Welcome to The Cherry On Top, my traveling friends.
Again, this old blog is morphing a bit in a travel direction, but that's cherry too, right?! Traveling is certainly The Cherry On Top for many of us. Experiencing new cultures, seeing new places is like food for the brain. Have you also experienced that after a trip, even the short closer ones, you're a different person? I've had this experience a lot and I feel that travel does make us wiser.
If you follow me, you may know I just returned from an amazing Scandinavian journey. I traveled thousands of miles, through 5 countries, with public transportation, for nearly a month. Most of the time I was solo, but I did enjoy two weeks with a friend, which was a nice change.
I'll be going into a lot of detail of my travel as a means to inspire and perhaps steer dear readers such as yourself, on a future journey.
Let's jump right into my Interrail experience. I'll use subtitles and bold print for those wanting to skip all of the blah, blah and get to the parts you really need.
When should you get an Interrail Pass (for Europeans) or a Eurail Pass (for those living outside of Europe)?
Crunch those numbers! I spent hours and hours researching the passes. I needed the Interrail since I live in Europe and my friend needed the Eurail Pass. So I did some number crunching for her as well. Hopefully, I'll save you all of those hours with this blog and the information herein.
I used Rome2Rio to get an idea of what a journey might cost me as well as the different kinds of transportation you can use to reach your destination, duration, etc. It's a really useful tool! Probably not necessary to say, but just in case, I make zero $$$ for blogging. I have zero affiliations. I'm broke. Hehehe...
Buying train tickets for over 2,000 kilometers would have cost me triple the price I paid for my pass which was 447 Euros. After some serious calculations, I nailed down how many journeys I would need to figure out what kind of ticket I'd need. Interrail has a fairly decent selection of passes. Find the one that fits your trip, perfectly.
If you need more detail about what pass to get, I'll go into some more detail that may help. My friend was joining me only for the Norwegian part of the trip. So she was only traveling in one country of which she only needed 3 long train rides. A Eurail Pass wasn't worth the money for only 3 rides. The costs of those rides were a lot cheaper than the pass. Ya see? The pass doesn't cover the ferry we took, the excursion to Flam (which we didn't take) nor any of the dozens of tram and bus rides we needed.
Here's a few things to consider before you buy your pass.
Just how many "days" of travel do you need? I would recommend over shooting it by at least a journey or 2. I thought I would need 7, but I chose and used 10! Shoo! For journeys under 50 Euros, I'd just pay those as I went, including the ferries, which were really cheap. (More on that later.) I found public transportation very affordable, all over Scandinavia. It's one of the very few things that are actually affordable!
Make sure you fully understand the pass you are choosing. There are days within a month and days in a row. For my trip, I was going several days where I didn't need the train or at least I didn't have a long trip that might cost a considerable amount of money. Days in a row didn't work for me. If you're going to be on a train, every single day, then you'd need the days in a row pass.
Neither pass covers other transport besides the train. We rode on a lot of trams and buses and had to pay out of pocket every time. Each time was well under 10 Euros, but watch out for those time limits. Many gave only an hour to use it and you may use it for a return trip if it is within the hour. I thought that was way lame. If you're going to be on the tram and or bus a lot, look for a pass. I know they exists and foolishly I didn't do that research before I left. We probably could have saved quite a lot of money if we did. Especially in those places where we stayed a considerable amount of time. I remember seeing something about discounts for specific ferries, but could not for the life of me, figure out how to apply the Interrail discount when I purchased.
You absolutely need a darn Smart phone to use the app. I can't stand cell phones. Mine is always dead, buried in my purse, somewhere in the back of the house. So you can imagine how intimidating this experience was for me. Let me ease your concerns, right away. I worried for naught for the app was crazy simple to use what wasn't easy was the whole "reserving a seat" thing, which I found out you next to never have to do. You'll save an absolute fortune because reserving costs around $10 bucks, every single time!
When should you reserve a seat?
I reserved one seat on a long, German ride because German trains are packed full. I learned my lesson! It does not matter, morning, noon or night. What day, time of year...It doesn't matter. The trains are full. So if you have a very long train ride in Germany or anywhere I guess, consider reserving a seat and get a seat number. The seats are numbered and every train is different for knowing which seats are reserved. Look at the luggage rack above the seats for lighted indications of when the seat is occupied or if it is "free" or "taken".
I also reserved our train from Geilo to Oslo after finding out that particular ride is so popular and there are only a few in a day. Another lesson learned! We had to wait 4 hours for the next one! The Interrail should definitely put a notice to reserve a seat for that train or one like it. I'll let them know.
You totally need to reserve high speed trains and overnighters. I also found we needed a res if we chose to see Flam, on our way to Geilo. More of that on another blog. The app will tell you when you have to make a reservation or when one is suggested, usually.
Every country is different when it comes to checking your pass. It even goes as far as, every conductor is different as to how they treat your pass. As soon as they see the Interrail App light up, that's enough for them. While others scan your QR code. I'll get into that more later in the blog.
Most stations are not "manned".
If, like me, you thought you could just stroll into a station and talk to a living person about your next journey, just forget it. Only huge stations are manned and those were few on my journey. I found this very disappointing. Trying to navigate in a foreign country and tackling the language issues is rather daunting. To ease your worries just a bit, everyone in Scandinavia speaks English. Out of the 100 people I spoke with maybe 3 didn't understand me. How awesome is that?! Also, all ticket machines offer English translations. Sometimes it takes some figuring out how to get going, but never be afraid to ask any passerby. More on that later, too.
