Planning an Interrail Trip 10 years late!

[InterrailDreamer]

I know this is normally a gap year/student experience, but DH and I didn't go interrailing as teenagers, and we would like to go next year at 29 and 31.

I'm looking for some general advice on interrailing, what to bring, what to leave at home etc, any tips and tricks.

More specifically, I need some help with the route. We have been to the following places: Paris, Munich, Berlin, Barcelona, Pisa, Brussels. I'd like to try new places, so I am trying to avoid these spots.

Any advice would be appreciated! :)

We have 6 weeks!

We did a 6 week trip, flying out and back from our start and end destinations.

The first 3 weeks was covered by a single-country rail pass (which was cheaper):

Malaga: 6 nights - with day trips to Ronda, Caminito del Rey and Granada
Seville - 5 nights with a day trip to Cadiz
Madrid - 3 nights
Valencia - 3 nights
Barcelona - 4 nights

We then got a 3 week ‘global’ rail pass for the following:

Marseille (Barcelona to Marseille was a long 5 hour leg but we found accommodation reasonably priced in Marseille and there are two direct trains a day) - 3 nights with a day trip to Avignon
Nice - 4 nights with day trips to Monaco, Cannes and Menton
Milan - 1 night (just to break the journey)
Venice - 3 nights
Rome - 4 nights
Naples - 4 nights with day trips to Pompeii, Sorrento, Herculaneum and Vesuvius.

Seat61.com is what you need - he's all things trains around the world and he has a page here about interrailing and whether it is cost effective.

Do you have any ideas of places either of you would like to visit? With 6 weeks you should have a fair bit of flexibility. Do you prefer to be on the go for much of the time or would you rather move and explore, move and explore?

Ah I'm so jealous! I think that's the perfect time of life to be doing this sort of trip.

With that sort of time frame I'd be tempted to choose two regions/routes - we did a brilliant trip from London down through Switzerland and Austria to Venice and then across to the Balkans. I really would recommend Central and Eastern Europe - quite good to get around by train and really different from Western Europe.

If I were planning a trip now I'd also be really attracted to Scandinavia by train - it feels like it would be such an interesting way to explore those countries.

When I did mine I went all the way north in Scandinavia (Oslo-Bergen-Narvik (beyond Arctic Circle)-Stockholm-Copenhagen). Oslo-Bergen is one of the great railway journeys in the world.

I also went all the way down Italy (Rome-Naples-Palermo (Sicily) - Venice). I don't know whether it still does, but back then the train went onto the ferry to go over to Sicily, which was an experience.

While they come at a supplement I found sleeper trains were a good way to cover long distances and get a reasonable night's sleep.

@JassyRadlett that itinerary sounds brilliant! I'm really interested in going yo Switzerland and Austria!

I'd also like to go to Monaco for a day. Croatia appeals too, as does Italy, and the Scandi countries. Oh and Lake Bled!

I'm not fussed about Portugal, Spain or France.

Oslo-bergen sounds unreal @macshoto 😍

@Specialnameforanoutingthread I like to be on the move, but I need to consider rest times. Lake Bled would be more chill I think.

Use the Interrail pass for expensive countries like Scandinavia, and if you go to Central and Eastern Europe just buy normal tickets as they are generally much cheaper.

Decide where you particularly want to go to, and then plan a route around those places.

Think about how much time you actually want to be sitting on a train (and how much travelling you're willing to eat into your overall holiday time).

We did 3 weeks last summer - flew to Munich, then Salzburg, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and we then flew to Istanbul, had a few down days at the beach before flying back home from Istanbul.

My tips: make sure you can carry whatever you're taking - so pack light. With that in mind, make sure you have some washing facilities built into your trips (we alternated AirBNBs that had washing machines in between hotels). We didn't travel any further than 2.5hrs by train, and stayed a minimum of 2 nights in each city (except Bratislava, which was small enough for 1 night, and meant we could have 3 nights in Vienna). We had an interrailing ticket, but think it may have been a little cheaper just getting normal tickets. But it was nice not to have to think too much about it. Also check if any of your journeys need pre-booking - ours didn't, but some longer journeys or overnighters will do.

