While a rail pass is often the smart way to ride the rails in Europe, sometimes it makes sense to purchase individual train tickets between specific destinations (either instead of, or in addition to, a rail pass &#; see my tips for figuring out whether a pass pencils out for your trip).
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Unlike rail passes, it's generally easy to buy point-to-point train tickets right at the station (whereas most rail passes aren't widely available in Europe). But it can be smart to buy in advance for certain trains and destinations, especially if your dates are set and you don't want to risk a specific train journey selling out, or if you're hoping to land an advance-purchase discount.
With a valid rail pass, you just hop on any covered train that doesn't require reservations. But even unreserved point-to-point tickets have some flexibility, since you can still make any number of stops and connections along the most direct route between the starting and ending stations printed on your ticket (within a single country your trip usually just has to be completed within the same calendar day &#; or within a few hours in Italy; for many international point-to-point tickets you have four days to complete the journey).
You have three main options for buying point-to-point tickets: through a US-based retailer before leaving home (we even sell them right here), through the website of one of Europe's national railways, and in person at Europe's train stations (and at some European travel agencies). For big discounts, buy tickets up to three months ahead (just note that these tickets are nonrefundable and nonchangeable).
The easiest way to get train tickets online is to buy them through ricksteves.com (after all, you're already here!). Virtually all US-based websites and travel agents sell European train tickets for the exact same prices you'll find here.
And rail-pass holders who still need tickets and/or seat reservations on certain trains &#; most notably Eurostar trains between Paris and London or Brussels, and any TGV &#; are smart to get their passholder-fare tickets well in advance.
Many European national rail companies allow customers to buy tickets online at the going European price (usually for faster classes of trains for which reservations are required, or at least recommended).
If you're looking for the cheapest possible ticket between A and B &#; especially if A and B are in the same country &#; this is the way to go. Advance tickets can be an especially smart buy for popular high-speed trains (such as France's TGV trains and Italy's Le Frecce trains), which frequently sell out.
Not all national-railway sites are created equal: While many are fairly easy to navigate (see my tips for using the well-designed British, French, German, Irish, Italian, Swedish, and Swiss railway sites), some are difficult for foreigners to use (notably the Austrian, Norwegian, and Spanish railway sites; PayPal solves some credit-card difficulties).
Your ticket may be a QR code or barcode on your , an emailed confirmation code redeemable at the station (in the same country that operates the website you bought it on), or a print-at-home document. Online tickets are valid for a specific date and time and have strict refund restrictions, so read the fine print carefully.
Once in Europe, you can simply get tickets at the station (or on your ), usually without much fuss, either on your day of travel or in advance (see my tips for buying tickets in European train stations). This is the best option if you'd prefer to keep your itinerary more spontaneous. You can even get tickets for trains in another country: For example, if your trip starts in Paris, you can buy your Berlin-to-Prague ticket at any Parisian train station. Tickets bought at train-station windows tend to be easier to change (or have refunded) than tickets bought online.
In some cities you can avoid trekking to the train station by visiting a neighborhood travel agency or branch office of the national railroad. This convenience may come with a fee, but if the agency is easier for you to get to than the train station, buying tickets there can save lots of time and hassle (and travel agents may have more time and English-language skills than the people behind the train-station counter).
European train fares are based primarily on the distance traveled. Each country has its own "euros per kilometer" formula, though the type of train also affects the price (logically, slower trains are usually cheaper than faster ones). For faster classes of trains, however, many European rail companies have moved to a dynamic pricing system &#; similar to how airfares work &#; in which a fare can vary depending on demand, restrictions, and how early you purchase.
The quickest way to get a rough idea of what you'd pay for any given train trip in Europe is to check my cost-estimate maps.
If you're buying point-to-point tickets, be aware of the ways you can qualify for a discount (whether buying through a national-railway website or in person). For details, check this site's country-specific rail pages for any countries you're planning to visit.
Advance purchase (a week to several months in advance) can save you significant money in many countries (most notably Austria, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden), especially for faster or longer rides. On-sale dates vary by country, route, and time of year, with most starting two to four months in advance of travel, and six months ahead for Germany and the Eurostar Chunnel train. In some areas (such as Switzerland and most eastern countries), advance-purchase deals either don't exist or aren't worth the hassle. In most places, tickets for slower regional or medium-speed trains cost the same whether they're bought two months or two minutes before the train leaves.
