Interrail Pass > Reviews > What fun!

Author's product rating:   

Frequency of trains	Excellent
Reliability of trains	Mostly on time
Comfort of trains	Comfortable
On-board facilities	Good

Advantages:	The best way to travel Europe
Disadvantages:	Paying supplements

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

At the moment an Interrail Pass for anyone under 26 years will set you back £285 for a month which covers all 8 zones, i.e. pretty much everywhere in Europe and also including Morocco. I would strongly advise that you get the extra insurance which is available with it that costs about £13 ( I think). This covers you if you should lose your ticket, then you can continue your trip but paying for all the train journeys yourself, however, when you return they will then refund you the money for all the train journeys you have paid for! A definite must for all travellers, as you can never be sure what might happen, especially if your prone to losing things like yours truly.

For me, the Interrail Pass was a great buy. This summer it enabled me to go to Paris, Rome, Naples, Venice, Split (Croatia), Bled (Slovenia), Innsbruck (austria), Vienna, Prague and Brussels in a month. The trains in general are nice enough, but I would recommend you bike lock all luggage when you are not so likely to be able to keep a consistent watch on them, nothing happened to me or my friends whilst travelling, but it is definitely a wise precaution.

Using the interrail pass is very easy, you can hop on pretty much any train in Europe with it and all you have to do is fill in the ticket for each journey which then gets stamped by the conductor...a great souvenir also!

Also, I went away with the misguided preconception that the £300 interrail pass would be all I would need to pay for train journeys. This is not so!

For most trains I would check whether or not you need to reserve seats if the train you are planning to get on is quite busy. The reservation of seats will cost you a few Euros each.

For some trains there is an unavoidable supplement you will have to pay to travel on them, sometimes there is an alternative train but usually at a ridiculous hour.

Also, with some overnigh trains you might want to pay the extra money to get a bed to guarantee a decent's night sleep. This isn't a must and if you can sleep anywhere this will save you money. For the "couchette" from Paris to Rome we had to pay 20 Euros each.

Aside from these things, I would really recommend getting this pass if you are young and want to see a lot of Europe in a short space of time. One frustrating thing was having to be on the move nearly every other day to fit everything in. In some ways perhaps getting a pass for just 1 or 2zones would be better, ensuring you can really see everything in just a few countries.