com/

I don't know of a travel agency to do it, but you can piece it together if you have enough time to plan it out. Start by looking at the Rick Steves rail section, very easy to read and get an idea of distances, passes, etc. After you sketch out your route by rail, you can figure distances and determine where you'd like to have stopovers. Then you can do your hotel research, even post your stopovers here and ask for recommendations.

http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/itinplan.htm

www.bahn.de is the website for the German railways but has an English option - you can look up trains all over Europe with this facility.

Thank you so much! My husband is out in Afghan so we are trying to plan this whole thing over MSN. Your tips are a relief, and I will definately be using them. Suddenly, have a feeling you will be hearing from me again. In a few months perhaps I will the tip giver to come

Might be helpful - europetrainsguide.com

Here's the link to the Bahn website's rail travel query page, where you can figure out your travel itinerary.

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

Robyn

I'm in your boat railwise...I've been on many many trips to Europe but have used other means for transportation. I've just booked a trip from Paris to Amsterdam (using the Thalys site) for 110E. This is for my daughter and myself. It's comparable to prices in Canada (my home base). Remember to google for Promo Codes while pricing your trip. Sometimes the extra few minutes pay off. All the above suggestions are terrific. And, remember half the fun is the planning!

If going by rail all of those places by rail then by all means investigate some kind of railpass - a Eurailpass for all those countries - some great sources: www.rickseves.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.seat61.com - tons of great info on the nuts and bolts of planning a rail journey and lots on railpasses.

My question is: Are there any travel agencies that you can recommend who will be able to put this itinerary together for us including hotel accommodation, skiing package, train routes, tour options etc? No one in SA seems to be able to do this.>

well i know little about S A but i believe RailEurope may have a sales outlet there or anyway go to www.raileurope.com and look at their packages that include rail travel - not talking about railpasses but a package tour by rail. Also try www.WandrianRail.com (not sure of this internet link so Google)

Hi Nat,

www.bahn.de is a good site for looking up schedules as well as buying tickets from Germany.
www.voyages-sncf.com is for France
www.trenitalia.com is the Italian National Railroad.
Use http://www.ns.nl/reisplanner-v2/index.shtml?language=en for the Netherlands.

Best wishes to you and your DH.