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Peter
Traveller
9333 comments

Hello and welcome.

Yes, as British citizen/resident (home country of your Interrail pass = UK) you can use your Interrail pass on the Eurostar train from London to Paris or Brussels.
The following reservation fees apply: [u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail-train-reservation/eurostar/78[/u] - scroll down to find the links where to get those reservations for Eurostar.
If your only destination is Paris - and then back to London, have a look for saver price train tickets - or if you want to travel cheap and have time, use a bus. Buses and trains including their schedules are available here: [ux]https://rail.shop/omio[/ux] and [ux]https://rail.shop/omio[/ux]

With Interrail you can not travel in your country of residence. As it is the UK in your case, you can not use Interrail to travel in the UK.

The Interrail pass is available (currently with 10% discount) on [ux]https://rail.shop/interrail[/ux]

Pete :)

Pleasexplain
Traveller
24 comments

Servus Pete,


They changed the rules for the global pass a couple of years ago, its now valid for one out and back trip within the home country, so they can now use it to/from get to a Eurstar station, port of airport.

Like you said about buses to Paris at short notice, have you ever heard of a real hidden gem called the Calais daytrip ticket?
Its not published at all but it IS there in the NR fares manual and if you can convince a ticket office to sell you it from any London station or station south of the river and many more in Kent and Surrey, provides a very cheap way to take any non-HighSpeed Southeastern train out of London Victoria, Charing X, London Bridge, Blackfriars or Cannon Street to/from Dover Priory and is valid on any P&O Ferry to/from Calais that carries foot passengers -(no pre-booking required, just show up an hour before the sailing you want). The trick is to book from Elephant & Castle, even if you do not intend to travel from there, as this brings the price down to about GBP30 -(GBP22 with a NR railcard reduction),.
It\'s still valid from a "London Terminals" tariff point station in Central London and will be printed with the "Maltese Cross" symbol, which means that it is valid for a cross London transfer on the London Underground or Thameslink from say for example, Elephant & Castle to Blackfriars or London Bridge to pick up the Dover train and is valid from any point south of Elephant & Castle on any non-HighSpeed service to Dover.
This can be used as a cheap short notice way to get through to Paris through the traditional rail-sea-rail route, but it will take most of day -(about ten hours end-to-end journey time compared to two by ES..), but I can recommend it highly, especially on a nice day when you can stand on the open deck and admire the white cliffs of Dover et la Côte d\'Opale -(obviously you miss all this in the tunnel!). For a journey in the opposite direction of Paris-London, unfortunately there is no way to buy this combined train+ferry ticket anywhere from SNCF in France -(or anywhere outside of GB for that matter..), but if you plan on making a return trip from France-England this way, simply purchase the return London-Calais ticket in advance for the date you want to come back, give the return portion of the Calais London ticket to the P&O staff at the Port de Calais and they will give you a bording pass for the ferry, just make sure you get it back, as you will obviously need it for the train up to London on the other end upon arrival in Dover. Simply discard the London-Calais portion of the ticket.
From Calais Ville down to Paris Nord, you take a TER to Boulogne Ville and change there for a Corail TER train down to Paris. These trains were declassified from Corail InterCités effective: 01/01/2019 and hence have adopted the TER Hauts-de-France pricing tariff and became cheaper! You can now book a Prix Cassés Hauts-de-France ticket as low as EUR15 for these trains online, direct with SNCF, even only a few days in advance.
The previous InterCités prems offer was around EUR35. These trains are currently formed of most comfortable voitures Corail with now declassified first class and comfortable compartments. There is a 10-15 stop over at Amiens while they change the diesel BB 67400 lok for an electric BB 22200, however this practice will end after many years from September when the new bi-mode trains built by Alstom take over, which is sad for people like me who like "real trains", but better for "normal" passengers as journey times will become faster and the trains are to be extended through to Calais again, eliminating the need to change in Boulogne-sur-Mer.
So if you need to travel between London and Paris as short notice sans ES/TGV then this is the way to go!
Due to the IC trains being downgraded to TER, the whole trip can now be made for as little as EUR40 one way, even at just a couple of days in advance, and I think that beats a bus trip every time!

Another but more expensive rail-sea-rail option is through Newhaven and Dieppe with Tansmanche Ferries / DFDS Seaways. Southern train from London Victoria to Lewes, change there for Newhaven Town -(NOT Newhaven Harbour or Newhaven Marine anymore as the terminal was moved up the port some years ago!), the terminal building is a short walk away. On the other side in Dieppe, the port was relocated out of town when the tunnel opened back in the 90\'s and the old Gare Maritime closed down, so it is now about a half an hour walk to la Gare de Dieppe or you can take a taxi for about five-six euro. A bus meets ferries in the summer months and costs only a couple of euro.
From Dieppe, you take a TER to Rouen-Rive-Droite and change there for a Normandie InterCité -(soon to become TER with possible cheaper pricing structure as in Hauts-de-France) down to Paris Saint-Lazare. This route takes longer than going through Dover-Calais does but the crossing is a bit more relaxing and the DFDS ships are nicer with friendly French crews in and cheaper and onboard facilities, in the summer months they have sun loungers and chairs out on the deck.
An overnight boat also operates and you can book a cabin or there are reclining chairs and sofas, and if you have trouble sleeping, then bar is open all night and they usually show live sports on a big screen.
During the Euro 2016 was like a floating party on the channel when France were playing! No doubt one of their an all-night-parties took place aboard the Côte D’Albatre when France won the WM last year!!

Both of these routes are also goof for InterRailers as no reservations are required for either of them, unlike Eurostar.

Hopefully this info will help someone.


Ciao!
Kris.

bumble2006
Traveller
2 comments

Just to confirm -as there are two conflicting replies here:
"With Interrail you can not travel in your country of residence. As it is the UK in your case, you can not use Interrail to travel in the UK."
My understanding was that of the second response that " its now valid for one out and back trip within the home country, so they can now use it to/from get to a Eurstar station, port of airport."

We are Scottish residents travelling from North of Inverness as a family of four to KX to pick up a Eurostar to Paris to start a trip to Siciliy (so the travel from here to London is a fairy significant bit).
I was planning this section to be using the Interrail.SImilarly - on return to UK (by Air - three weeks later) I planned to use the last day as London back to Inverness on the LNER service.

Can you confirm that the single one out and one back journeys are covered.

Mike

Flo
Traveller
10724 comments

Hi Mike!

There is outbound and one inbound journey included in all Interrail Global Passes. With these journeys you can make one journey from your hometown (or the closest station) to a port, airport or the border. These inbound/outbound journeys have to be completed within one day and require the use of a travel day.
Read more in the official conditions of use: [ux]https://eurailgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/Interrail-CoU-2019.pdf[/ux]

Flo