I'm thinking about traveling around Western Europe (late April/May) and I've heard that you can buy a single rail ticket that'll allow you to travel between various countries. Has anyone here used one of these? I googled eurorail and quite a few different sites with similar names popped up, not sure if they're all legit. Basically I want to spend up to a month traveling around France, Germany, Spain and Amsterdam. Would one of these tickets be the best way to do this?
If you live in the EU, you can get a ticket called 'Interrail', the Eurorail is for non-EU residents. You can get it for up to a month and it's valid for pretty much all of Europe. I did it last year from late May to early July and it was one of the best things I've ever done! We managed to get to Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Bratislava, Vienna, Budapest, Venice, Verona, Pisa, Sienna, Florence and Rome, just spending a few days in each place. It's very cheap for under-26's, but still good value for money if you're over, although it's worth comparing it to individual train fares. The main interrail site is green and white with lots of cheesy smiles of people on trains! I got my ticket from there, so it's legit. Hope that helps!
Thanks Smiley Lady, that helps a lot. It's cheaper than I thought it would be for 1 month's continuous travel. What did you do about accommodation? Did you just stay in hostels?
Yeah we just stayed in hostels all the way around, sleeping in dorms and stuff We tended to book them as we went along, like a day or two in advance via hostelworld or something, rather than all before hand or when you turn up in the city! That way you still get a bit of spontaniety, but don't pay too much You can do the whole trip really cheaply by living on cheese sandwiches the whole way round! If you try and book hostels with a free breakfast, that's one meal already paid for and you can try and steal some extra food for lunch time!
How safe did you feel staying in hostels? I take it you had to keep all your things with you at all times.
We felt pretty safe in most hostels, although there were one or two that were a bit dodgy! But most provide lockers and stuff for you to keep your things in. And the people you meet are often very like minded and you feel pretty safe around them. Just do a bit of research into which ones provide the security you need, but we didn't get anything stolen whilst we were travelling!
