3 months europe speedrun

MisterSteve
Traveller
912 comments

The first question to get past whenever anyone mentions three months in Europe is your passport, which country issued it? Does it need a seperate visa for the Schengen zone, or if it qualifies for short stay without visa will the 180 days before you start have any time in Schengen? From a zero start the short stay scheme allows 90 days within 180 days.

The map seems to have been produced by following an App that only shows lines with reservable fast trains. For Great Britain and Ireland it's very wrong. For Paris and Brussels the fastest way is usually Eurostar (which will cost about €35 each way and must be reserved early) via London. But you have a line to Cardiff in Wales and not beyond. Trains run to the south Wales ferry ports and you can cross to the south coast of Ireland without going back to London. From there you can head north to Belfast - with a short bus link you can save going back to Dublin from the north west corner (is that Sligo or Donegal?). Ferries go from Belfast (or nearby Larne) to south west Scotland and then by train into Glasgow.

Schengen visas (or the Schengen 90 day rule) do not apply in UK or Republic of Ireland, check what you need instead. EU ID cards are not accepted by UK.

fospifopsigufumcom
Traveller
2 comments

Well first of all thank you for your comment! I have Turkish passport and as a Turkish visitor i need Schengen visa which i don't have yet.

Yes i made the map only using fast trains since i didn't know any other lines existed till now.

I didn't know that i had to take another visa for UK which is sad.
As a 17yo student which will turn 18 next month i can't afford UK visa nor €35 train ride so i will be excluding UK from my 3 month Europe speedrun.

Is it possible for you to help me organize a route? it seems like there is lot i don't know.

Thank you again!

argon
Traveller
350 comments

First thing you need is an Interrail/Eurail (Depend on your home-country , Interail is for Europe and Eurail for all other but the price is the same (I dont know if Turkey counts as Asia or Europe )) Global Pass for 3 months , Global Passes are valid on most highspeed-trains , regional-trains and Night Trains (For example Inter/Eurailpass are not valid for Flixtrain ) , this full 3-month Pass cost you 711€ or around 15000 TRY wich is available on Interrail.eu or eurail.com . But please note that you have to Reservate most of the Highspeed-trains (without Germany , Austria and Swiss for example ) and always sleeper-trains . Mostly you can book that reservations at the Inter/Eurail-App or at the website from the operator or the State-owend-Railcompany ( from the country where the train mostly run (For example in Germany is the SOR DB or ÖBB in Austria ) . Most of the Nightrains from Central Europe operated by NightJet wich is a part of ÖBB , so the Website is nightjet.com/en . Oh nearly i forgot that there are special therms to use ferrys , i linked the ferry therms for the Ferrys between Greece and Italy and GB and Ireland : https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/tips-and-tricks/trains-europe/ferries/superfast-ferries , https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/tips-and-tricks/trains-europe/ferries/minoan-lines and https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/tips-and-tricks/trains-europe/ferries/irish-ferries . Best regards !

argon
Traveller
350 comments

Or for all Ferrys : https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/tips-and-tricks/trains-europe/ferries

fospifopsigufumcom
Traveller
2 comments

Is there any way to go around the seat reservations even if it's a longer route or slower train? like no seat reservations at all.

And i think Interrail/Eurail counts turkey as Europe

MisterSteve
Traveller
912 comments

For a Turkish passport a UK visa would cost £100 (valid for 6 months but bad idea for a visit of a few days) and Irish visa are 60€ .

Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania are also NOT covered by Schengen so you need to check whether visas are needed there, but Serbia is best avoided because a lot of the railway is closed.

Greek railways also have big problems so you need to check very carefully whether the trains you need will be running.

The border between all EU countries and Belarus are closed and there is no rail service between Poland and the three Baltic EU countries.

Turkey is included in Interrail, but the rules are that you can only use the pass in your own country for one direct journey to the border and one from border to home - no time to visit friends etc.

The only way to avoid high speed reservations (which vary from about 5€ to 35€) is to not use those trains - which will slow you down a lot. Also in Italy the pass isn't valid at all on a lot of regional trains. Reservations in Spain are almost impossible to buy before you reach Spain and Portugal is very difficult to reach because of Spain - and because there are almost no trains across the border. There are NO compulsory reservation fees in Germany except the rare "ICE Sprinter" trains but some long distance trains are run by Flixtrain and the pass is not valid on those.

You need a good railway map, the one used by many Interrailers is this https://www.europeanrailtimetable.eu/rail-map-europe-3rd-edition-revised-folded-1111-p.asp you might find it in specialist shops in Turkey (try cities with universities) or get a used copy from ebay perhaps.

argon
Traveller
350 comments

No, for ICE Sprinter you dont need a reservation . Note that you cannot use many regional-trains in Poland because every Woidwodship have his own transport-company , and PKP only operate Interregio (TLK) and Long-Distance Trains like EC/IC/EIP/EIC . When you will travel from Poland to Lituana you can also use the direkt train from Białystock to Vilnius , operated by PKP (trought the Suwałkien Gap , the small border between PL and LT IC 144) . For the Seatreservation -> You wrote that you will make a "Speed Run "trough Europe and not a "Slow Run" , but definitely you have thousands (!) of train-changes when you will travel without of any reservations .

argon
Traveller
350 comments

Trust me , that make no sence and zero fun etc. , but thats your decision .

nltrainer
Traveller
1336 comments

Merhaba!
IF its mostly speed you want, then your map shows quite a lot of connections that do not even have trains nowadays or very slow or just 1/day. And the really hi-speed trains, in FR-IT-DE-ES have mostly quite high extra charges also for passholders.
For many hints: seat61.com, by Marc Smith, has all overland routings from UK to all EUR countries- just use the parts that fit in your plans. It is very much pro-train and does not watch cost-it thinks anyone has money enough for that pleasure, so you may have to adapt.
Countires that allow lots of trains going fast without need to RES; DE-CH-NL-AT-DK-BE, so the ones in the middle of EUR-also most with frequent enough service like ev. hour and also in DE/AT quite a few overnite trains with seats=no need to pay a lot extra for sleeper. That also holds for most of UK-but thats the visum you need.
BTW- right now I am in week 6 of a 2 month pass, bought last yr in a sale with 50% discount and have been in 16 countries in 6 different trips.Have covered nearly 10.000 KMs, with sitting in trains for > 5 full days alltogether.

argon
Traveller
350 comments

Also in Czech Repuplic youre not needed a Reservation , otherwise its cost there around 3,10€ (72 CZK)(Especially in RJs to Hungary ) . The extra-fee for ICEs its (in my opinion ) not too expensive (4,50€) , in most cases ICE are very full so its mostly good to reservate . And its right that you dont have a Reservation in DK and DE but the trains between CPH and HH have one when they cross the border , normally between Padborg st and Flensburg/Schleswig (If the IC dont make a stop at Flensburg/Schleswig its until Hamburg) . A reservation is (nearly) always for the complete part of the trip , for example its possible to make a reservation from Copenhaven to Vienna , for 4,50 € , thats good value !