I thought it was brillaint, and would love to do more.

A couple of extra thoughts prompted by the other helpful posts:

If you plan to use hotels, Booking.com let you search with washing machine as a filter even if you then go and book with someone else, at least you know you can wash clothes every so often as it will tell you if there is a self service laundry rather than the more expensive laudry service.

I have a women's fit rucksack from Osprey which may be of interest if you are thinking along those lines rather than a suitcase. We often do 'travelling' holidays and I find the 40L Fairview, packing cubes and hotels with washing machines work well for me.

How exciting!

Some countries are easier than others to Interrail in. Some have compulsory reservations for fast trains and it can get expensive. (Looking at you France). Germany has some compulsory reservations on cross-border trains this summer until the end of August. They're not terribly expensive but does mean you have to pre-plan a bit.

There's a brilliant Facebook group called interrailing for the older crowd (older is undefined!) if you have specific questions.

Top tips: stay at places near the station if you are only staying for one or two nights, seek out free walking tours and think about basing yourself somewhere and taking day trips rather than constantly packing up and moving on.

Download the interrail planner app and also individual countries' train apps to see how easy it is to get from A to B and how many changes etc. it really helps with route planning.

Thanks @littlequestion!

So, here's an idea of where we think we will go:

Switzerland (4 days) - Venice (3 days) - Lake Bled (4 days) - Vienna (3 days) - Prague (3 days) - Krakow (2 days) - fly home - 19 days

Probably need a few more places or just more days in the places above.

It might be worth totting it up seperately, or just using the pass for the first bit. Everything after Venice is likely to be quite cheap.

Another option for the return is coming back from Krakow using a sleeper. Either via the Berlin to Paris sleeper, or the Krakow to Munich sleeper.

https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Krakow.htm#Krakow_to_London

There's a Facebook Group - Interrail and Eurail travelers - with lots of ideas and helpful posts on. Always handy if you get stuck with your planning or reservations.

OP we just did some of Italy and then a bit of Slovenia and Croatia. Lake Bled is stunning but I wouldn't say you'd need 4 nights there. Ljubljana is about 45 minutes on a bus from Lake Bled, would suggest basing yourselves there and doing a day trip to Lake Bled and enjoying Ljubljana for the rest of the time. You can see the city well in 48 hours but if you want more rest time then the extra day just lets you go slower.

Thanks, I will change Lake Bled to maybe an overnight in that case. The plan was to slow down a bit at one of our stops, so I thought that would be a good spot to have a bit of a break?

I think Croatia sounds fantastic though. Might add that on.

You could work your way down Italy. We are off to Sicily next year and will be booking trains between Catania, Taromina, Cefalu and Palermo. If you get the train from Naples to Palermo or Catania then the whole train gets put onto the ferry to cross over to Sicily. Palermo looks fab for street food and you can do day trips to Cefaul and Modello beach from there. Taromina looks gorgeous.

We've just been to Puglia and back via Innsbruck, Rimini, Verona and Munich. Bought a first class pass and it all went very smoothly - though we were a bit close with the recent floods in Bavaria. With dd we did Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna, Seefeld, Munich which was a briliant trip, but we flew to Prague and I bought individual tickets rather than a pass.

Agree with PP that the Interrail for the Older Crowd FB group is immensely helpful.

Ds20 went last year. He would recommend Budapest, Slovenia, Croatia and Munich. I know he was younger than you so different tastes.

Interesting article from the Guardian re. Interrail and avoiding all of the "obvious" places >

Paris can wait: how we dodged the summer crowds by Interrailing to Europe’s smaller towns | Europe holidays | The Guardian