Round-trip tickets can be cheaper than two one-way tickets in some countries (Britain, Ireland, and Spain; sometimes in combination with advance purchase). In Britain, a "day return" (round-trip in a single day) can be only a little bit more expensive than a single one-way ticket.
Children get ticket discounts in most of Europe (typically about 50 percent off for ages 4&#;11, sometimes free with an adult). Whether you're traveling with tickets or a rail pass, kids under 4 always travel free on your lap (though if there's an empty seat, feel free to use it).
"Youths" (usually age 12&#;25, depending on the country) can buy discount cards in Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy.
Seniors can find a few ticket deals, most of which require a discount card purchased in Europe (discounts start between ages 60 and 67).
Off-peak travel (such as midday or midweek) can be cheaper than peak-time journeys (mainly in Britain and France).
Cheap train tickets for Europe are here, city centre to city centre, no baggage fees, no booking fee and infants go free. You usually print your ticket or can show it on your .
But you need the right website for the right journey. It would be lovely if there was one website which sold tickets for all European trains at the cheapest price, but there isn't (to understand why not, read this).
Read these tips for booking European trains
On this site I'll tell you the best way to buy train tickets for your specific journeys, all you need is internet access and a credit card. Just select the city where your journey starts in the drop-down menu.
To understand how train tickets work & whether to book in advance or buy at the station, read these tips.
Each European country has its own national train operator with its own ticketing system and website. There are private operators too. Most operators offer cheap budget-airline-style fares if you book ahead, but you can only buy them from their own website or from an agency linked to that ticketing system.
Take Prague to Budapest: I tell you to book at the Czech Railways website as this sells advance-purchase tickets from &#;21, international credit cards accepted, no booking fee, you print your own ticket or show it on your . You can even choose your seat from a seat map!
No other website offers &#;21 Prague-Budapest fares, but several well-known retailers sell tickets for a whopping &#;90+ using an almost-obsolete inter-operator system called TCV, and a hard-copy ticket must be posted to you at additional cost. And no seat selection. Can you see why it matters where you buy?
Ticket delivery matters too. For example, you can book Vienna to Venice at Trenitalia.com, but tickets have to be collected from a ticket machine in Italy, no good if you're starting in Vienna. Thetrainline.com links to the Austrian Railways system & does e-tickets in either direction.
I take all this into account to tell you the cheapest & easiest way to book each specific journey, whether you live in the UK, USA, Australia, wherever.
How to use the French railways site www.sncf-connect.com
How to use the Italian railways website, trenitalia.com How to use the Spanish railways website, renfe.com
How to buy a special add-on ticket from almost any station in Britain to London International (St Pancras)
Do you need to book in advance? Can you just buy at the station?
If you can get your head around the following 3 different concepts of train ticketing, you'll understand why you're sometimes told to book in advance, sometimes to buy at the station.
(1) Local, regional, suburban trains = turn-up-and-go ticketing
Tickets for local, regional & suburban trains can be bought at the station. The price is fixed so there's no advantage in pre-buying. Reservation is usually not even possible, these trains can't sell out. Just buy a ticket at the station, hop on the next train and sit where you like. Think New York Subway! Buying online or on your saves a few minutes at the ticket office.
Domestic trains within the Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg work like this, reservation isn't even possible. You turn up, buy a fixed-price ticket at the station & catch the next train.
(2) Inter-city trains in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden = airline-style ticketing
At the other extreme, inter-city trains in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal & Sweden work like airlines, as do high-speed trains to/from France such as London-Paris Eurostars, Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam Eurostars, Paris-Germany trains, Paris-Switzerland TGVs, Paris-Milan TGVs & Paris-Barcelona TGVs.
Fares are dynamic like air fares, cheap in advance, expensive bought on the day or for busy dates. For example, Paris to Amsterdam starts at &#;35 booked months in advance (no refunds, no changes to travel plans), but costs &#;140+ for a flexible ticket bought on the day. Expensive fares usually allow changes & refunds, cheaper fares usually mean no refunds, no changes.
Every ticket comes with a reserved seat, just like flights. So trains can sell out, although in practice they seldom do except at busy periods.
