Should i buy interrail ticket ?

duckmusic

I have a few friends who went interrailing last year, and they said its not worth buying the ticket because the amount you would spend just paying for the trains as you use them would be a lot less than the price of the ticket. We are going for a month and will pob visit about 7 or 8 countries.

dory

Usually depends on which countries. Eastern Europe is cheap, but France, Switzerland and all that are expensive to travel through.

CantGetNoSleep

I'd say it would be cheaper to buy the ticket, it also gives you the option of just packing up and leaving a place if you don't like the look (or smell) of a place one you get there. You would be less likely to do this if you had paid 40 or 50 squid to get there

chele

If you are going to drink in various cities in eastern europe, it may not be that profitable to get the pass, however the pass makes life much easier and means u will go to smaller places and tourist sites, cos ul be reluctant to go if u have to pay for each train fare individually.

Teferi

duckmusic wrote: »

I have a few friends who went interrailing last year, and they said its not worth buying the ticket because the amount you would spend just paying for the trains as you use them would be a lot less than the price of the ticket. We are going for a month and will pob visit about 7 or 8 countries.

Did your mates only go to 2 or 3 places? That is the only way I can think of for them to give you such advice

When I went I defo got my moneys worth and more out of the ticket.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

You could be talking easily 100 quid for a single train ticket from somewhere like switzerland or germany. (Myself and some friends were initially quoted €170 return for a train from Frankfurt to Munich for Oktoberfest, although we negotiated down to €55 as it's a large group)

A friend of mine got stung last year when we went inter-railing. He didn't buy a ticket because he was only coming for about 2 weeks, and ended up paying a lot more than the rest of us who were out for 4 weeks.

Moral of the story is get a ticket! maybe even one of those 10 days travel in 22 tickets.

kdouglas

Have to say, even just the freedom you have with the interrail ticket makes it worth it in my opinion, as was said above, it's nice knowing you can just pack up and go wherever you want whenever, just watch out for the trains that require special booking or extra fees, there aren't many of them but if you dont pay beforehand, you'll have to pay a small fine on the train on top of the fee.

Would definitely recommend the Thomas Cook Rail Timetable regardless of whether you get the interrail ticket or not.

adamski8

the tickets are a rip off! you have to pay to reverse any half decent train. I didnt get any of the supposed many local free trains cause id say they are places where no one wants to go. i travelled from pula croatia on a **** train and still had to pay a reservation and you have to book your seat the previous day. beds were much more expensive than hostels and were **** as well and i dont mind roughing it but not when i have to pay 50euro for a 6 hr journey when i already have an exoensive interrailing ticket.

chele

how much are reserves? do they not very from place to place?
I am going interrailing next week and would like to knw how much il be expecting to pay on supplements?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

chele wrote: »

how much are reserves? do they not very from place to place?
I am going interrailing next week and would like to knw how much il be expecting to pay on supplements?

10-25 quid tops from my experience, and only really when you have to reserve sleepers.

adamski8

Sean_K wrote: »

10-25 quid tops from my experience, and only really when you have to reserve sleepers.

I found it was between 5 and 20euro but usually around 10 but that everytime and it adds up. the most annoying thing was have to go at least a day before and book it so that meant queuing for up to half an hour!!!!!!! i asked each time did i really have to reserve it and they always said yes! i always got checked on the train sometimes several times and if i just gave them my interrailing ticket then the asked for the reservation as well!!!!! usually i was assigned a seat. i took about 10 journeys in croatia/italy/switerland/austria/czech/germany/belgium and i think the only one i didnt have to reserve was an internal swiss one but im not even sure i didnt there. It defo not just sleepers nearly all trains are intercity train and if you look on http://fahrplan.oebb.at/bin/oebb.w02/query.exe/en youll see that a "R" will be beside most train you want and that means reservation is needed and its no different in the train stations! I travelled in mid september so i wouldnt say thats even peak season. that is if you want to play by the rules anyway, my friend said he never paid for reservations but got yelled at by ticket inspectors alot, those customs guys are scary and huge so i wasnt chancing it and didnt want to get thrown off in the middle of no where. my advise would to reserve your next journey when you arrive at a station saving you coming back. its kinda **** that you have to plan your journey cause i was looking forward to saying today i think ill go to france....

adamski8

chele wrote: »

how much are reserves? do they not very from place to place?
I am going interrailing next week and would like to knw how much il be expecting to pay on supplements?

oh yeah they vary manly because of distance/changing trains as the ticket office will reserve all the trains needed at once