Looks like a good trip. Hopefully you can take occasional day trips out of the big cities to smaller towns, looks like you are allowing for that, along with travel time to your destinations.

Sometimes you can find a cheap flight to Frankfurt, but I can see how you picked Brussels and I would certainly rather begin from there. Don in Cheap Flights and Oldlady might be able to advise you on that and concerning train passes.

Interesting train/ferry ride from Hamburg to Copenhagen (I mean that in a good way, it really does look kind of interesting.)

The trip planner recommends a Benelux Pass plus a Germany-Denmark pass (total cost about $450 US) plus $15 in point to point tickets (between Czech border and Prague). That’s usually the best recommendation you can get without a whole lot of work on your part. The only inaccuracy I see is that I think you’re likely to spend closer to $30 ($15 each way) for the Czech ticket. The trip planner is based on a formula that estimates standard fare from the country involved and the distance and it’s pretty accurate. If you’re willing and able (lots of time and effort involved in searching out low fares) to commit to non-refundable tickets several weeks in advance, you might beat standard fare buying on-line special fare tickets from the national rail company websites.

I would probably buy an 8 day, 3 country (Benelux, Germany, Denmark) select pass (about $400) which, I think leaves you one day short. Either don’t use the pass for the shortest trip in Belgium, the German part of the trip from Berlin to Prague (try to book that ticket far enough in advance to get a good fare on-line from Bahn.de) OR look for a cheap flight from Prague to Cologne — it’s an 8 hour trip, 1/2 of it on a bus. If the term “cheap” and Denmark ever work in the same sentence, a flight from Copenhagen to Berlin is another option.

Thanks for replies guys. I was surprised that a 400-500$ train pass would actually accommodate all those trips. I thought I would be shelling out a lot more for the travel, but I guess that leaves me with more money to spend on enjoying the trip

You will need to buy reservations for some of these trains. The rail pass covers your ticket, but not the reservation. Trains within Belgium and trains within Netherlands don’t require reservations and you may be able to go between those two countries without a reservation and/or take slightly slower regional and local trains that don’t require reservations. Reservations in Germany cost about 5 €.

Look at more interesting Bruges as an alternative to Brussels.

I picked Brussels over Bruges because my friends already been there a few summers ago and the round trip flights to Brussels are super cheap from Toronto for some reason.

I like Brussels because of the widely diverse food and culture — African, Caribbean, Indonesian plus the massive, modern tribute to bureaucracy that is the EU. However, I don’t think that’s what interests most tourists and there’s less than a days worth of stuff to see that is interesting to most tourists. Have a waffle (best in Brussels) see the medieval square by day and by night, have a couple of beers and some chocolate (both equally good elsewhere in Belgium).

My kid and his girlfriend just spent a weekend in Brussels. They had a great time, and one thing they said was “Everyone was so nice!” (They live in Paris.)