Use major railway apps for schedules and to reserve your seat if needed.
Speaking from experience, I can tell you all of this digital crap doesn't really save you all that much time. It would be a lot faster to just walk into a station and get the ticket you needed rather than having to search an app, install the app, enter your login information and then enter all the places, times and dates you need. I mean, ugh and hello! The only way online reservations would be faster if there were to be a very long at the ticket office. Not to mention how frustrated I was typing in all of that info!
Another thing with the train line apps is they are rarely accurate! I mean, what the heck?! On nearly every occasion, the platform number was not correct. Even whilst in a station, the app wasn't showing me that a train was cancelled. OK...But you'll need those apps. So do your research and see which ones you need. Some you'll even need three! I know, right?! Easy, my butt!
The Interrail App should be your go to travel app for train information and the others are more supplemental to make sure the times are correct, which they often are. Cancellations did not appear for me, one time and the platform numbers were never correct in all of the apps. Ask the train people on the platform and or check the screens at the stations.
If you are not reserving a seat, you do not need an extra app or if there is a manned station, you can do it there.
Here's the ones I used on my journey.
DB for Germany (good luck),VY, SKYSS, SKYSS Billet, Entur for Norway (I know, right?!) and SJ for Sweden and even more helpful, Skanetrafiken. Start practicing using them before you even start your trip and you'll feel more confident and have less stress when you're actually under the gun to have your ticket ready. Most reservations are ready right away. We always waited until the last minute to activate our tickets. Keep an eye out for those activation thingies! Some might need more time while others are instantaneous. It usually is clarified on the site.
To reiterate because it is important, you don't always have to reserve (I only did twice in over 2,000 kilometers.) and if there is a person in a station, you can reserve through there. I don't know why they say you have to reserve in Sweden. I never did!
Most stations only have a machine and many only take a card or QR code or something from your phone. I don't have any idea what all of that crap is. Hehehe... Cash is king, darn it! Excuse the digression and grandma talk. Get familiar with those machines and or the transport apps and don't forget to look for time restrictions on your busses and trams.
If you chose the Eurail Pass you'll not need worry about the whole 2 journey restriction thing from your place or residence. Man! That was confusing as hell for me and I only figured it out after reading this dude's blog which is an absolutely incredible wealth of information on these passes. I printed out the entire thing and took it with me, just in case. It's a whole lot better than what I'm doing, here. However, I seem to learn in a different manner than most and maybe you, too. So my way of dishing the 411 might actually get through to the grey matter? Hehehe...
You can only leave and return from your country of residence 1 time with the Interrail Pass.
That was just so confusing for me, but really it is that simple. With the Interrail Pass you can exit your country once or twice depending on the size of your country and return once, using your pass. To get around that, I never exited or returned to my official place of residence. My hubs drove me to Germany (we've got a vacation home there) and I did both my exit and entrances there which I used as travel days since they were very long trips.
Allow me to illustrate why it could present a problem? My official residence is in Belgium. It's a very small country. So, getting from one end to the other can be achieved in a few short hours. However, a country like Germany is an entirely different ball game! Even the journey from Dresden to the Mosel was hell. It took me 12 hours! For my beginning departure, I stopped over night twice in Germany because it broke up the very long trip and it's next to impossible to travel through the entire country in one day. I hope you can understand the point I'm trying to make. Definitely consider this important limitation with the pass before you choose yours and or check out how many days they give you to get back in and out. I hardly saw any of Germany and I wanted to visit quite a lot around. Keep that in mind when choosing your pass. You cannot casually travel around your country of residence with the pass. Again, consider just paying for a ticket/s as needed if it's cheap.
Right now, my pass of 10 Travel Days in 2 months still has 0/3 outbound/inbound trips while my 10/10 travel days are used. So I actually get a few more trips than the 10 I signed up for to go back home.
Hopefully, I have not confused you further?
Above, I spoke about the passes in general. Next, we're moving on to how to use your pass. I promise it's easy. Really easy! I don't know why I was so darn nervous. Perhaps just not being familiar with Apps in general is my problem? For a dingy like me, I found the app pretty fool proof. The absolute worst thing you can do, besides getting the wrong kind of pass for your journey is using a travel day when you don't need to and they even help you with that by asking you twice if you really want to use a travel day. LOL!
Using Your Pass
There are a lot of resources out there on how to get your pass and there are all kinds of prompts to walk you through it. I watched several videos on You Tube. Feel free to check those out if you feel more comfortable.
Get on the site and at the top, you can choose Europe or the U.S. etc. and enter your location settings and fill in the boxes as instructed. Choose One Country, Global, etc. Whichever you need. Then choose how many days "flexi" or how many travels "continuous" and how many travellers. Once you've made your selection and paid, they'll send you an e-mail with the information needed to continue. It's really simple.
# 1: Select the pass and how many travellers
# 2: buy the pass
# 3: get/download the App for Interrail
# 4: get the information from your e-mail with the pass # and load it in the planner on the app
# 5: create your trip and give it a name
# 6: activate your pass when you are ready to travel (I didn't activate mine until the day of my trip, just to be sure.)
# 7: start looking up trains in the "planner" part and add them to your trip by choosing "save journey" when you are ready to start a trip, toggle the slide (it will turn yellow). You can put a bunch of journeys in. As many as you want. They only will count when you toggle it. I don't toggle until right before I leave on that trip or journey.
