Inter Rail: Top Tips from Site Members

Written by Gapyear.com

Edited by Louise Miles

Top Tips from Site Members

To celebrate the delights that Inter Rail has to offer, we have decided to include the best top tips from our users. Below, you can find a personal comprehensive guide to Inter Rail, attributed to those who have been there and done it. Whether they went via Scandinavia or via the Balkans this is a great collection of much-needed advice, valuable to all train travellers.

Jess Fitch

Jess's favourite way of travelling is via train, she enjoys camping, discovering new veggie food, and exploring new countries.

She agrees that her favourite places are beautiful but a bit scruffy and crumbly, like Naples.

She experienced travelling on Inter Rail for a month and one of her highlights was arriving in Calais and realising that people could actually understand her when she spoke French!

Top Tips:

1. Make sure you have a comfy backpack and pack light
2. Take a general Europe guidebook, such as 'Lonely Planet's Europe on a Shoestring.'
3. As a general rule in Europe, East and South are cheaper than West and North. As a rough guide, if you're camping and making your own sarnies, you can get by on less than a 15 pounds a day. If you're hostelling and eating out, you'll need more like around 25 to 30.
4. Take 100 in Euros and the rest in travellers' cheques. Take a debit card too and you'll be able to withdraw local currency from ATMs in most towns, sometimes for a small charge (around 1.50).
5. Take a tent, you can camp for a fraction of the price of a hostel bed and there's less necessarily to book ahead. As well as countryside and seaside campsites, there are campsites in - or just outside most major cities and many run free buses into the town centre.
6. Take the essentials: sun cream, sunhat and raincoat, a sleeping bag, a small bag of washing power, a pen-knife, a gas-stove, two pans, forks, plastic cups and plates.
7. Write down the name of your hotel and the street it's on when you go out. Trust me on this one - we must have wandered round Paris for three hours one night looking for the mysterious disappearing auberge de jeunesse...('I'm sure we've passed that tall spiky thing before...')
8. Before you get too comfy, make sure you won't have to pay for the privilege. Actual sleeper cabins with bunks are generally not covered by your Inter Rail ticket; if you want to sleep in one of these, you'll need to pay a supplement.
9. Pack your sleeping bag close to the surface of your backpack (it can get cold on trains at night, wherever you are), along with something comfy to rest your head on, a bottle of drinking water, toilet paper, a toothbrush and toothpaste and a bar of soap. You'll feel gross in the morning.
10. If you haven't booked in advance, try to arrive at a new destination in the morning to give yourself more time to look for somewhere to stay.

Kirsty Fisher

Kirsty took the Inter Rail trip in under 4 weeks but wished she had allocated 5 weeks because she admits that it was a bit rushed.

Kirsty started her trip in the quaint French town, Lille, and ended up in Bunol, Spain, on her travels she went via Southern Europe and got the chance to explore Germany, Italy, Spain, Morocco and France.

Top Tips:

1. Avoid express trains... They cut out huge chunks of countries, you need to reserve a seat and they are expensive.
2. Sleeper Trains... If travelling on express trains is unavoidable, use sleeper trains to save money on accommodation instead.
3. Use more residential trains. They are free, they chug along by the most beautiful scenery (beaches, riversides, forests) you don't need to reserve a seat and you meet more young travellers.
4. Plan your route with DB Travel... (DB Website) The DB travel website allows you to look up exact routes and times, and allows you to see if trains are express /residential etc - so you can budget for the supplement. If you change your mind half way into your trip, check the new route is possible / affordable using an internet café.
5. Buy tickets beforehand... If the train is not residential, make sure you reserve a ticket. Otherwise the train might be full.
6. Train station queues... They can get very long and stressful and you are far more likely to get help if you remain calm and polite. Try to learn a few words in the native language, even if it is an apology for not speaking it well! Take in a print out of your intended journey just in case the language barrier causes problems.
7. Use Tourist Information or Hostel Booking facilities. Most city train stations have either a Tourist Information or a Hostel Booking facility. I found some of the cheapest hostels this way - it gets busy during peak season but it´s worth the wait!
8. Take a tent! If you are running out of money ask the Train station tourist info for a list of campsites and a map to reach them. The ones I stayed in were all just a short bus ride away from the city centre and dirt cheap.
9. Look out for supplements, on these particular itineraries, the following trains usually charged extra: TGV, TEOZ [France], Corail / Corail IC [Germany], ICE / IC / EC, ICE Sprinter, Thalys, Berlin-Warszawa Express Italy, Eurostar Italia, EurostarCity Italia, CIS, Eurostar Italia AV, TBiz, EC Riviera & Cisalpino, InterCity Plus, [Italy] Artesia de Jour. Arco, Talgo, Diurno, IC [Spain]

