Train Travel

Although I'm sure it will seem simple after being in Europe for a while, figuring out the options for traveling by train can be confusing. You can buy individual tickets, single-country passes, multi-country passes, consecutive days tickets or "flexi" limited day passes. Then there is the 1st class / 2nd class option and the sometimes-optional, sometimes-mandatory seat reservations. A lot more to consider than I had always heard, "just buy a Eurail pass". It gives me empathy for what people go through to buy a lift ticket.

Today, I found a great tool online for sifting through all of the options on the RailEurope web site. With their tool, I was able to enter the countries I plan to visit, how long I will stay and how many days I plan to travel within each. The calculator then evaluates all of the available pass products and recommends a combination of passes I can buy to satify all of my requirements at the lowest possible cost. Sometimes it takes 4-5 pass products for 1 person. Come on - no lift ticket is that difficult to buy!

It is really a pretty impressive software tool. There was just one problem. Of all the information it needed to make a recommendation, the only thing I kind of know is the countries I will visit. How long will I stay? Where will I go within each country? How many days will I travel by train? Who knows! Almost all of the assumptions needed to buy the right pass(es) would be a big fat guess. By design, I am not really sure where I am going and when.

After about 3 nights of research, I landed on the only logical answer. Get the big-mac-daddy pou pou platter. I ordered a 3-month Eurail Global Pass. It is the most flexible option available. Travel any day, anywhere in 21 countries for 3 months. It isn't quite that simple when you factor in reservation charges and the occasional excluded private train lines, but for the most part, it should be "get on the train and go".

The countdown timer shows 13 days!