You shouldn’t have any problems, but do take the normal precautions. Use a money belt for cash, credit cards, passport. Use your day pack for a pillow. Most importantly, stay sober and don’t assume that any friends you make aren’t thieves. You should be able to book a two berth compartment, but it will be expensive. Reserving all 4 berths in a 4 berth compartment might be cheaper. You can book this in Salzburg, although you might be able to find a cheaper, special fare at OBB if you book on-line in advance. Booking on line from any site other than OBB will end up costing much more than buying at the station. Same answers, although I would be a little more careful on this leg.

I like Zagreb, but is there a reason you’ve picked it? IMO, Zagreb isn’t the best reason to travel to Croatia or through Slovenia. Have you looked into cheap flights, as opposed to overnight trains??

thank you very much for your detailed reply! it was very helpful.

We are planning to take a plane ride from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, and fly back to Zagreb the next day and take a day trip to Plitvice Lakes National Park. we also chose Zagreb because we want to go to Budapest after that.

in your opinion what would be the best reason to travel to Croatia then?

I can’t seem to find any cheap flights from Zagreb to Budapest or Dubrovnik to Budapest.

By getting to Dubrovnik and Plitvice, you’ve covered some of the better visits than Zagreb. Zagreb is a long way from these places, so doesn’t seem like a very good base city to visit these places. You’re going to be spending a minimum of 6 hours (probably more like 8 or 9)getting to/from airports, in airport check in lines and in airplanes just to spend a few hours where you really want to be. Then, you turn around and do it again the next day. That does not make any sense at all to me.

I think you need to seriously rethink your itinerary.

If me and my friends were that cautious, we’d never get any sleep on night trains. All our twenties we used them to travel between our campus and our homes and never had a problem.

Seriously, taking turns sleeping is not necessary. Just lock your compartment and put your valuables under your head (use them as a pillow). Yes, and one more thing. If you are woken up at 7 in the morning by loud knocking on your compartment door, fear not and open, it’s Croatian border police wanting to check your passports, as Croatia is not a part of Schengen.

All European night trains, regardless whether it’s Austrian OBB, Swedish SJ or Russian RZD, have compartment locks in all compartments.

You can buy them at Salzburg train station, or any other Austrian or German train station.

again, as safe as before. Why are all these people from other continents afraid of European night trains? Some bad urban legends running around?