The message here is clear: Pre-book to save money and be sure of a place!
(3) Inter-city trains in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark & central Europe = traditional ticketing
Inter-city trains in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and most of central Europe work the old-school way.
There's a standard flexible fare with unlimited availability and a fixed price, good for any train that day. This can't sell out, you can always turn up, buy a ticket and hop on the next train, sitting in any empty unreserved seat.
However, standard fares are expensive. You can buy cheaper advance-purchase fares if you book ahead and commit to a specific departure, limited or no refunds or changes. These have various names: Advance in the UK, Sparpreis in Germany, Sparschiene in Austria, First Minute in Czechia. The price is dynamic with limited availability at each price point. The price rises as the cheaper tickets are sold.
A seat reservation is optional, usually for a small fee of &#;3 to &#;6 per seat. If you choose not to reserve you can sit in any unreserved seat, of which there are usually many - for example, the average load factor on German IC & ICE trains is 65%. But you'll have to stand if you find all the seats taken.
For example, from Munich to Vienna you can buy a cheap advance-purchase ticket for &#;29.90, &#;39.90, &#;49.90, &#;59.90 etc., limited availability at each price level, only good for that specific departure, limited or no refunds or changes allowed. Or you can pay &#;110+ for a standard price ticket, good for any train, unlimited availability, can't sell out. Neither ticket comes with a reserved seat, you can sit in any empty unreserved seat or you can pay an extra &#;5.20 to reserve a seat. I might not bother reserving when travelling solo mid-week in February, but would reserve when travelling with my family on a Friday in July!
So pre-book to save money if you're happy committing to a specific train, but if you're happy paying full-whack you can buy on the day.
The single biggest reason people have problems buying European train ticket is that they try to look too far ahead.
Overseas visitors planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe try to buy a 50-mile ticket 11 months ahead and wonder why nothing works. Local people buy train tickets as part of their daily life, to visit Granny, attend a meeting or go shopping. They plan such trips & buy tickets hours, days or weeks ahead, not months. There's no rush, wait till bookings open!
See the booking horizons page for more about when booking opens for different types of European train.
If you need to book accommodation at your destination before train bookings open, no problem, you can hold accommodation risk-free at www.booking.com. They usually offer free cancellation up to 24 hours before your stay.
Don't buy a Eurostar ticket before onward trains open for booking. Eurostar reservations from London to Paris & Brussels open up to 11 months ahead, but onward trains typically open 3-6 months ahead. I recommend waiting until onward trains are open for booking so you can confirm times before buying a non-refundable Eurostar ticket. Unless you're prepared to take a calculated risk, as Eurostar tickets are changeable for a fee + the difference in fare. You can reduce risk by booking an earlier Eurostar, to allow for your onward train being retimed earlier.
Almost all European fares are single-leg priced, where a round trip is simply two one-ways. I usually find it easier to book one way at a time, rather than book out and back at the same time.
There are one or two exceptions: Eurostar return fares are cheaper than two one-ways, so always book a round trip on Eurostar as a return. The same applies to many journeys in Britain, where an Off-Peak one-way can be just 10p or £1 less than the equivalent Off-Peak Return.
As a general rule, stopping off means buying two separate tickets, A to B then B to C.
People who say "I want to go from A to C with a stopover at B" often bang their heads against a brick wall trying to book and end up 'confused' while people who think clearly "I want to go from A to B on this date, then B to C on that date" quickly & easily book both tickets.
Cheap advance-purchase tickets are almost always train-specific, so you can't stop off as they're only good for the train you've booked. You can get off short of your destination (generally fine in mainland Europe, but not in the UK), but the remainder of your ticket becomes worthless.
On trains with compulsory reservation (for example, mainline trains in France, Spain or Italy), you can't stop off even with flexible tickets, as they too are only valid on the train you've booked.
On local trains and on long distance trains without compulsory reservation, you can often stop off if you have a flexible ticket which allows stopovers. But check the small print as every operator has different rules. It's best to play safe & buy two tickets.
