How to Interrail
Planning, enjoying and enduring your rail trip across Europe
I write this guide for you, fellow traveller, as someone who is currently nearing the end of their own 3 week Interrail trip (actually onboard the train from Vienna to Prague). I am also someone who is pretty experienced travelling by train in Europe with several years of experience across the Benelux, Germany, Scandinavia and Central and Eastern Europe. I’m less well travelled in France, Spain or Italy but hopefully a lot of this advice applies there too.
n.b. Interrail and Eurail are the same thing, one is subsidised for us Europeans, one is not. I’m just going to talk about ‘Interrailing’ but this advice all applies whether you’re on Interrail, Eurail or just doing a trip with ordinary tickets.
Planning vs. Freedom: The Eternal Interrail Debate
There are two basic schools of thought when it comes to Interrailing. You can wing it or you can plan it. To wing it is to book a ticket out, and a ticket home, and then spend however many days travelling to wherever sounds good and booking hostels and reservations on-the-go. There’s no doubt that this is what Interrailing is probably really about but there’s also little doubt that, if you go down this route, you will end up staying in some pretty grim hostels and probably the station floor on more than one occasion. I write from the position of an avowed planner. That said, this post will explain how to plan most of your trip whilst still giving you the freedom and flexibility that you need to not have a meltdown in the middle of Graz station or on a train that seems to have been stopped outside Budapest-Keleti for an age.
Planning Your Trip
Go West before you go East
There is a big, undeniable difference between travelling by train in the Netherlands and in Romania. I am going to paint with a bit of a broad brush here but, as a rule, if you’ve never been to Europe before I would say start in the West and then head East, it will give you a chance to get accustomed to the stresses of being abroad in a country where you don’t speak the language before you’re confronted by the additional harshness of travel beyond the old Iron Curtain. You will notice the differences even on a short journey from Vienna to Prague, but especially on a long, overnight one like Berlin to Budapest.
It was on just that Germany — Hungary sleeper train (grandly named the Metropol), that I met an American tourist who was unceremoniously shoved into my couchette compartment by a rather rude Hungarian attendant. He was expecting a cabin to himself and was pretty shaken up by the realities of both Hungarian hospitality and his sleeping arrangements. So far on his trip he had only experienced the niceties of high-speed travel from Copenhagen to Berlin so the, shall we say, abrupt manner of the Máv Start crew was a bit of a culture shock. It was even more of a shock when we were woken up by an even grumpier guard who demanded he pay €50 for having not ‘stamped his ticket at the station’ and then (wrongly) crossed off two day’s travel for the sleeper journey. I managed to argue him out of the ‘fine’ but he still lost a day’s travel at the hands of a power-mad train conductor. When we got to Budapest we headed across the street from the station to McDonalds and I helped him work out the first train he could take to Salzburg. The poor soul.
Prepare to be Unprepared
Whether you are heading deep into the post-communist Balkans or up to the social democratic utopia of Copenhagen, you will need to find the right balance between freedom and discipline. You can, and probably should (see below), book reservations, sleeper cars, hostels and flights well in advance of your trip but you should also be prepared for cancellations, missed trains, unforced errors and really bad luck. Different problems are going to cost you different amounts so, even if you’ve booked everything ahead and you’re working to a budget you are going to need to have money in the bank to be able to spend on these contingencies. Do not go Interrailing if you cannot afford to have an extra €100–300 in your account that you could use in an emergency. There’s a difference between being inconvenienced and being stuck. One is part of the Interrail experience, one is not.
Different problems are going to cause you different financial penalties. Missing a reserved train should be free if it’s the train company’s fault (ask the guard or ticket office to change your ongoing reservations). If you miss the train through your own fault then you can ask but you might end up paying another €3 or €4 for a seat reservation. Ending up away from your booked hostel will be more expensive, it will most likely be too late to cancel so you will end up paying for the bed you’re not sleeping in and you will have to find somewhere new to sleep so that whole thing is going to set you back €30–50 or so depending on where you are. Similarly, missing a sleeper train is a problem because you need to find somewhere to sleep tonight and you need to rebook the reservation so that can be €30–70. Make sure you give yourself lots of wiggle room before a sleeper connection, preferably a whole day. There is not much worse than arriving at Berlin Hbf expecting to spend the night speeding toward Innsbruck but finding out you’ve missed your train by 2 minutes.
