Get ready to travel

Hello,I’m travelling with a few young girls and want to make sure my first few days of travel go as smooth as possible. I’m planning to travel from Amsterdam to Istanbul. I need to be in Istanbul on a specific date for a wedding! Therefore, my question is… do I need to take ‘buffer’ days into consideration? Or do the trains typically run when they are supposed to run in these countries? Thanks a lot!Cheers, Bauke/Anne

Hello Fellow travellerswe are coming in may and i cant seem to get any answers to my questions!do each of us (two adults and 1 youth - 16 year old and two 9 year old) need our passes on our own phones? .kids dont have internet nor devices my 16 year old has a phone but wont have internet access if we get a pass from example:  Zurich to MIlan but decide to stop over at Como - will we lose our seat reservations? if we are on trains that dont require seat reservations and we dont book them, is there a place we can sit otherwise if the seats are full?your assistance is appreciated!family of 5 coming in from Australia to Europe!

I want to make a seat reservation for the train from milan to ventimiglia. I can do this through the interrail page, but I would like to choose the seats so that I am on the right (coastal) side. This is not possible with interrail. Via OBB I can find the train (one way & discount interrail) but there it says “no ticket available”, while I clicked “only seat reservation”. How/where can I make a seat reservation for this train? 

I plan to travel from grindwald to Lucerne with golden pass. And I have eurail pass. Do I need to book seat revervstion or other pass for the train? If yes I need to buy it onlime or at train station? If I can buy at train station which one, at grindwald or interlaken station? 

Is my Interrail Pass generally valid for one day, or only for the trains I'm planning to take? So, if I miss a train, for example, can I just take the next one?

Hi,I bought last year the Interrail Global pass during the sale in July. It says I need to activate it before 18 June 2025. Just to be sure: if I activate it for example on 17 June, than I will be able to use it after 18 June? Or should I use all the travel days before 18 June?Thanks!Greetings Bart

I’m planning to travel to Sicily from Belgium by train in a few weeks. I was able to book seat reservations from Brussels to Messina using the Interrail web planner. However, I need to get from Messina to Palermo, and I can’t find an available ticket online, even on the ÖBB website, as recommended by other Interrail users.Has anyone encountered this issue before? Do you know the best way to book this ticket?  

Hi, I have a friend who resides in sweden who has a 15 travel day pass and wants to use an outbound journey from gothenburg to copenhagen and then go back in gothenburg without activating inbound journey (He will buy a separate ticket). Can he then use the remaining travel days to get to stockholm?. so basically travel within his country.  *Reason for traveling to stockholm is for him to catch a flight from stockholm to eastern europe and start his remaining travel days there

We are travelling this summer from Marseille to Brussels with five people on Interrail passes. There is almost or no availability on this route for seat reservations, I tried a few seconds after they were available to book to no avail. So I ended up booking seats to Lille (easy and great availability) and figured I’d pay cash for the remainder of the trip to Brussels.However, the very same train with the same number 9868, was “Fully booked” from the moment the tickets were released, even for cash tickets, from Lille to Brussels. Though a very similar TGV train, with the number 9864 travels the exact same route at the exact same time.  I managed to book tickets on this one. But my question is, is this actually the same train? It seems odd to run two TGV services at the exact same time on the exact same route, and having o

My answer to this is no, despite it being advertised in the Eurail planner. After a long flight from Australia, trying to activate our mobile pass for the first time, the train attendant tells us it isnt valid...because Heathrow Express isnt part of Network Rail (the UK rail consortium that combines all the tracks). Im aware of this, and I was happy that the Heathrow Express was listed as being part of the Eurail pass. But no, the ticket lady said it wasnt part of the pass and that they had tried to explain to Eurail many times that they werent involved in the scheme but they kept having travellers come up to them (like I did) showing them the Eurail Planner rules/inclusions and expecting to be able to use it. Can anyone else confirm if it really is part of the pass or if it isnt and Eurail are just false advertising?

I wanted to regarding the interail outbound and inbound rules, I have a friend who lives in sweden (GOT) and is planning to meet us in copenhagen. He plans to use the outbound journey to CPH and then headback to gothenburg without using inbound journey  and then continuing the travel days within sweden from gothenburg to sweden. Will there be a problem using a travel day within sweden if  he used an outbound journey? (Like does the app consider him being out an issue)

TLDR: Allow plenty of time, at least 30 minutes, to change trains.I’m coming to the end of a 5 week cross-Europe trip, it’s the first time I used the Eurail Pass. I booked all the seats and checked all the times of the trains through the Eurail website and I think that was a mistake.Some of the journeys involved 2-3 changes, and the plan that was presented by the Eurail site at first seemed OK; a lot of changes were 10 minutes, and at the time I thought that would be fine, 10 minutes is plenty of time to get from one platform to another I thought, and we only have hand luggage.Not so - quite a few of the trains arrived late, which involved a dash to the board to check the departing platform (although some trains display these as you arrive), then running up and down stairs and along corridors to the next platform. My wife fell at one and bruised her knee, and one train we got to as the doors were closing.The algorithm used by Eurail doesn’t seem to take i

Folks, Can anyone recommend the best places to keep an eye on for diecounts on a pass purchase, promotions etc?  Any will do. 60+ even better ;) Just completed an exhilirating trek across Europe on the pretence of a job interview.  Packed my suit & heels but also hiking boots.   Can't wait until the next trip!Thank you most kindly.Karla 

