This May, I am taking a long, European adventure. And it includes quite a few train rides. I looked up train travel using one of my favorite websites, RometoRio, and added up the costs of all the train rides. Yikes. Like 500 Euros for me and my husband. Then I thought, maybe that’s why people get the Eurorail pass!
In Europe, we are going to 4 countries over a two week period. We are visiting 6 different places. The Eurorail pass is purchased by number of countries you will visit and and number of days of train travel. Also, the countries have to share borders. You can’t do some train travel, fly to another country and then get on a train, or you will be charged a fee.
For example, you can buy a three country pass, choosing Germany, France, and Italy. After that, you have to choose how many days of travel you will have on your trip. You can choose 5 days or 6 days, meaning more than one stop in a country. But when I looked at the Eurorail pass, it was above 800 euros. So it was still cheaper to buy each ticket individually.
This is second time I considered a Eurorail pass. But each time it costs more than buying individually. So when would you use a Eurorail pass? When you want the price to be set without being tied to a particular time. I bought my individual tickets at set times and paid attention to higher costs at certain times of the day. But if you don’t want to be tied to a time of day and travel outside of a set schedule, a Eurorail pass would be better. Additionally, the pass can be used on some ferries and some public transportation in addition to trains. In Italy the pass includes 4 ferry lines.
Eurorail passes are only for non Europeans and are purchased ahead of your trip. Sometimes you can get discounts from travel professionals.
But for me, I’m still too thrifty. I am buying all of my train tickets on my own and saving €300 for food.
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