There is one useful exception, where you can pre-configure a stopover with an advance-purchase ticket
When booking a journey to, from, across or within Germany with German Railways at int.bahn.de, you can pre-programme a stopover using the Stopovers feature. Just enter a city and specify a length of stay to get (for example) a Sparpreis ticket from Munich to Vienna from &#;29.90 with a stopover in Salzburg included. Maximum 2 stopovers within the 2 day period for which Sparpreis tickets are valid. Worth knowing!
And of course, if you are making a long multi-train journey such as London to Malaga where each train is ticketed separately anyway, you can arrange stopovers simply by booking each leg for whatever date and time you want.
Advice on senior fares
Many seniors waste time obsessing about being Senior. Don't! Just go to the relevant train operator website, enter your age in the passenger details, and run an enquiry.
If any senior fares exist, they'll be shown. If they don't, you'll see normal adult fares, simples! You can pretty much say the same thing about youth fares.
If you're offered a senior or youth fare just because you entered your age, no special railcard is needed, just carry your passport as proof of age.
But don't buy any fare marked Carta, Carte, Karta, Cartafrecchia, which all mean Card. Most websites ask you what discount cards you have and won't show you card-discounted fares if you don't have one, but one or two sites show railcard fares to everyone. The biggest culprit is Trenitalia.com which shows Cartafreccia fares - don't buy these if you don't have a Cartafreccia card. It asks you for your Cartafreccia number in the next step so you can't book accidentally, but it confuses people who don't realise Cartafreccia is a discount card they don't have!
The senior or youth fare is often irrelevant
Many international train fares work like this: &#;29, &#;39, &#;49 or &#;59 limited-availability advance-purchase fares for anyone of any age, &#;80 Senior fare, &#;100 full-flex fare. The senior rate is typically a % discount off the megabucks fully-flexible fare that you'd seldom want to buy, not a discount off all fares. Only if you needed to travel at short notice when the cheap advance-purchase fares were sold out would there be any point in buying the senior fare.
For more European Standard Railsinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.
Railcards for seniors & youths: Useful for regular users, a distraction for occasional users
Some countries have their own senior or youth railcards. You buy the railcard for a fee and it gives discounts on journeys within that country for a year. In some cases railcards can be bought online (France's Carte Avantage), in other cases (Spain's Tarjeta Dorada) you can only buy them in person at a station.
However, if you'll only be there for a few weeks, you may clock up enough mileage to make a railcard worthwhile. And if you can only buy the railcard when you get there when all the cheap advance-purchase fares have sold out, a card might give you a 25% discount off a &#;100 full-flex fare when you could have booked a &#;29 fare online well in advance without a railcard.
As a general rule, you only need consider such a railcard if you are planning to make multiple journeys in that country during the course of a year, unless you can prove it'll save money. For most visitors, railcards are a distraction, just buy cheap advance-purchase fares.
Incidentally, British Senior Railcards & 16-25 Railcards don't give discounts on Eurostar or outside the UK. They're National Railcards.
To learn more about senior or youth railcards in a particular country
Go to the relevant rail operator website, see the list on the links page.
Rail+Senior card
There used to be an international railcard called a Rail+Plus Senior card which gave a 25% reduction on full fares for international journeys between a range of western & eastern European countries. However, it has now been withdrawn, no great loss as it wasn't valid on any of the 'globally priced' international trains in western Europe, which now means almost all of them!
Infants under a certain age go free on trains, no ticket required and no need to add them to your booking (Spain is an exception where infants need a ticket and so is Russia). They sit on your lap or play on the floor, they don't qualify for their own seat although no-one will mind if you plonk them down in a spare seat if there is one. Children under a certain age travel at a child rate, sometimes a 50% discount, sometimes a special child rate.
Infant & child age limits vary by country, so if you're travelling with children, see the train travel with children page. There are two key pitfalls to watch for when booking children:
Child fare more expensive than adult
This happens occasionally when (a) the train operator has created an adult full-price fare and a child full-price fare and some cheap adult advance-purchase fares, without creating any child advance-purchase fares, and (b) the website software isn't clever enough to know that a child can use an adult advance-purchase fare, just not the other way round! So keep your eyes open and brain engaged! The solution is to re-run the enquiry with 2 adults selected, or find a better booking website.