I’m trying to book ICE319 from Brussels to Cologne on Friday 27th June, but the reservation systems are telling me that it can’t be booked because the carriage layout isn’t available.I’ve tried booking the same train on other dates and the layout is there alright.I’ve checked the train running dates (banhof.de is my new favourite planning tool) and it should be running that day.Any ideas on what the issue is?Normally I would be happy enough to worry about it later, but I’ve just booked a Eurostar into Brussels and plan on taking the EC7 from Cologne the next morning and my options for getting between the 2 cities is limited at that time of night.There’s also a Thalys/Eurostar, but the reservation fee is enough to put me off. An error has occurredThe carriage layout is temporarily unavailable. Please continue your booking without selecting a seat in the carriage layout or try again

Hi - I’m looking for some advice on an upcoming trip to Germany (Sept/Oct) and while we’ve train traveled before, we’ve never done multiple trips like this and had reason to consider the value or ease of a pass vs. individual journey tickets. We’re 63 and 66 so one of us can always be a senior fare, sometimes both! We may upgrade to 1st class on some of these longer journeys, not sure yet.I’ve looked at the DB website for these prices and this is what I found without including seat reservation costs - all prices are tickets for two total and all are 2nd class:Frankfurt Airport->Munich Sparpreis 108€  Munich->Mengen Super Sparpreis 68€  Mengen->Boblingen Super Sparpreis 54€ Boblingen->Heidelberg Super Sparpreis 49€ Heidelberg->Darmstadt Super Sparpreis 35€ Frankfurt->Cologne Super Sparpreis 40€ Cologne->FRA airport 40€ (lowest fare, may change time of travel)I feel conf

I know how to find what trains I *can* take a bicycle on, but the ICE trains in particular require a bicycle reservation.  How do I book that?The bahn.de site says you can only book a bicycle reservation with a meatbody ticket, but my meatbody is getting on with the EURail pass.  I can buy a seat reservation on its own, but that isn’t helping me with a bike reservation.Where do I go from here?  Bike reservations are notoriously difficult on ICE trains, so this is a non-starter for me to “wing it”.

Hi there,Can anyone advise whether Eurostar in Brussels is likely to accept late boarding (approx 20 mins before departure)?On 30 July I’m catching the 20.56 Eurostar from Brussels to London, which is the last train of the day.I’ll be travelling to Brussels from Hamburg via Cologne, and am due to arrive into Brussels on a DB train at 19.35. However, given DB’s reputation for delays I’m feeling slightly anxious about missing my connections. If I miss my Cologne transfer, there is a eurostar service from Cologne to Brussels that will get me into Brussels at 20.35. Hopefully it won’t come to this, but if it did, would I still be able to catch the 20.56 Eurostar service onto London?Any insights appreciated!Thanks.

Hi, my phone recently broke while traveling. This means that my interrail pass cant be used on that device anymore. I already had contact with interrail and they unregistered my pass from my phone so i can add my pass on another device. My question is: is it possible to add my pass on my friends device so we have two passes on the same device? If this is not an option, does anyone have another suggestion?

If I board at Bruges on way to Brussels on Eurail, transferring in Brussels to Eurail train to London, is 36 min enough time? Note says to allow 45-90 minutes to check passports, etc.  

HOW is a second pass added to a phone device? 

Have a query on using bus for travelling short distances with the unlimited Global Eurail passes from the railway stations in Switzerland in general and in particular from Val-d'Illiez station to Village Champoussin... distance of 7 kilometers serviced by local Bus Route #81.  We are a family of four (2 adults + 2 children aged 8 & 10 years) and will be staying at Champoussin Ski Resort for about a week and will be frequenting the distance between Val-d'Illiez station and Champoussin village almost everyday for a week. I understand Bus travel is NOT included in our Eurail Global pass. So, requesting for information here on the Bus passes and if there is any discount on the Swiss Bus tickets with the Eurail Pass? Thanks in advance for all your help.

If the train is not fully booked on Romanian domestic trains like IR trains, is it possible to ride without reservation and buy reservation ticket through conductor?Traveling from Suceava to Bucharest I tried to reserve at Cluj Napoca, but they said it must to be reserve at Suceava station. So I am worrying if the connection is short to buy at Suceava.I heard SNCF is possible to ask conductor buy as there is a vacant. How about Romania?

where is my confirmation of purchase email? It did not come. How can I reach Customer Service?

I will be reaching Chur Switzerland by Glacier Express on 16 Sept 2025 and want to go to Munich by train the same day. I would like to know where would I board the Munich train 2224 Alpenrhein operated by SOB from?The same train station or different train station?If different train station then name of the station and how do I travel to this station? 

Bonjour, Je cherche à réserver un train pour 4 personnes entre Copenhague et Cologne le 22 juillet (celui de 11h36) tout se passe bien sur le site jusqu’au moment du paiement. On m’indique que pour des soucis de réservations de siège il n’est pas possible de réserver. J’avoue que je ne comprends pas bien alors que des places sont disponibles sur le plan du train. Je n’ai pas de probleme pour celui de 13h57 alors que le système de réservation est le même. Quelqu’un a-t-il une explication ?