Inter-railing with children

[karmakameleon]

Next year I plan to buy some extra holiday and trying to convince DH to do the same so that we can take the DC inter-railing. I went as a student many years ago but DH has never been, but he has backpacked in other continents. Despite loving travel before we had DC, we’ve never attempted such a big trip with children in tow. If we go next summer they would be 11, 9 and 7 but the youngest had some disabilities which we would need to be mindful of.

Anyone attempted anything like this and how did it go? Any tips?

Watching with interest, I'd love to do this.

It’s tiring living out of your suitcase, but it’s great fun if you plan it well and pack light. You can wash your clothes in your hotel room, stock up on supplies as you go and buy anything extra as and when you need it.
Make sure your accommodation is close to the train station.
Seat reservations can be an absolute nightmare and one of the hardest things when it comes to planning. It’s important to book them in advance especially for France, Italy and Spain because for many high speed trains such as Paris to Barcelona you need a seat reservation or you won’t be able to board.
Use The Man in Seat 61 website to help you plan.

Have been booking a trip for this year. Agree that seat reservations have been stressful as I hadn’t factored in the cost. For five of us they’ve been a minimum of €60 per journey and we’ve needed them on nearly every train through Italy/France. Also some trains haven’t been possible to book at the time I wanted as they were sold out of tickets reserved for inter rail people. Am booking reservations about a month before but wish had started earlier - particularly for Eurostar.

Inter rail is different to when I did it as a student in that you have to pick how many days you want to travel on and pay accordingly.

Hoping kids will enjoy it and will all be worth it.

We did this at Easter with our 2 DC (12 & 9). For various reasons we packed more travel into our time available than originally intended (due to covid postponement!), but it was great.

My advice would be to use it as a chance to go to more off-the-beaten track places and stick to either the countries where you don't need supplements or use fewer high speed trains so you're not buying so many supplements.

Roughly speaking, France/Spain/Italy charge supplements for a lot of trains (definitely all high speed ones); Benelux/Germany/Switzerland/Austria/Eastern Europe don't.

As a PP said, the Man in Seat 61 is the best starting point for planning this. We also had a great book called Europe by Rail which is worthwhile for planning and ideas for routes.

We were staying mostly with friends, but did have a couple of hotel stays (near stations always!) and one overnight train - definitely worth it for the "fun" factor for the DC, even if not a perfect night's sleep!

Happy planning!

I would consider whether you want to travel every few day, or whether you could just do a train based travel and book regular tickets. Ie for me to go from southern Austria to northern only costs €9 if I book a few weeks in advance.

So you could easily just book tickets on the trains and journey you want. Which with children, you will probably do anyway as want pre booked accommodation at each destination. I would aim for 4-5 days in each location rather than quick 1-2 nights. Gives you all time to explore each area, have some rest and relax days, and not have to pack up so often.

4-5 days at each destination isn’t the spirit of inter railing. It’s just a holiday by rail. That’s a far better option in my view. Washing clothes for 5 people in a hotel room overnight is a horrible thought! Wet clothes next day? Just plan a holiday by rail and stay longer! Traditional interailing with DC sounds awful. Travelling by rail and staying in different places to soak up culture is much better.,

A few years ago we did Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna, Tirol, Munich. I booked tickets in advance and we flew to Prague - it all cost less than the cost of the interrail tickets. I rented an apartment for a few nights in each place so we had all mod cons and could do laundry. Dd was 15. European trains are generally fab and run like clockwork. We went first class some of the time. It's worth noting that e.g. in France you can't necessarily travel on all trains with an interrail pass. Seat61.com is fab website for planning. And Bahn.de has all the european timetables.

Thanks all, quite a bit to think about.

I take on board the point that it maybe cheaper to book individual tickets rather than inter rail ones and will certainly check that out. Also we had travelling holidays with the children before (but driving so luggage less of an issue) so have idea of what they can do. Usually we would plan a longer stop somewhere to break it up and so that we don’t feel like we’re constantly on the move. I guess we can also build that in as a laundry stop.

can I ask how did you all plan your journeys? Did the children input? My eldest is into Greek and Roman history so know where he’d want to go. The younger two have less of an idea.

Also how far in advance should we be looking to book?

Best prices are normally when the tickets go on sale. For France this is 3 or 4 months in advance. Germany and Austria are 6 months I think. Seat61.com gives loads of advice on where and when to book. Mine had lots of input into our trip.

We did a rail trip in Italy a few years back with DC 11 and 13.

Flew into Venice and did 3 days, train to Verona 3 days with a day trip to Lake Garda, train to Florence 3 days, train to Rome 3 days, train to Naples and stayed in an agriturismo just outside Pompeii 5days, climbed Versuvius, did Pompeii, Hurculaneum, Sorento, beaches etc then flew home from Naples.

Sounds amazing. Know a family who did this and they finished their holiday off with an extended (7-10 days) at a beach resort in Italy, I think it was (they had their luggage for that part of the trip sent separately).

I'd love to do something similar...

Yes a good option to save time is to train one direction and fly back. Or fly to first further location and work your way back. That way you probably gain an extra few days holiday.