You can still use your pass outside your country, starting from the border. You'll need additional tickets to the border or use another form of transport.

Have done that many times. Am now using a (50% discount) Pass for 3 month, do short trips of 5-6 days so I do not need to take loads of luggage and on trip 6-but I also hold an off-peak season for own country, so thats no prob.

But it is kind of true that one can encounter sometimes the most bizarre or ´self-invented´ or whatever reactions-more so if you use lines that are out of the usual tourist trail. In many countries staff do really believe that pass-holders are always trying to cheat (well, to be honest this is/was the case and made easy with these travel-days you had to write down yourself) or are so dumb that they never understand the rules. (which may hold true for the tipical USAer never been in trains before). After a while you´ll also discover that some countries always have specific things they are alert on.

BTW-now in DE/Germany again, had no check at all from K to M (overnite) nor on the S-bahn in M.