We recently received another great question from a reader that we want to address for our general readership.
The question: "Hi, my buddy and I are about to embark on a 3-4 month backpack of Europe. We would like to travel by train but don't know which pass to buy. Any suggestions??"
The answer: Eurail has a three-month pass you could look into. Make sure to look at the “saver” prices if you are older than 25 and you and your buddy always plan to be together. With the saver, if two or more people purchase the pass together, you can save about 15 percent of the cost.
The best thing to do in your situation is to go to countries that don’t use the rail pass during the beginning and end of your journey. For instance, lets say you decide to do a four-month trip. Buy the three-month pass (it is only $254 more than the two-month) and fly to England first since the Eurail pass does not cover the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). Travel around for two or three weeks and see London, Bath, Stonehenge, Glastonbury festival, Edinburgh, The Loch Ness Monster, Newcastle and catch a rugby match or two. Then fly (check out the great deals at www.ryanair.com) to Barcelona or any other city you might like to spend a few days in. (Sidenote: Flight on Ryanair from London to Barcelona on April 22 is $46 per person one way, which includes one checked bag.)
After you are finished with that town and you’re ready to move on, take the train to the next destination and get the rail pass validated. You have now been traveling for nearly three weeks and the pass has just started the three-month run. Then at the end of your journey, end up near an area that is not on the pass or in a city you’d like to relax and spend a week in. Now you have been traveling for four months and only needed to buy the three-month pass.
We did the math on purchasing a one-month global pass and then buying a 10-day, three-country pass, but it works out better to just buy the three-month pass if you’re going to be there for that long.
For travel in Great Britain, look into buying a young person's railcard, which saves about one third off each train ticket and also look into www.megabus.com. Riding a bus sucks, but it can be about $3-5 from one city to the next.
For more information on rail cards, visit http://www.redwinehelpsyousleepontrains.com/2009/11/travel-in-uk-young-persons-railcard.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment