If you're wondering whether or not a Eurail
pass makes sense for your Europe trip, this honest review is going to give you five key
considerations to make. Stay until the end and I'll even link you
to a free quiz that I designed that'll help you make your choice. So without further ado, let's get started. Hit that intro. What's up, smarties? In case you're new around here, my name is Christina and I help travelers like you travel Europe smarter, cheaper and more off the beaten path. If you want more insider tips for your Europe trip, be sure to hit that subscribe button and ring that little bell. Today we are tackling a pretty hot topic and that is rail passes. Specifically we're gonna talk about the Eurail pass, which is a rail pass for non European residents. Don't worry though, as a side note for my
European friends, you guys also have something called the Interrail pass, which is more or less the exact same thing. So all of these tips will still apply to you. I'll make this quick. A Eurail pass can be a really great way to
get around Europe, but whether or not it's worth it for you completely depends on factors like your budget, your priorities, your travel style, your age, and of course where you're
going. So to help you out here are five considerations
to make before you get that Eurail Pass. As a little disclaimer, all the information
in this video is accurate as of 2019 but Eurail does have a habit of changing things a lot so be sure to check out their website for
things like prices and validity. Consideration number one is what is your priority
when you travel? See there's a common misconception out there
that using a rail pass is the cheapest way to travel around Europe. Unfortunately, that's not quite the case. I actually have a full video dedicated to
the cheapest ways to travel around Europe and most of the time there are cheaper options
than a rail pass. Specifically when it comes to train travel,
most of the time, booking point to point tickets in advance is really going to be much cheaper. The downside to these point to point tickets
though is that oftentimes you're locked into a certain date and a certain time, so to score
and lock in those rock bottom fares, you just have to commit to that one specific slot and
there's no room for flexibility. On the other hand, if you use a Eurail pass,
it's the complete opposite with a few exceptions where reservations are mandatory, you can
usually just hop onto the train with your rail pass and take any journey that you want. So this is really, really great if you have
a more spontaneous travel style or if you just want a little bit more flexibility when
it comes to your travel plans. Plus I do have to say that train travel is
just so nice. It's honestly my favourite way to travel around
Europe. I mean it's a lot more comfortable than buses
and airplanes plus, you know with train stations they're usually in the city center as opposed
to on the outskirts of a city like an airport. So most of the time you are traveling from
the city center of one place to the city center of another, and that's really, really valuable because
it's super convenient for you to get to where you're staying. So in my opinion, if your priority is factors
like convenience, flexibility and comfort, then it makes a lot of sense to get a Eurail
pass. For me personally, this past spring, that's
when I use my Eurail pass and the main goal was to actually go see some of my bucket list
destinations in Spring, places that you know, had beautiful spring flowers. And so because blooming season varies year
to year, I couldn't exactly book my tickets in advance. So instead what I did was I just waited for
conditions to be optimal and then I grabbed my rail pass and went. If I purchased tickets on the day of, that
would've been way more expensive butbecause of the pass I was able to just go whenever
the flowers commanded and it was perfect. So consideration number two is which Eurail
Pass you're actually buying. It gets a little bit confusing because honestly
when it comes to Eurail passes, that term gets tossed around a lot like it's one single
entity when in reality there's a lot of different kinds of Eurail passes to consider. And really the value that you're able to extract
from your pass depends a lot on which one you buy. So the first consideration or distinction
I guess that you need to make is in terms of the geographical area that your pass covers. This is actually pretty easy now because Eurail
recently rehauled their entire system and nowadays you can only purchase either a one
country pass or a global pass. So the one country pass, it's pretty straight
forward. You purchase one pass and it's valid for that
one country only, whereas with the global pass you actually gain access to your entire
network, which is 31 countries and that's a pretty big difference. So in my personal opinion, a one country pass
is very rarely worth it just because they're tremendously expensive and it's hard for you
to get your money's worth. On the other hand, a global pass really can
be worth it depending on where you go and how far apart your different stops are. For instance, I would say if you are traveling
really far distances, then it might make more sense to actually buy just you know, a flight
because time is money and you don't want to be spending 12 hours on a train, when you
could be spending 12 hours eating spaghetti. Back to the Global Pass though, I do think
it can be really, really worth it if you plan a bunch of different legs that are only within
a few hours of each other. For me personally, I used my global pass a
lot going from Germany to Switzerland and because they're neighbours, you know, none
of my train rides were ever more than a few hours. And in addition to that, they tend to be quite
pricey countries for trains. So I got my money's worth for sure. The second distinction that you need to make
with your Eurail pass is in terms of the validity period and the number of travel days that
you get... So really there are two kinds of passes that