Trains in Europe are fairly reliable but delays of 15+ minutes on inter-regional trains are far from unusual. On the first five days of my trip in Germany, Belgium and Denmark, every single long-distance train was at least 15 minutes late. I had to re-arrange my plans but with the Interrail app (see below) that was easy to do and I didn’t end up feeling too stressed at all. This is one of the benefits of a sort-of flexible planning. Book the ‘core’ reservations like sleeper trains and any really long journeys but leave the shorter journeys as pencil sketches rather than pen marks. Today I was due to get an early morning train to Prague but I was enjoying Vienna so much that I decided to make a reservation for mid-afternoon instead. It’s that kind of freedom that can give you the right balance on your trip.
Reservations & Timetables
I have long used bahn.de for timetable information across Europe. It covers most trains on the continent, not just ones passing through Germany and it does so in English. I was initially sceptical about the Interrail app but I found it absolutely indespensible on my trip. It is essentially the whole European timetable available offline and on your phone. As such it doesn’t have any ‘real time’ information (although this is patchy everywhere in Europe anyway) but it means you can always look ahead for connections wherever you are. It also clearly tells you if you need a reservation or not which the Interrail website isn’t always clear on. I found that even though Interrail’s website said I didn’t need reservations from Hamburg to Copenhagen and Budapest to Vienna, the app advised me I did and the app was right. If you are used to the apologies and real-time updates available on trains in the UK, be prepared to be disappointed, even in Germany. Often platform alterations, long delays and cancellations are only obvious if you are paying attention and it is very rare to hear any sort of apology or explanation when you’re pulling into a station 45 minutes late.
Depending on your journey you can book most of your reservations ahead of time (although you don’t always need to). I don’t have any experience in Italy, France or Spain but it’s very easy to use bahn.de in English to book reservations on any train starting or ending in Germany. I’ve also used the Ceska Drahy website with no problem. The further east you go the more difficult it will be to book in advance but the cheaper it will be to do it at the station. I have no idea how to book reservations on Polish railways but I had no problem making them in person, the same goes for Hungary. Whereas a Thalys reservation from Brussels to Dusseldorf can set you back €15, a Háv Start reservation from Budapest to Vienna is only €2.50.
Sleeping and Wellbeing
Rest Days
It is possible to get a feel for a city in a few hours so there’s no need to completely write-off the idea of short stops on your trip. If you go in the summer you can arrive in a city at dinner time and still have a few hours of daylight left to walk around and see the sights. An Interrail trip, especially when you’re young, can give you a feel for the continent and where you’d like to return to later in life. I know from Interrail that I will want to go back to Berlin for a much longer time after just two days there. I also know that I’ve seen most of what interested me in Budapest in just 24 hours. You will have to decide whether you’d rather spend three days in a city you’ll love or in three cities you’ll only get a chance to like. Mixing up your stays is the best way to do this, you will be so happy when you remember that you can take a few day’s break from the trains to really get to know somewhere.
Sleep Well
Hostelbookers is your friend. You can book hostels months in advance or on the same day. You pay a small deposit (around €2) and the rest up-front at the hostel, the cancellation policies can be surprisingly generous so if you have to re-arrange your trip with 48–72 hours notice you shouldn’t have to pay for beds you’re not sleeping in. Often there is little or no difference in price relating to when you book but if you book advance you’re much more likely to find nicer hostels, private rooms and dormitories with fewer people in. If you book the day before you’re more likely to end up in a damp room with 11 other poor souls than in a trendy chipboard pod with a free breakfast and decent wifi (probably for the same price).
Some hostel tips:
- One of the most reliable chains for hostels and cheap hotel rooms in Europe is Meininger Hotels. I’ve stayed with them in a few cities and always find them clean, pleasant and well managed. There’s also A&O Hostels who are a bit rougher around the edges but just as reliable.
- Oftentimes cheap hotel chains might not appear on websites like Trivago or Booking.com, instead it pays to look on their website directly. When I’m looking for hotels I usually look at Motel One, Ibis, Holiday Inn and DoubleTree.
- There are plenty of cool, independent hostels to choose from if you book far enough in advance. I particularly liked staying at Avenue Hostel Budapest, Sleep in Heaven Copenhagen, Post Hostel Prague and Ostel Berlin.
- Mix it up between dorms, sleeper cars and private rooms. You will not get a proper night’s sleep until you are in a private room so do not forgo them your whole trip. Your mental wellbeing will deeply, truly thank you.
Sleeper Trains
I think the most daunting part of any Interrail trip can be the sleeper trains. If you’re from the UK or US there’s a chance you’ve never been on one before and there is a dizzying array of options, supplements and routes available. There are two websites that will help you conquer your nerves. Firstly is The Man in Seat 61, a complete God-send with photos, explanations and advice on sleeper (and non-sleeper) travel across Europe. The other site is Vagonweb.cz, this amazing site has diagrams explaining the order and type of carriages for most international trains across Europe. It will help you work out where abouts on the train your reservation is, and, on sleeper trains in particular, it has photos of the exact carriage that you will be sleeping in so nothing will be a surprise. I won’t go into details about sleeper cabin types because those websites and Interrail’s website does a good job of explaining the ins and outs (although the reservation prices on Interrail have not always matched up with reality at the ticket office). My main piece of advice is to never book a 6-bed couchette, always book a 4-bed, the extra space is well worth the few extra €.
