Europe by Train
What a rail pass is actually worth, what to carry, and what to do when you get off the train at two in the morning.
EurailBlog is written by people who were on the trains at the time. The guide below is the useful part that is not just entertaining, 18 pieces across 6 chapters. We keep up to date. The other 374 posts are the trips themselves and fun to read and see what it was like at that time.
The guide
Before you go
Deciding where you are going, and cutting the list down to something a trip can hold.
- How to prepare for a long trip: the research processA librarian's method for planning three and a half months, including how to judge whether a source is worth trusting.
- How planning a trip is like a lion tracking a gazelleOn circling a problem instead of solving it in a straight line, and why it looks like neurosis from the outside.
- Cities not making the cut this yearThe full list of what got left off a four-month itinerary, and the reason each one went. Several of the reasons have since expired.
Rail passes
Whether a pass beats buying tickets, and the reservation fees that decide it.
- Trains & Railpasses: Is Eurailing worth it?A reader called rail passes a con in 2003 because of compulsory seat reservations. He is still right, and the fees are bigger now.
- What railpass should I use for Europe and Great Britain?Four separate passes used to be the answer. One Global Pass mostly is now, and Britain is still the exception.
Packing
A list, the readers who tore it apart, and the shorter list that came out the other end.
- Draft Europe Packing ListThe first dump of everything that might go on my back for four months, before anyone talked sense into me.
- Feedback & Thoughts on first draft of Europe packing listReaders took the packing list apart item by item. Here are their objections, my answers, and which of us turned out to be right.
- Second Draft of Packing ListThe list after the readers got at it, sorted into categories and noticeably shorter.
- How to Fit an Internal Frame BackpackTen steps, unchanged, because torsos and hipbones have not been redesigned. Load order is the part people get wrong.
- What to pack when one large suitcase is what I bring for a long weekendIceland to Greece, May to September, out of a backpack and a travel purse. By someone who normally overpacks spectacularly.
On the train
Reservations, night trains, and getting a compartment to yourself.
- How to sleep sans seatmatesA 2003 trick for getting a compartment to yourself. It still works where compartments still exist, which is less of the map than it was.
Arriving
The part of the trip that goes wrong: stepping out of a station in a city you do not know.
- Arriving in a Foreign CityStepping out of a station at two in the morning with nowhere booked, and the six-point checklist that stops it happening.
- Europe Travel Tips from Neville Millen, IIThe best practical letter this blog ever received: getting from the station to your bed, packing across rather than flat, narrow bags for narrow aisles, and watching who walks the carriages.
- Europe Travel Tips from Neville MillenOn languages, rail strikes and the fine he refused to pay. The strike is the part that still happens.
Money and the road
What things cost, which currency you need where, and how a long trip actually feels.
- What currency am I using where in Europe?The euro has swallowed most of the list since this was written. Here is what is left, and why the exchange rate is the least useful number on the page.
- Daily Budget BreakdownWhat a day on the road actually costs, town by town. The categories still work; the numbers have moved a long way.
- It's impossible to fight jetlagI read the articles, followed the advice, and got jetlag anyway. What the advice gets wrong and the one thing that works.
- Stages of travelTwo months into three, on the arc a long trip actually takes: intimidated, settling, and finally slowing down.
Kel's 06 Trip
Kelly Amabile went round Europe by train for six months in 2006 and wrote it down as she went. Portugal to Spain to France to Italy, then east through Croatia and Hungary and Poland, and home from Germany.
Read the trip, 59 posts in order
From the archive
392 posts, by subject.
- Eurail Blog Archives
- BootsnAll Travel Community
- Eurail Planning
- Eurail Stories
- Travel Gear
- Packing
- Traveler Confessions
- Accommodation
- Hostels
- Reservations
By place
- Italy
- England
- Spain
- France
- Greece
- Scotland
- London
- Germany
- Czech Republic
- Netherlands
- Portugal
- Switzerland