Interrailling with 8 and 10 year old no DH?

[mogernator]

Anyone done it? I'm thinking of doing it next summer. Currently thinking...London - Bruges 2 days - Stuttgart 1 day - Switzerland 5 days - Venice 2 days - Croatia - 5 days - Slovenia 5 days - Austria 5 days - Frankfurt 1 day - Amsterdam 3 days - London

Too much? Too little? Missed anywhere good on this route? Doable with kids?! My DH may come out for a week-10 days.

Thereisnoname
What luggage are you taking ?
I've got the maximum sized wheeled carry on ( Easyjet from Amsterdam to UK ) and kids have quite small wheeled backpacks which can do them for the new school year.
We travel loads with loads usually. I think we'll try to wash weekly.

What websites are you using to plan trips? Seat 61 is good. I haven't found any others that are particularly easy to use. I wanted to map out the big picture stuff first then look at all the smaller in country trains from there, but can't find any sites that do that?

when we holiday we go to places with plenty of sightseeing opportunities, some nice towns to look around, a bit of history, some nice drives out, but I would say what they most enjoy is playing in the sea and pool. I think my kids would be cross to be sightseeing in cities everyday.

We're doing this in a week! My advice is that if you want night trains, book them early - all the ones we wanted were gone which has seriously impacted our budget.

We're also doing a night ferry to Croatia from Italy. Not included in the inter rail ticket, but should be a good adventure!

fruitbrewhaha you just have to work child friendly things in with the sightseeing. For example, we were in Rome on Easter Sunday, so had an Easter "egg" hunt in the park (couldn't find mini eggs, so had to use toffees!)

In Genoa we looked at churches for an hour or two, then when the rumbles of complaint started building up we went to the Maritime Museum (highly recommended, loads of child friendly stuff. There is also the aquarium, but it's breathtakingly expensive!).

Planning websites? I used raileurope.com, or apparently the Interrail site itself has a good map, but I haven't used it.

We're 3 weeks in one more to go. It has been tireing and very hot in Italy at times but not too bad overall.
Trains have been fine, most high speed ones have WiFi so kids happy to use gadgets. Only bad one was a local train with no air-conditioning for 4 hours.
Switzerland was amazing but eye-wateringly expensive.
Biggest hassel has been not good hotels ( 1 we refused to stay in it was in such a rough area)
Have tried to mix sightseeing with Beach/ swimming opportunities as kids not too keen on culture.

Also we have far too much luggage, could have brought half the stuff which would have made it easier as some trains don't have much or no luggage space.

I'd do it again but not in summer as it is really hot.

I would avoid Switzerland unless you have oodles of money, it's heinously expensive!

Switzerland was expensive but it was so lovely there. Lots of things for free like swimming pools if you look around and transport round town was included with the city tax which was good. Plus you can eat cheaper if you look around or self cater.

My DS really fancies Switzerland. Is Austria any cheaper? I'm really looking forward to doing this next year!

Does anyone know how soon in advance you can book?

The Rail Planner app, which integrates with your Interrail pass, is pretty good to get an idea of possible routes. We found a couple of journeys that it didn’t recognise but on the whole it offered a range of route options.

Austria is far cheaper than Switzerland for sure. Switzerland is ‘how much?!’ expensive but Austria shouldn’t raise eyebrows. I think you can book Eurostar 12 weeks out but I’m not sure about other routes.

We kept to the non-high speed trains where we could to keep costs down as the reservation fees rack up, but splurged when it was a lot easier to just go for them. I’d recommend a first class pass if you can afford it - it’s not much more than standard and some of the first class carriages are fabulous, and generally less crowded than standard.