pndnca
Traveller
1 comments
Posted 12 years ago
Hi, I'm 18 and 12 of my closest friends and I are trying to organize a summer 3 week rail trip through Europe this summer. Right now we're thinking we'd like to visit these cities in this order:
Amsterdam
Paris
Prague
Munich
Vienna
Venice
Rome
Barcelona
Madrid
We may have to cut out Spain, but that would be a shame. We'd welcome any and all advice as to what kind of passes would work best for us and/or should we just book single tickets instead of passes? Are we taking on too much?? This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for us to experience Europe together before we all go our separate ways.
Thanks!!!
Peter
Traveller
9331 comments
Hi.
It might be better to change the order.
Start in Paris, then Amsterdam, ...
If you [b]skip Spain[/b], do it this way:
Paris - Amsterdam - Berlin - Prague - Krakow - Budapest - Vienna - Venice - Rome - Munich
If you want to [b]include Spain[/b]:
Paris - Amsterdam - Berlin - Prague - Munich - Vienna - Venice - Rome - ferry - Barcelona - Madrid
So you have good train connections and you can use night trains to save time.
On Rome - Barcelona use the ferry:
[u]https://rail.cc/en/train/rome-to-barcelona[/u]
For this trip I recommend an Eurail Youth Pass Global, 10 travel days in 2 months:
[u]https://rail.cc/en/eurail-global-pass[/u]
To find train schedules, have a look here:
[u]https://rail.cc/en/search-eurail-route[/u]
Think about the route. Then we can continue planing. :)
Peter :)
pndnca
Traveller
1 comments
Peter,
Thanks for the tips. We need to keep our costs down (our budget is $4,000 or less) and with airfare running $1300 pp, assuming $100/day/pp for food and hostels that's $1900 for 19 days (2 are air travel days), which only leaves us $800 for train/ferry travel and incidentals. We are willing to cut out Spain, Prague, Vienna and Berlin (some of us have been to these before with family), but don't want to cut Paris, Amsterdam (thought we could add Brussels in there), Munich, Venice or Rome. It would still be great to at least get to Barcelona (although we could skip Madrid) and Prague would be our first choice to leave in a city if we could.
Does Paris - Brussels - Amsterdam - Prague - Munich - Venice - Rome - Barcelona work?
or
Amsterdam - Brussels - Paris - Venice - Rome - Munich?
Would we be able to save money if we kept our countries down to 5 or less?
Thanks for your help. This is all kind of overwhelming with so many of us but should be an awesome trip!
nltrainer
Traveller
1336 comments
here in EUR we all do with euro-and so should you. the rate to (what type anyway? Ozzie?) $$ is unpredictable.
Now do some math: 18 days-9 cities in 9 countries-some very long away-that makes barely 1,5-2 days per town-assuming you are bent to using nighttrains, which do not even exist between all these citypairs.
I (have to) follow many of these regular traveller-boards and most claim the bare survival minimum for WEST Europe is 50-60 eur/day for hostel, food (do it yourself-no fancy restrts-but not all the time McDo either) and some sights. Add to that cost of railpass or travel. Eastern Europe is a little cheaper-but not that much anymore (it is much cheaper for normal tickets). That is if you are able to adapt to how Europe works-if you can only survive on your own brands etc-the cost rises into the sky.
NOOne will be able to take you by hand and do all that math for you if a pass is cheaper or not-plus that there are many more types of passes as just the big global one. IF someone says payasyougo is cheaper for all this-thats not true. you MAY be able to save if you preorder several cheaper long-dist tickets-but then you have to know how to and tie yourself in to a fixed regime.
ES/and esp. MADrid is awfully hot in summer and the city deserted-all the Spaniards go to the beach then.
IF that Espana is such a draw-then look at cheap airlines, like RYAN or Easyjet for the long distance and barely existing trains. You could also get more out of such a trip by booking an OPENJAW air=leave from another town back homey as you fly into=saves you the last trip back to start.