shroob
Traveller
0 comments
Posted 13 years ago
Hello all,
I'm new to travelling and would really appreciate any help/suggestions you may have.
I'm planning an InterRail trip in May/June and am trying to sort out the route, which leads me to my first quesiton:
1) Is it best to set a route and plan that religiously knowing where you are meant to be or when. OR is it better to have a general idea of where you want to go and turn up at stations hoping there is a train sometime soon?
My route so far is:
Fly to Paris - Geneva - Fussen - Prague - Warsaw - Bratislava - Budapest - Sofia - Athens - Venice - Rome - Pisa (Fly home)
I may be biting off more than I can chew with that route, what are your thoughts on this?
Also I am having trouble putting 'Athens' into the InterRail planner to find connections.
Lastly, apart from the £450 InterRail ticket - how much should I expect to spend? I don't mind cheap digs at all, even sleeping on trains is fine by me.
Many thanks for your patience and advice
Flo
Traveller
10724 comments
Hi!
I have done both: Travelling along a fix route that we worked out before leaving as well as starting with no real aim and going next where we thought it could be interesting. Both options have their (dis)advantages. However, I dont want to turn up at the station not knowing when a train will run where I want to go. This is why I always have a current edition of the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable with you - quite practical! :D If you dont want to lug around that book I'd recommend to have at least a short look at online timetables before you decide where to go next. Remember that some trains do require an advance reservation so it is always good to know if you need to aquire such a reservation before taking a train (although this wont be the case often during your trip - maybe in France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, depending on the train categories).
How long do you want to travel? For a one month trip I think you wont have problems fitting everything in, during 3 weeks it could be a little packed schedule. Anyway, I would not recommend to go to Greece at the moment, read here: :arr: [u]https://rail.cc/en/new-trains-from-thessaloniki-to-skopje-belgrade-and-sofia/f5508[/u]
Domestic train services in Greece are not incorporated in the standard online schedule planners. Have a look here: :arr: [u]https://rail.cc/en/greece-national-routes-cu/f5661[/u]
I'd calculate with a maximum of ~50€ for reservations (if using the occasional night train), can be less if not travelling overnight (although you can save on accomodation costs doing so). For accomodation/food/stuff I always calculate with ~25-35€ per day.
Flo 8)