Some websites apply the wrong child age limits
Due to technical limitations French Railways-based websites including www.sncf-connect.com apply the French Railways under-4 free, under-12 child fare age limit to any train they book, whatever age limits in fact apply. It's a particular problem when booking Paris-Germany trains as French Railways blindly apply their own age limit, but if you book the same trains using the German Railways website int.bahn.de this applies the more generous German policy, under 6s free, under-15 child rate, under 15s free if accompanied by an adult using a Sparpreis fare. So if you have kids, use the German Railways website not the French!
Zen & the sound of one hand clapping
Incidentally, if you took a 5-year-old on a TGV from Paris to Stuttgart he wouldn't need a ticket according to the German Railways website as he's under 6, but according to the French Railways website he's over 4 so he'd be travelling illegally without a child ticket. It all depends which website you don't use to not buy him a ticket. Is this the rail equivalent of one hand clapping? I knew a philosophy degree would come in handy!
When kids under 15 go free
Two long-standing permanent offers are worth knowing about:
On journeys to, from, across or within Germany, kids under 15 usually go free when accompanying their parent, guardian or grandparent using a cheap advance-purchase Sparpreis fare booked at the German Railways (DB) website int.bahn.de. Paris to Salzburg, Amsterdam to Prague, Brussels to Vienna, Berlin to Zurich, Munich to Copenhagen, it applies to all these and more when booked at int.bahn.de.
On journeys to, from or within Austria, kids under 15 go free when accompanying their parent, guardian or grandparent using a cheap advance-purchase Sparschiene fare booked at the Austrian Railways (ÖBB) website www.oebb.at. Vienna to Venice, Vienna to Prague, Budapest to Salzburg, Innsbruck to Verona, it applies to all these and more.
In both cases, you just add your child to the booking in the normal way and you should find they are included at no cost.
Railpasses give unlimited travel around most of Europe or you can buy a pass to cover just one country. See the Interrail pass page if you live in Europe or the Eurail pass page if you live outside Europe.
Railpasses aren't always about saving money, for a simple trip involving up to 4 train rides the cheapest option will be advance-purchase fares booked 2 to 4 months ahead, not four days of unlimited flexible travel using a pass. But passes give you the freedom to tour Europe flexibly, advance-purchase fares tie you to a specific train, no refunds or changes to travel plans. Touring Europe with a stack of inflexible advance-purchase fares would be risky because if a strike, fire, flood or landslide cancelled one ride so you couldn't take the remaining trains as planned, your remaining tickets would become worthless. With a pass you can re-plan, re-schedule and re-route as you like.
If you simply want to travel from A to B cheaply, pre-book an advance-purchase ticket a month or two ahead and forget about passes. Railpasses generally save money over expensive long-distance flexible tickets, but not always against the cheap advance-purchase fares that you can get by planning a few months in advance. For a summary of the classic 'Should I buy a railpass or point-to-point tickets?' argument, see the Railpass & Eurail page or the Interrail pass page.
The most important piece of advice, when people find booking systems won't handle (say) Avignon to Pisa all in one go, or won't give a cheap fare for (say) Zurich to Florence, or the Italian Railways website won't book an indirect train to Luzern: Split the booking!
Some booking systems can only handle direct trains, for example Spain www.renfe.com (other than a limited number of key pre-programmed connections). The Italian railway website www.trenitalia.com can handle changes of train within Italy, and direct trains from Italy, but not journeys with a change of train outside Italy, such as Milan to Luzern with a change at Arth Goldau. The French system at www.sncf-connect.com can handle a maximum of 2 or 3 changes, but no more than that. Very few sites can handle complex multi-leg journeys.
The solution is to break the journey down into bite-size chunks and book each part (and if necessary, each individual train) at the relevant operator's website. It's often helpful to start by finding a suitable end-to-end journey using the German Railways all-Europe online planner at int.bahn.de, as this can happily work out multi-country multi-leg journeys, but not sell tickets.
For example, no train operator website can book you from Amsterdam to Benidorm near Alicante in Spain all in one go. But www.nsinternational.nl will book Amsterdam-Paris. The French Railways website www.sncf-connect.com will book Paris-Barcelona and the Spanish Railways website www.renfe.com will book Barcelona-Alicante. A local ticket from Alicante to Benidorm can then easily be bought on the day at the tram station, so no need to worry about that. Some creative thinking is sometimes required!
