Eurail Stories

What connects Gdansk with Amsterdam and Rome with Trondheim? The ESNtrain. From March 28th to April 21th it will drive through 18 European countries. Be part of it.

One breakfast in Rome, the next in Ljubljana, another in Budapest, the week after in Copenhagen. Get on board of the ESNtrain and enjoy during one, two or up to 25 days, traveling throughout Europe in a unique way and visit up to 40 cities.

Nora Kleisli from ESN train told us,

The journey is the reward: the encounters of people from all over Europe, the friendships that are made and the borders that are overcome by personal relations.

Traveling mainly during the night, participants will have the pleasure of waking up in a different city every morning, where they can take part in activities especially organized for the ESNtrain.

It’s going to be a blast — book now on www.esntrain.org and then come back to Eurail Stories and share your tales.

One of the great joys of train travel is all that time to catch up on reading. We’re excited to have come across the bookstore guide right at the same time TravelBlogs has released their reading lists for 2008.

Sonja and Ivan are travelling around Europe exploring the bookshops. The bookshops! It’s a geek’s dream and their early posts are a great sign of things to come. With a relaxed and personal tone it’s full of information.

A recent report on Paris touches on some of my favourite haunts: Shakespeare & Co and the San Francisco book company amongst them. I also found out about a few new places to check out on my next visit — the Abbey looks especially inviting.

If you happen to find yourself in, let’s say Amsterdam or Berlin or any other city, we hope that this Bookstore Guide will help you find the books you are looking for so make sure you stop and browse…

Here are some photos taken during my 2006 Eurail trip through Switerland. It was easily the most scenic of all our travels that year. Except, perhaps the South Island of New Zealand.

Swiss countryside

Brienz, near Interlaken.

Magnificent Bern. With real bears.

Swiss mountain journey.

Train carriages ahead.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment. Standing in Geneva Train Station; weighed down by a backpack about 10 kilograms too heavy. I was about to launch myself into the continent. I was about to validate my Eurail pass.

It was an exciting moment; one that I had planned and anticipated for months. It was also a heck of a lot of money. I had been scraping together work here and there and figured I had just enough to make it to Amsterdam then a cheap flight to London where I could stay with friends. A Eurail pass wasn’t cheap and if something went wrong, I was calling Mum for a money transfer.

I’m a bit of a worrier, especially when it comes to anything “official”. I trust people but not bureaucracy…what was going to go wrong? It had to be something. By the time I had stood in the line this long I had dropped my bag to the floor and was kicking it in front of me. I really should have packed less crap but I refused to dump anything.

The front of the line. The empty slot. I dragged that tonne weight over to the counter. “Bonjour! Parle vous Anglais?” High school was good for four words; shame I wouldn’t understand a meaningful response. The ticket agent spoke perfect English (to my colonial shame) and the pass was validated almost instantly (to my surprise). A passport as identification, a quick stamp or two and it was done. Now, where was the platform…

Follow Jeff’s journey from Switzerland to Amsterdam thanks to a Eurail Global Pass. Subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss anything.

No, not like that!

This short video from Rumsrums shows the speed of the train heading to Amsterdam.

A Eurail Global pass is the mother of all European train passes: 20 countries of unlimited travel in Europe! It doesn’t get better than this.

How long?

A Eurail Global pass allows you unlimited train travel (within the Eurail zone) for a set number of days. You can travel every day of this pass; there are no time or distance limitations. How many days you choose really depends on your schedule and budget. Options are:

• 15 days
• 21 days
• 1 month
• 2 months
• 3 months

Where is it valid?

The Eurail Global pass is valid in all 20 countries of the Eurail network:

• Austria (including Liechtenstein)
• Belgium
• Croatia
• Denmark
• Finland
• France (including Monaco)
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• The Netherlands
• Norway
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland

Some journeys may require a reservation to be made in advance at a small extra cost.

The perks

A standard pass puts you in first class all the way, baby! That’s pretty good going and can have some excellent advantages. Of course there’s the extended leg room, more comfortable chairs and quieter surroundings but each countries train network has its own unique touches too.

Buying a pass means you save a lot of time stuffing around at the ticket counters. On occasion you’ll have to make a seat reservation — this is usually for sleeper carriages or peak-time intercity trains — but that’s not going to be too common.

You can jump off and on any train you like at any time. Bored with the city you’re in? Jump on a train. Want to stay another day? Just do it.

Carrying a pass is more secure than carrying month’s worth of travel cash. If you’re the type of person who prefers a cash budget then at least your pass can be insured, unlike most of your money.

How does it work?

You will receive lots of information with your Eurail Pass. In short, you activate the pass on the first day of your travel by showing it at the station along with your passport. When conductors ask to see your tickets simply show them the pass. Since Eurail Passes are linked to one person, some conductors may ask to see your passport as well, especially (we’ve found) if you are on a Youthpass.

Can I get one?

Eurail passes are available to anyone who:

• has not lived in Europe for the last six months

and who is not a resident of

• The Russian Federation
• Turkey
• Morocco
• Algeria
• Tunisia

This means people from America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, most of Africa and Asia, and all of South America can buy a Eurail pass.

Discounts?

If you are under 26, you qualify for the under 26 “youthpass”. This gives you unlimited second class travel. Although people have been known to end up in first.

If you are travelling in a group of 2-5, you should investigate a SaverPass which offers group discounts.

There is a centralised network which sets the prices of all Eurail passes, so beware of sites offering big discounts and “sales”. You’re most likely to find sales sites offering giveaways, a “free” days travel, or free shipping rather than a straight discount.

Where can I buy one?

It is difficult to buy a Eurail pass from a station or shop in Europe; and if you can it’s more expensive. I recommend buying one in advance. The easiest way to do this is online. Although you can find offline outlets, it is likely to be inconvenient. (Updated thanks to reader comments.)

Eurail Stories has decided to set up an affiliate programme with Rail Europe because we trust their service and found them to be prompt with their customer service. You can buy a Eurail Global pass from them here: Rail Europe: Specials & Promotions

More info

• Subscribe to our RSS feed or join our mailing list (in the sidebar).
• Read about other European Rail passes here.
• Ask questions in our forums: travellers and experts join in.

Buy now

• Click here for Rail Europe
• Get good travel insurance here.
• Book hostels for all your destinations here.

The Swiss Youth Hostel Association issue an extremely useful brochure listing information about all the YHA hostels in the country. In addition to the essentials of address, price and phone number, it also has details of distance from public transport stops, and how to get there from the main train station in the city. We were in Switzerland on a tight budget, in deciding where to stay chose a town called Zug, about an hour on the train from Zurich. According to our handy leaflet, the hostel was cheaper and closer to the train station than the one in Zurich, as well as having a kitchen and smaller rooms.

We were put into a six-bed room on the first floor opposite the toilets, a narrow room with three sets of bunks. An older Swiss couple had taken the two lower beds near the window, so I chose the upper bunk nearest the door. After a nice chat with the Swiss couple, who were walking across the country and trying out hostelling for the first time, we locked the door and went to bed.

The hostel was quiet enough, though I woke up once or twice in the night when people clomped down the corridor and into the toilets. At one point I heard someone taking a leak across the hall, opened my eyes and noticed someone standing over the Swiss guy’s bed. I thought it was the Swiss guy playing a joke on his wife, but realised that it couldn’t be since he was still in bed. You know what it’s like when you are half-asleep. It took me a second to realise that the sound of someone taking a leak wasn’t coming from across the hall, but from the guy standing over the bed!

As I fumbled for my glasses to make sure, the Swiss guy jerked upright with a yell when realised he what was going on. The young pisser was unconcerned and continued what he was doing until the Swiss guy took his arm and led him out of the room. We took the mattress into the corridor and the Swiss guy moved to the upper bunk to the sound of his wife chuckling from her bed. She was still laughing when we woke up in the morning.

Linda was travelling on a Eurail Global Pass. Read more of Linda’s stories.

Enjoying the train ride through Europe. The views are spectacular and the ride extremely comfortable.

Thanks to Quixstart for this excellent montage from last October. Quixstart was using a Eurail pass for his train connections.

This is part of a series by Linda King

We wanted to use our Global Eurail pass to its best advantage, so we weren’t spending long in each place. We tended to arrive somewhere in the evening, explore it in the morning and head on in late morning or early afternoon. That’s exactly what we did in Liechtenstein, except with a bit more drama than we had expected.

Liechtenstein is a tiny country, with only one railway station which has a rather sparse schedule. The station is about an hour’s walk from the capital, Vaduz, though there’s a good network of buses to take you there. We were staying at the youth hostel, which was about halfway between Vaduz and the Schaan Post bus stop, which is also where you catch the train.

We’d spent the morning in Vaduz and walked back to the youth hostel to pick up our bags before heading to the train station to catch the 12.30pm train – the last one for about three hours. But we completely mistimed our walk and got back to the hostel at 12.20 – there wasn’t a chance of walking to the station in time. A bus was due near the hostel at 12.25 – supposed to arrive at Schaan Post bus stop at 12.30. Cutting it fine, certainly, but the people of Liechtenstein take after the Swiss in terms of efficiency – or at least we hoped so.

It was an anxious wait for the bus, but it finally arrived and we bustled on with all our bags. The driver took off, and we named the stop we wanted – Schaan Post. We were a bit surprised when the bus driver said no. What? we asked. “Finished” he said. We were completely befuddled, but still tried to pay while he tried to explain how the bus stop had disappeared or something – we had no idea.

Since our German was verging on non-existent, we didn’t work out what was going on until we reached the stop we wanted, just outside the post office. He looked concerned and pointed to the post office and said “finished” – the post office was closed for the day and he didn’t want us to make a journey there in vain. We finally understood, and pointed to the train station and said “nein, zug!” (no, train). Indeed, the train was just approaching the station. His face cleared and he gestured to us to run for it. We tried to pay for our rather entertaining bus ride but he wouldn’t hear of it, so we ran and caught the train with seconds to spare. Mint.

Tripso came out with this shocker:

Eurail passes these days aren’t what we baby boomers remember from back in the ’60s and ’70s and even the ’80s. I fondly remember when travelers could get on and off trains at will and the biggest decision was whether to buy a 1st-class or 2nd-class pass. Not any more. The world of rail travel in Europe has become much more complicated. Spontaneity has been squashed.

Tripso

Spontaneity has been squashed? I don’t know ’bout those hippy 60′s or even the great 80′s but I do know I didn’t have any spontaneity problems with my Eurail pass. Each night I choose where I’d spend the next day; each day I pitched up to the train station and got on a train. I went through Italy, France, Austria, Liechtenstein, Germany and Holland. Not bad.

I do agree that it can be more cost-effective to combine point-to-point tickets with air travel: it all depends on where you want to go and what time frame you’re travelling on.