The Train Traveller Guide

Dreaming of your own Interrail trip? But you don’t know how to start preparing. There’s a lot you’ll have to figure out. Do you want to travel for a week in just one country or maybe for 2 months all around Europe. There’s a lot to think about when you are preparing your first Interrail. In 6 steps I’ll explain how to prepare your Interrail, so you can prepare your first Interrail like a professional!

1. How many days to travel?

The first question you have to ask yourself is, how many days do you want to travel? Perhaps you have an Interrail ticket for two months in a row, or maybe you want a shorter Interrail of 7 travel days in a month. Even if you have a month, it’s still possible to travel just for 2 or 3 weeks. There are a lot of different tickets. Find out which ticket fits you best. It depends on your budget and how many weeks of vacation you have.

2. Where should you go?

After determining how many days you want to travel, the next question to ask yourself is where you should go. Which countries do you want to visit? Do you want to visit bigger or maybe smaller cities? Perhaps you’re a nature lover and you want to visit some national parks. It’s also possible to visit the mountains or the sea. There are so many possibilities!

3. How many days in each place?

You’ve got a shortlist of some places you’d like to visit in Europe. But can you visit them all? Decide how many days you want to spend in each place. In a bigger city, there is a lot to do and see. You will spend more days there than in a smaller city. In most of the larger cities I visited, I stayed for 3/4 nights. In smaller cities, just 2/3 nights. It might be possible to visit some places just for a day, as a day trip.

4. How many places can you visit?

You decided to travel for 3 weeks and you want to stay for 3 nights everywhere you go. So you can visit 7 different places. It’s easily calculated. But don’t forget to consider the number of travel days your ticket allows. If you only have 7 travel days, you need 2 travel days, one for leaving and one for going back home. That leaves 5 travel days. In this situation, you can visit 6 different places. If you want, you can stay a little longer everywhere, or it’s possible between some cities to buy a cheap train ticket. Then it’s also possible to visit 7 different places.

5. What is the maximum time you want to spend on trains?

Maybe on your list of favorite places to visit you wrote down Stockholm in Sweden. You might also have included Barcelona in Spain. There’s a long distance between those two places. Ask yourself the question: ‘How many hours do I want to spend on trains?’ Sometimes it’s just a couple of hours between two cities, but often you’re on a train for 6 or more hours. If you only want to travel for a few hours, you can visit places closer to each other. If you don’t mind spending your whole day on a train, then you can visit places that are farther apart. Use the RailPlanner app to see the different train connections and how much time you need to travel between places.

6. Connecting your favorite places!

After determining the places you want to visit, decide how much time you have to spend. Then, connect the places to make your itinerary. The most useful website to connect the different places and plan your itinerary is Interrailplanner.com. After choosing the, as an example, 7 places you want to visit, connect them and there is your own Interrail itinerary!

Did you figured out where you want to go and for how much time? Finished preparing an Interrail itinerary ? You are not finished preparing yet, but the headlines of your own Interrail are there! Now you need to think about your making seat reservations and your stay.

Are you traveling on a budget or are you a solo traveller? I wrote a blogpost about why you should stay in hostels during your Interrail.