James Mooney

James Mooney decided to do the Inter Rail experience in three weeks. Going on a trip via the Balkans, he started his trip in Spilt, Croatia, travelled through Bosnia-Hercegovnia, Hungary, Slovakia and Austria and completed his trip in the Czech Republic. James is a keen traveller who started a trip around Asia in January 2009.

Top Tips:

1. Have a length of string so you can tie open windows on hot trains.
2. Always have plenty of water and food with you for long trips.
3. Always get to the train early enough so you can try and get a compartment to yourself and strategically place your backpacks so no-one else can get in there.
4. Try and plan your train so it gets to your destination in daylight as it is always easier to navigate in the day.
5. Try and make the most of overnight trains to save on accommodation
6. Make the most of air conditioned trains, trust me they are a godsend!
7. ALWAYS have a roll of toilet paper with you; you don't want to get caught without any on the train.
8. Be careful but try opening the door of the train and sitting down watching the scenery go past.
9. Take a pack of cards it's a great way to meet locals'
10. Take wet-wipes to clean yourself up on long trips because you can feel quite dirty

Alison Dale

Alison's via Northern Europe trip included seeing the sights in Berlin, Prague Budapest, Stuttgart, Munich and Paris. Alison recommends heading into Eastern Europe and Southern Spain if you are going for an eight week trip. She believes that Eastern Europe is the place to be now with hip cities, fewer crowds and cheaper prices. Oh and great vodka!

Top Tips:

1. Book up your first couple of night's accommodation - it makes the first few days a lot easier.
2. When you arrive at the train station of one city, reserve a spot on train out of the city - it saves you having to return to the station
3. Earplugs and eye-mask
4. Combination lock to secure backpacks
5. Extendable lock or chain to use to tie bags on the train
6. Buy a hostel discount card
7. Make sure you have photocopies of your passport and Inter Rail ticket
8. Take sleeper trains if available to maximise your time in cities
9. Try and travel outside July and august to miss the crowds
10. Head to eastern Europe to cut down on costs

Inter Rail on gapyear.com

A famous author once wrote that Phileas Fogg travelled the world in 80 days but that was of course fiction. However in the present day, exploring Europe in 30 days is indeed true and can be easily achieved, even on a shoestring budget.

Are you thinking of planning a trip across Europe and want to do it the easiest, cheapest, and most convenient way? Well, we have the solution: Inter Rail. In a nutshell, Inter Rail is a train ticket that allows you to 'hop on and hop off' trains across Europe.

The global pass is priced at £388 and this gives you access to unlimited travel for one month. With four weeks to spare, there is plenty to see and do and with over 30 countries to explore, there will be plenty of camera moments. If you are not planning to travel to more than three countries, there are even cheaper options starting from £32.

See Inter Rail for more details.

To make this the trip of a lifetime, we have broken down the countries into 6 manageable sections of Europe, e.g. Northern and Southern. In each section, you will find the list of countries and the top sights; you will also find a personal blog from the people who have done the euro-trip, 'Inter Rail style.' We also have a team of experts to answer any queries you may have.

If you fancy being Europe's next explorer, visit gapyear.com