you can purchase: the continuous ticket, which is basically you purchase a ticket for a set
period of time and then every day of that period you can ride a train and your pass
is valid. On the other hand, you have the flex pass,
which is basically you order a set number of days in a time period of one to two months. So you can say, I want 10 travel days in two
months. And then on those specific days that you specify,
you can ride as many trains as you want. I'll be honest, the continuous pass is very
rarely worth it unless you're going to be traveling once every one or two days. On the other hand, I really do recommend a
Flex Pass if you're going to be buying a Eurail Pass, but of course it all comes down to where
you're going to be traveling, so that brings me to consideration number three, which is
which countries you'll be visiting on your trip. The honest truth is with Eurail, there are
certain countries that are much better for the pass than others, so for instance, I would
absolutely not use the Eurail pass if you plan to travel extensively around France,
Italy, and Portugal. The reason for that is that these countries
require mandatory reservations on all their high speed trains, which really racks up the
costs for your pass. In addition to that, most of the time point
to point tickets in these countries aren't that expensive, so your savings with the pass
wouldn't actually be that significant anyway. On a side note, Portugal doesn't even take
reservations online and you have to make them in person and so it's just such a hot mess. Please don't use your Eurail in Portugal because
the tickets are otherwise really affordable. Anyway, in addition to that, there are certain
countries where bus travel is a lot more common than train travel and for that reason I would
really avoid getting a rail pass for countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. On the other hand, there are certain countries
that I think are amazing for the Eurail pass and that includes Germany, Switzerland, the
Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, which was only recently added in early 2019 so that's
really great because trains in the UK are hysterically expensive. These countries in my experience are the ones
that don't have mandatory reservations and in addition to that have very expensive point
to point tickets. So you're likely to save a lot of money using
a rail pass. For me. I personally use my Eurail pass a lot in Switzerland
where trains are notoriously expensive and I actually used them on a lot of scenic sightseeing
trains which would otherwise be like multiple times the cost, so I definitely got my money's
worth. It's worth noting as well that during this
two month period I actually did go to Portugal but I didn't use my real pass once and the
reason for that as I mentioned before is that reservations can't be done online in Portugal
and so it just wasn't convenient and the ticket was cheap anyway, so that's cool to keep in
mind that you know you don't necessarily need to use a travel day if you don't want to. If you can find a cheaper alternative like
a flight, a bus or something else, you can just save that travel date for the future. When in doubt though, be sure to search out
point-to-point ticket prices for the countries that you're visiting and also add up potential
costs like reservation fees in order to figure out whether or not a Eurail pass actually
makes sense for your trip. Consideration number four is how old are you? I know that that's a bit of a personal question,
but it's an important one to keep in mind because Eurail actually has very, very good
discounts for youth who are 27 years old or younger. How good are these discounts? Well, actually a youth pass tends to be about
20% lower than the adult pass, which is for adults age 28 to 60. On that note, they actually have discounts
for seniors who are aged 60 plus as well. Unfortunately, it's not as good as the youth
pass. It is about 10% I believe, but still it's
a pretty good deal. And so if you want to consider getting a Eurail
pass, know that the deal is a lot sweeter if you're 27 years old and under or 60 plus. And next step is consideration number five,
which is are you going to be using the perks of your Eurail pass? See the thing is a lot of people assume that
the Eurail pass is only a rail pass, but in addition to giving you access to trains, it
also functions as a discount card. So with your Eurail pass, you get lots of
different discounts at places like hostels, attractions, city passes, and different modes
of transportation, even like ferries and buses. So what I would do if I were you is I would
actually look at the different countries that you're going to be exploring and check the
Eurail website to see what those additional perks are. Depending on your travel style, if you decide
to use a lot of these perks, that would make the pass super, super worth it. For me personally, I didn't actually use the
person very much apart from one time on a special train in Switzerland where it saved
me 25% off - it saved me about 10 euros. So it can be a really good deal. It can offer a lot of great perks, but you
have to really research and look at what perks they offer for your destination countries
before you commit. So tell me, have you ever used a Eurail pass
or is that something that you'd like to do after watching this video? Be sure to let me know in the comments below
and if you're still undecided and looking for that quiz, you can find that link down
below. Thanks for watching, smarties. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to leave
me a nice little thumbs up, a comment with a virtual hug, a virtual pug, or whatever
it is you want to do, but be sure to subscribe because more amazing Europe tips are coming
your way every week. So be sure to hit that bell. Anyways, I will see you guys next week. Until then, you can probably find me doing
some pretty dumb stuff on Instagram, so be sure to follow me below and I will see you
guys next week.