There's one other reason for booking a long or complex journey in stages. Journey planners blindly allow the same minimum connection times whatever the consequences of a missed connection. On a major journey across Europe I recommend padding connections at major interchange points in case of delay, allowing an hour or two, not a few minutes. That usually means you should book it in stages.
If I'm unfamiliar with a ticket selling site, the first thing I check is ticket delivery. With trains, not everything is e-ticketed. For example, Italian railways Trenitalia.com will happily sell you a ticket from Vienna to Venice, but hard-copy tickets must be collected from a Trenitalia ticket machine at an Italian station, no good if you're starting in Vienna. The Austrian Railways website oebb.at gives print-your-own tickets for these trains so can be used to book this route in either direction. I take this into account in recommending the right website to use for each journey.
If you live in the UK or another European country, get a Curve card for a better exchange rate and to avoid foreign currency transaction fees when buying tickets in a foreign currency, see explanation below. It also saves on fees & exchange rates when taking cash out of foreign ATMs.
Booking your own tickets online and putting a trip together yourself is the cheapest option. But if time, hassle and a lack of the necessary expertise are your main concerns, not cost, you can get a specialist train tour agency to arrange your trip, with train tickets, transfers and hotels arranged for you. As you're booking a package, not individual tickets, it also gives you greater protection if something affects part of your journey, such as a strike.
Railbookers is a market leader with offices in the UK, USA & Australia.
UK call 864 , railbookers.co.uk
US call free 1-888-829-, see website
Canada call 1-855-882-, see website
Australia call 971 526, see website
New Zealand call 000 554 or see website.
Byway (Byway.travel) is a new UK-based eco-holiday firm with a 5-star TrustPilot rating. They can book trips for you as a package including hotels with package protection, a 100% Covid refund guarantee, free disruption & re-planning and on-demand support while you're away.
To see pre-configured packages from the UK, use the journey planner on their website. First book a one-way outward journey to your destination city on your outward date. Then change the direction of the arrow and book an inward journey on your return date.
Or they can build a trip to your requirements if you like, call 131 (open 09:00-17:00 Monday-Friday, from outside the UK call +44 300 131 ) or them or use this contact form. Please say you heard about them from Seat 61.
Tailor Made Rail can also organise European train tours, with hotels and transfers. Call their dedicated seat61 line 020 and quote seat 61 when booking. From outside the UK call +44 20 . Lines open 09:00-17:30 Monday-Friday. Their website is www.tailormaderail.com.
You can book your hotels before booking your trains. Trains normally can't be booked more than 90 days ahead and people often want to confirm their accommodation before than that. I generally use www.booking.com for hotels as they usually let you book rooms with free cancellation. This means you can book hotels at no risk, months before train bookings open.
Left luggage for free. Hotels will almost always look after your bags for free if you need to check out and catch an afternoon or evening train, or if you arrive in the morning before you can check in to your room.
Hotel buffet breakfast, even if you're not staying there. If you're arriving early, perhaps by overnight sleeper train, don't forget that you can usually walk into a large hotel near the station and pay for their buffet breakfast even if you're not staying there. All the coffee, juice and cooked breakfast you can eat and drink, for a fixed price.
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Guide to train tickets & fares within the UK
London to Bath by train
London to York by train
London to Edinburgh by train
London to Scotland by Caledonian Sleeper
London to Cornwall by Night Riviera sleeper
Train & ferry tickets to the Channel Islands
Train & ferry tickets to the Isle of Man
Cheap train & ferry tickets to Belfast for £58
Cheap train & ferry tickets to Dublin & Ireland from £51.10
Each destination country page gives step-by-step instructions for booking a train journey from the UK to destinations in that European country.
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Paying for a guidebook may seem an unnecessary expense, but it's probably just a tiny fraction of what you're spending on your whole trip. You will see so much more, and know so much more about what you're looking at, if you have a decent guidebook. For the independent traveller, I think the best ones out there are either the Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide. Both guidebooks are excellent, and you won't regret buying one..! Alternatively, the 'Europe by Rail' guide combines country information with basic train information.
