Interrail Global Mobile Pass for train travel this July - advice sought!

[WanderleyWagon]

I'm trying to get from Belgium to Italy and from Italy back to the UK in July, without flying.

The tickets are ridiculously expensive, like £350 one way from Belgium to northern/central Italy. It would be much cheaper to get an interrail pass (I'm a citizen of an EU country), but I haven't had one of those for about thirty years.

Has anybody used one of these recently? Did you find that it was straightforward to book onto trains once you had the pass? Were there many hidden extras?

I can see that it's possible to travel on the Eurostar with an interrail pass, but that the 'passholder' seats may sell out quickly. I'd be very grateful to hear from any mumsnetters with experience of doing this!

The website maninseat61 is great for train travel advice across Europe

Have you looked at The Trainline.com? It has fares for every permutation under the European sun!

Since I had the time, I just put in Brussels to Paris, then Paris to Milan on 8th July, total is Euro 158.

This was just having a look, and may not of course be your itinerary. I have heard that Interrail can often be more expensive than point to point tickets.

Anyway I'm sure others will be along to give you more help.

Oh and BTW the fares above are two separate journeys. I think that often works out better than buying a through ticket.

Seat61 is your friend.
interrial tickets are fab BUT the extra costs are quite steep. £30 for each Eurostar leg, €10 for each French/Italian high speed train.
check passholder seats for Eurostar on Belgian Rail.

I am going for the first time in 35 years with my son this summer.
We missed the Eurostar slots - tried to book last week and none left (though you can buy them full price from Eurostar).
HOWEVER - we are inflexible about dates and want to go on a Saturday in July. I’d imagine there may be availability mid week…
I’m not sure if you can check before buying the pass - may be worth ringing/messaging Eurostar to check.
Booking the pass is really easy. Booking seats on trains is a bit of a faff and can be expensive if you want to go on intercities. I understand that Germany is a nightmare to get through as they have a special offer on tickets that everyone is taking advantage of. So even if you pay the booking supplement you don’t necessarily get the seat you booked.
We are coming home on the ferry from Amsterdam to Hull - not included in price of ticket, but much cheaper as a foot passenger than in a car. Might that be an option for you?

Thanks so much to all commenters - that's very helpful! I do know the maninseat61 who is an international treasure but it's true that I didn't sit down to look in detail about what he says about interrail. I'll do that!

At the moment, the price for an interrail pass is substantially less than just one leg of the two-leg journey I'm hoping to make, but will have a look at the extras for fast trains (which are going to be necessary if I'm going to do each leg in a day. I can't wait until the Paris-Milan night trains are up and running again!!)

I did this last summer with my kids. We got the ferry from Greece to Italy and then through Italy by trains with stop offs to Paris and back home via Eurostar. There seemed to be a need to book most of the Italian trains - but not all - at a cost of 10 euros each time per person which does add up if there’s a few of you. We also booked the train to Paris. Italy does work out more expensive than some other countries that don’t seem to ask for bookings. You don’t need bookings on slower/local trains but we were going quite long distances at a time. For one person it wouldn’t be so bad. All worked well with the interrail app although it did take a bit of working out.

There is a FB group 'interrailling for the older crowd' that can be really helpful.

Thanks very much, @lilyfire and @lightlypoached - I will definitely check out that FB group.