A quick overview of our trip is that we started in Paris, then went to Nice, Rome, Budapest, Prague and finished in Berlin, and we got trains between each city, except Rome and Budapest, as it wasn't time or money efficient.
When we first started planning we originally were going to use the Interrail pass, but after planning where we wanted to go and when, we realised it wasn't the best way for us.
- Interrail passes basically work best if you set a time period, say 2 weeks and then want to travel for 9 days of that 2 weeks. There are many different options and time periods, but they're great for people who don't want to plan exactly where they're going or when!
The way we planned our trip was by deciding on the countries and cities we wanted to visit, then mapped this out on a physical map and started to plan what was actually feasible based on location and where trains ran. We cut down our list a lot and then started actually planning- this was when we realised that interrail passes weren't worth it for what we wanted.
- We wanted to use a lot of long distance, fast trains, like the TGV train that runs from Paris to Nice, which you can get reasonably cheap tickets for if you book far enough in advance. The issue we ran into was that if you had the interrail pass for these long trains you needed seat reservations, which cost money, and some ended up as much as the original TGV ticket would have been.
The way the interrail passes say to get around these charges was to map out an alternative route, which would be slower and would be on cheaper trains. This would have cost us time and money buying hostel nights in cities or towns that we didn't actually want to see.
I should also add that for the last few years prior to this I'd been getting the train all the way from a little village in Yorkshire to the South of France, with changes obviously, but I did understand and know how cheap these seats were if you booked them right!
These add-on charges to the interrail passes were essentially what stopped us getting them, we already knew that in some of the cities we couldn't just turn up and hope to get into a decent hostel without booking, so we were planning on booking hostels and knowing what trains to get in advance, to maximise our time away so it made no sense in us getting these passes, with the selling point being spontaneity, when we were going to have had planned our trip precisely.
We started with booking the Eurostar, which cost us £33 each, to Paris on the 5th (roughly) of September. The next train we booked was the TGV from Paris to Nice, which is an approx. 5 hour train journey that takes you across the country, and it's a great train. This is the exact journey, minus the few days we spent in Paris, that I'd done every year with my family, so this was all easy to book.
I think the TGV cost us approximately £15 each, this was 2 years ago and the exchange rate was so much better (thanks, Brexit!) then it is right now, so these prices are unlikely to still be the same, but needless to say, you get a lot better value for money on trains that you seem to in this country!
After Nice, we went on to Rome. Now, Italia Rail's website has been improved drastically in the last two years, before however, it was nearly unusable and was impossible to know when tickets were going on sale for anything. We booked a train that was an unofficial sleeper train from Nice Ville to Rome Ciampino, ideally, this isn't the station you want in Rome, as Termini is the central one, but this was the only train available.
We got to Rome at roughly 4.30 AM, and we were expecting to get there an hour later, so that messed up our plans a little. As we were at the non-central station, we walked into the city as it was getting light, and did witness the sun rising over the Colosseum, which did almost make that train worth it!
After Rome we flew to Budapest as it was actually the cheapest and much faster option- I think it took 2 hours vs 12 hours on the train.
After Budapest we took the train to Prague- tickets were very cheap and very easy to buy, and it was a nice train.
The final train we got was from Prague to Berlin, I remember this being the more expensive train, but in the grand scheme of things, still quite cheap. The last two trains went through particularly beautiful countrysides and forests.
One of the main sites we used was www.seat61.com, it was super helpful in helping us find the best routes and the right ticket sites for each train journey.
Obviously, the interrail pass does suit many travellers, just personally not myself and I preferred organising our trip and booking hostels in advance etc, but I hope this helps anyone trying to "interrail" for cheap!
