Is the Eurail Pass worth it?
Asked by
eadinad (
1278
)
March 18th, 2009
My sister and I are going backpacking this summer. We are spending a month touring London, France, Italy, Greece, and Croatia. I was looking into Eurail passes and I found this:
http://www.studentpasses.com/eurail-eurailselect.htm
I’d use it to cover France, Italy, and Greece – are they adjoining?
As far as I can tell, it means we can spend any 10 days within a two month period train-traveling, for about $429 (we’re both student aged).
Am I right? Is that what it means?
Also, given that we’ll be spending about 2 days + travel time in each of the 6–8 cities we want to visit, is this the right pass, and does this seem worth it for the money?
I think TGV tickets would be an additional $11 per trip, but they cost about $100 without a pass.
I’m so confused about all of this. Please, someone enlighten me!
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7 Answers
Greece and Italy aren’t adjoining, at least not in terms of the land. You could travel to Greece by ferry from the south of the Apeninne (Italian) Peninsula or… you could go from Croatia to Greece, although I’m not sure if there’s a complete railroad network from Croatia to Greece (considering you have to travel through Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia).
@LanceVance,
Yeah, I meant adjoining for purposes of the ticket. On second thought, though, we’re doing the Greek islands more than the mainland, so buying a train pass for Greece doesn’t even make sense.
A two country pass, though, for just France and Italy is like $230. I still can’t tell if it’s worth it, for maybe 5 – 6 train rides.
I’m in the same position as you are. Some friends and I are planing to go to Spain and spend some 10 days there and now we don’t know wheter we should buy a pass for all the countries we will travel through or only Spain.
Yes its worth it but dont buy it for ten days, but it so that you can make the trips whenever you want. So you can spend more time in any of these places.
In my experience it has been cheaper (or basically the same price) and much faster to fly from country to country, even last minute, than to travel by train. By this I mean purchasing tickets from companies like Ryan Air, etc, while you are abroad. For some of the closer distances you can always opt for rail. Personally, I didn’t find many of the long, time consuming, and crowded train rides all that charming; I’d rather be spending that time in the actual city.
When I went to France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and the Czech Republic this summer, my French teacher who lives in Europe during the summer suggested that I get a Eurail Pass. I was traveling with my family and it was more economical to rent a car and drive all of those places, but under different circumstances, I would’ve.
the Eurail (wasn’t it Eurorail?) pass is certainly worth it, and it’s one of the great regrets of my life, spending 6 years hoping to be old enough to use it, and then never getting around to it until I was too old. But I have done the journeys, either by train or car.
The point though is to really use it. Don’t just go to 3 countries, visit them all. Why not Spain? Slovakia? Poland? Austria? Croatia? Ok, I’d stay clear of Bosnia or Belarus, but most countries are pretty safe and also very beautiful by train. It’s a unique experience, especially at places where the trains are 50 years old and stink of WWII urine and communist-time tobacco.
Greece does not have a border with the other two countries, but I think you get a discount for the ferry to/from Italy. Not sure if Igoumenitsa has any railway, so go to Patra instead.
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