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Booking.com is my favourite hotel booking site and I generally use it to book all my hotels in one place. I've come to trust booking.com's review scores, you won't be disappointed with any hotel that scores 8.0 or more. Crucially, booking.com usually lets you book with free cancellation, which means you can confirm accommodation risk-free before train booking opens and/or you can hold accommodation while you finalise your itinerary and alter your plans as they evolve - a feature I use all the time when planning a trip. I never book hotels non-refundably!
www.hostelworld.com: If you're on a tight budget, don't forget about the backpacker hostels. Hostelworld offers online booking of dorm beds or ultra-cheap private rooms in backpacker hostels in most European cities at rock-bottom prices.
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You should take out travel insurance with at least £1m or preferably £5m medical cover from a reliable insurer. It should cover trip cancellation and loss of cash & belongings up to a reasonable limit. These days, check you're covered for covid-19-related issues, and use an insurer whose cover isn't invalidated by well-meant but excessive Foreign Office travel advice against non-essential travel. An annual policy is usually cheapest even for just 2 or 3 trips a year, I have an annual policy with Staysure.co.uk myself. Don't expect travel insurance to bail you out of every missed connection, see the advice on missed connections here. Here are some suggested insurers, I get a little commission if you buy through these links, feedback always welcome.
www.staysure.co.uk offers enhanced Covid-19 protection and gets 4.7 out of 5 on Trustpilot.
www.columbusdirect.com is also a well-know brand.
If you live in the USA try Travel Guard USA.
Don't rely on WiFi, download an eSIM with a European mobile data package and stay connected. Most newer mobile phones can download a virtual SIM including iPhone 11 & later, see device compatibility list. There's no need to buy a physical SIM card! Maya.net is a reliable eSIM data retailer with a 4.5 out of 5 Trustpilot rating and a range of packages including unlimited data.
Most banks give you a poor exchange rate then add a foreign transaction fee on top. A Curve MasterCard means no foreign transaction fees and gives you the mid-market exchange rate, at least up to a certain limit, £500 per month as I write this. The money you spend on your Curve card goes straight onto one of your existing debit or credit cards. And you can get a Curve card for free.
How it works: 1. Download the Curve app for iPhone or Android. 2. Enter your details & they'll send you a Curve MasterCard - they send to the UK and most European addresses. 3. Link your existing credit & debit cards to the app, you can link up to two cards with the free version of Curve, I link my normal debit card and my normal credit card. 4. Now use the Curve MasterCard to buy things online or in person or take cash from ATMs, exactly like a normal MasterCard. Curve does the currency conversion and puts the balance in your own currency onto whichever debit or credit card is currently selected in the Curve app. You can even change your mind about which card it goes onto, within 14 days of the transaction.
I have a Curve Blue card myself, it means I can buy a coffee on a foreign station on a card without being stung by fees and lousy exchange rates, just by tapping the Curve card on their card reader. The money goes through Curve to my normal debit card and is taken directly from my account (in fact I have the Curve card set up as payment card on Apple Pay on my iPhone, so can double-click my , let it do Face ID then tap the reader with the - even easier than getting a card out). I get a little commission if you sign up to Curve, but I recommend it here because I think it's great. See details, download the app and get a Curve card, they'll give you £5 cashback through that link.
When travelling you may use free public WiFi which is often insecure. A VPN encrypts your connection so it's always secure, even on unsecured WiFi. It also means you can select the geographic location of the IP address you browse with, to get around geoblocking which a surprising number of websites apply. See VPNs & why you need one explained. ExpressVPN is a best buy with a 4.7 out of 5 Trustpilot ranking which I use myself - I've signed up as an ExpressVPN affiliate, and if you go with expressvpn.com using this link you should see a special deal, 3 months free with an annual subscription. I also get some commission to help support this site.
Tickets, reservations, hotel bookings and Interrail or Eurail passes are often now held on your mobile . You daren't let it run out of power, and you can't always rely on the 's internal battery or on being near a power outlet. I always carry an Anker powerbank which can recharge my several times over. Buy from Amazon.co.uk or buy from Amazon.com.
One of the best things I've done is swap my normal shoes for hill-walking shoes, in my case from Scarpa. They're intended for hiking across the Pennines not wandering around Florence, but the support and cushioning for hiking works equally well when you're on your feet all day exploring foreign cities. My feet used to give out first and limit my day, now the rest of me gives up before they do!
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