Europe holidays by train only!

[KennedyD22]

Hi!

Looking for some advice by some fellow plane avoiders… I absolutely love travel but unfortunately my partner is terrified of flying. We’ve flown to Italy once, but he is pretty adamant that he does not want to fly again in the near future.

We have 2 DC aged 2.5 and 1. Next year, we would really love to take them abroad, however with the no plane rule implemented by DP, and our children being young, we’re limited with where we can go.

Any one else have experiences of travel from UK to Europe by train? I personally do not like Paris & do not feel like Amsterdam would be good for my children at this age (when I went it was a party holiday). Looked into Nice as a potential & Switzerland which is a quick train from Paris (but terribly expensive & out of our budget atm).

Please recommend European holidays suitable for children this young!

Do either of you drive?

I don't have specific recommendations for destinations, but for the logistics of train travel to and within Europe do make sure you have a look at seat61.com. It's an incredible resource.

Ha ve you considered a cruise from Southampton?

You fly with the dcs (which I agree will be a pain...) and your dp gets the train. Tbh if you insist on travelling together you're going to be so limited for their entire childhoods. Start off this way and hopefully your children won't miss out because of their fathers fear.

Our children are now teens but we did train trips throughout their childhood for environmental reasons. It's a wonderful way to get around and we all learnt so much from it. It does help though to embrace it fully and don't compare to flying all the time. Sadly train travel is more expensive because air travel receives ridiculous amounts of subsidy in the form of tax breaks.

Germany has been our favourite. Cologne is easily doable in a day. It is a fantastic destination and a good jumping off point for other German cities and towns, and travel within Germany is reasonably priced and comfortable. In short, child friendly hops we got to Leipzig (fabulous and walkable), Dresden, Heidelberg, Frankfurt and also over to Prague which was a magical journey. We went Paris to Berlin on the sleeper which isn't currently running but there are sleepers from Amsterdam and Brussels.

Sleepers are a great option with little children though they don't suit everyone. You need to be able to pack relatively light and not mind sharing a room or hearing noise at night. We found them fantastic fun.

With older children we did day trains to Hamburg with an overnight in Amsterdam (finished school at midday Amsterdam by midnight, Hamburg the next day from where you can catch trains to Scandinavia)

With young children I used to send a box of bulky items by post to our accommodation so that we could travel light on the trains. We would post our laundry home too at the end.

There are lots of Center parcs and similar (Landal, Eurocamp etc) in The Netherlands that are accessible by train or ferry/train. European Center parcs are also cheaper than the U.K.

Efteling is also worth a look for when they are a little older.

Also onward train travel in Belgium is free with a Eurostar ticket so it's great value. We loved Antwerp and of course Bruges.

Some info here about car free holidays in NL. https://little-clogs-holidays.co.uk/blog/latest-news/best-car-free-holidays-netherlands/

Cruise! With small kids choose a family friendly ship with a child friendly splash area (crucial as nappies are not allowed in the pool). Visit different places and no need to unpack. Lots of choice out of Southampton.

P&o would be my suggestion on a lower budget, and book fairly close to departure date for better prices.

Where do you live? Obviously Eurostar is a good starting point. I hate flying and plan on holidaying by train as much as possible.

As suggested by PP, look at seat61.com, it's an amazing resource

Also this book: https://www.europebyrail.eu/ - enough suggested itineraries to last you a lifetime!

İf you get adult interrail tickets for you both, the children's tickets are free. Otherwise you'd be paying for their tickets if you buy directly. You still have to pay for seat reservations with those tickets in France and Spain though, but it generally is cheaper if you get one where you get four days of travel within fourteen or something like that. İ think you get a Eurostar discount with an internal ticket.

Port Nou in Spain is fairly easy to get to by train. İts very quiet but you could probably do day trips around the area to places like Barcelona if you get bored. İf travelling there with children though, you might want to stop in an air BnB in France for the night, to break the journey up a bit.

Have you looked at eurocamp? They're doing good deals at the moment and very family friendly. They're also offering free ferry tickets for may and June so you could drive there as well.

Sorry just seen you wrote next year. But I do still recommend eurocamp with kid.

I have done London - Stockholm and back by train. I did option 2 in this link, but with kids I would probably do option 3 so they get more breaks and gets to see both Brussels (really quite boring) and Copenhage (lovely) on the way: https://www.seat61.com/Sweden.htm.

It's such a wonderful way to travel and I like that you can see so many places in one holiday.

What do you want - city / beach / lakes etc.

We went to Annecy by train one year and it was fabulous.

Can you drive?

Annecy is lovely!

You can get the ferry from Southampton to The Channel Islands or even to Brittany!

Train down to he Italian lakes then hire a car. Depending on where you're travelling from in the uk you could be there very quickly.
We live in cornwall and manage to do such trips tho granted our children are grown! But if you're within easy reach of St Pancras tis a doddle

You can get the ferry to northern Spain which is always gorgeous and spains trains are great

Or train down to Nice, then hire a car. Simple!
We're also organising a fiendishly complex train journey to Athens and back via a Greek island, through a company called Byways. They may have some ideas

Oh sorry you've looked at the Nice Option.
When we had you g kids Eurocamp was the thing - ferry across with own car then a ready made luxe tent

I think that depends on route? I’ve found much better deals booked around Christmas for the summer.

It’s also worth considering that if you will be using the ferry and will be taking a car you can often get much better ferry deals if you book a couple of nights somewhere with eurocamp or canvas holidays.