Other Tips
Some miscellaneous tips from my experience as an English person travelling by train around Central and Eastern Europe
- Public toilets are few and far between, if you’re used to popping into McDonalds or Starbucks in the UK be prepared to find a receipt with the toilet code on before you try. Otherwise, even in malls, railway stations and fast food restaurants, there will most likely be an old lady attendant who will require a fee of about €0.50 before she lets you use her toilet. I seem to spend way more time abroad looking for toilets than back home. Hotels seem to be the best bet, if you can blend in with the clientelle you can have a scout around for a toilet in the lobby.
- Wifi is available at most stations and on most inter-city trains in Germany, the Benelux, Scandinavia and even the Czech Republic. Heading further east it’s a bit more of a luxury. My phone contract is with 3 and, with Feel At Home, they allow you to use your data allowance across Europe at no extra cost and that has been absolutely brilliant for travelling because I no longer spend hours looking for reliable wifi.
- You might think that you ought to learn the words for things like ‘hello’ and ‘thanks’ where you’re heading, and that is important, but what might be more useful is learning ‘sparkling’ and ‘still’. Europeans love sparkling water (and luckily, so do I) but if you hate the stuff you will inevitably find yourself cracking open a huge bottle you just bought to hear that deadly fizz. If it says ‘classic’ or ‘mild’, it’s probably sparkling. There is no universal colour code, sometimes red is still, sometimes it’s sparkling, sometimes (I’m looking at you Austria) it has magnesium added and tastes gross.
- Be aware of local city names because if you’re not you could end up being very confused. Some are obvious (Venice = Venezia, Praha = Prague) but some are not so obvious (Wien = Vienna, Helsingfors = Helsinki). It’s not entirely consistent either, sometimes the destination will be in English, the native language or the language of where you are then (e.g. Venice, Venezia, Venedig or Prague, Praha, Prag). Don’t miss your train to Cologne because you don’t think you’re going to Köln.
- I know that Interrail can feel like a ‘backpacking’ kind of trip but there is no reason why, if you prefer them, you shouldn’t take your wheelie suitcase. It is actually a great deal easier to board a train or walk around a city with a box on wheels than it is with an unwieldy sack of clothes and personal belongings hitched to your back. I have a four-wheeled hard-case trolley that I love and which easily fits 7 or 8 changes of clothes plus books and toiletries and a Herschel bag I use for my laptop, notebooks etc.
- You will not be able to enjoy being in a city with said suitcase or backpack shackled to you. When you arrive somewhere either use the luggage storage at your hostel or use one of the lockers that are in every major European station (outside the UK). It might cost you €6 for a few hours but it will be totally worth it.
- Supermarkets are your friend. Yes, you could spend €7 on a sandwich, or you could go to Interspar or Billa or Aldi or Edeka and buy bread rolls, salami, cheese, juice and crisps for the same price. I think 50% of my food expenses go on the salad bars that are everywhere in Central Europe, they are so good but they charge by weight so it’s much too easy to spend over €5 on a medium-sized salad when a prepared one is just €3. Your other friend is Rossmann, it’s in stations and cities across Europe and it is the cheapest place to buy toiletries and about a million other essentials.
- You will eat in McDonalds, you will have a coffee in Starbucks, and that is okay because sometimes, in the middle of a foreign country, you just want a latté and a Big Mac you can understand. No-one is judging you.
- Do not buy new shoes just before you leave. I have limped around the cities of Europe with huge blisters because I was stupid enough to leave home for a 3 week trip in brand new walking boots. Go with something comfortable, take two pairs if you can. Blisters will happen so just give your feet plenty of time to breathe and make sure you have a little first aid kit of plasters and antiseptic wipes with you.
- You will probably get where you’re going. I’ve actually written this post from a train that’s been sat outside Česká Třebová for about thirty minutes now. There have been lots of announcements in Czech and none in English but I don’t feel that stressed. There’s wifi and coffee and I have apples I bought in Interspar. No-one around me seems to be particularly worried by what’s being announced so why should I be? I have faith that I’ll get to Prague eventually and I’ve not given myself any tight connections to make, I’ve got a bed waiting for me if it ends up being really late. This is the best way to Interrail, in a state of zen-like, stoic faith. We’ll get there, just go with the flow.
