1. Send an e-mail to railpass@Eurotrip.com with your questions about buying a railpass from this site. I know this site will ship to Europe, but there may be some specifics you need to include in the address or something, so send the e-mail. Make sure the address you use is deliverable and your friend knows to expect the passes and perhaps sign for delivery. If this site can’t accommodate you try some other sites like eurail.com railpass.com (I know these 2 ship to Europe) raileurope.com ricksteves.com

If you can’t get a pass delivered to your friend’s place you can buy the eurail pass at a eurail aid office. There’s one at Amsterdam Centraale and I think Another at the rail station at Schipol airport. It will cost about 20% more than buying on-line from outside Europe, but that may not be a huge deal when compared to international shipping charges. Britrail passes are also sold in continental Europe (not sold in UK) but I’m not sure where. If the Eurail Aid office can’t help you, try a travel agency office (I think there are several near the train station) in Amsterdam.

$2,700 (assuming you mean US $) will be very tight for 31 days for just daily living. It is impossible after you take out nearly $1,000 for rail passes. Staying with friends part of the time will help with daily living part.

Oldlady — thanks for fielding this.
Arhcamt — it may not be enough time to get it shipped to London. The people at that email address should be able to help you out.

There’s really not a lot to do in York, the walls are by no means impressive and York Munster, while nice, can easily be missed. Also, aside from the cathedral in Salisbury (which is fantastic) I really don’t know what you’re going to see in 3 days.

I recommend you cut out York and spend a half day in Salisbury and try to allocate some more time for Scotland like checking out the highlands or Glasgow.

Oh I also just noticed, spend 1-2 days in Bath in the UK, it’s amazing.

thanks a lot oldlady and mim. i’ll send my enquiry there. i think i’ll be skipping berlin so that i could stay longer in amsterdam with my friend. 2 days there seem to be too hurried and i could save some more that way. another question, is it feasible to travel by train for budapest-rome, venice-lauterbrunnen, and lauterbrunnen-barcelona with my schedule or do i need to consider traveling by plane? barcelona-paris is okay i think since i’ll be staying for a while there but that’s not the case with the cities i previously mentioned.

thanks so much for the suggestion, Ryfela! i don’t have a clear picture of what i’d like to see in UK, unlike europe, so recommendation is always great. i’ll adjust my itinerary.

oh, and if i skip berlin would it be okay to travel from amsterdam to prague by train or should i look for a flight? thanks again.

oldlady and mim – i just sent and email to railpass@Eurotrip.com but it said “Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently. Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain.” do you have a different email address? thanks before.

My rules of thumb for train vs. Plane decision.

Train ride less than 5 hours, take the train.
Train ride 5 to 7 hours, fly or train, whichever is cheaper
Train ride over 7 hours, fly unless it’s prohibitively expensive, or there’s a good (direct train and the price is comparable to cost of flying + hostel) option for an overnight train.

oops Try rail@Eurotrip.com

thank you oldlady, i’ve sent the email.

i checked the www.sbb.ch/en site for the schedule and found that there’s overnight train for amsterdam-prague, budapest-rome, lauterbrunnen-barcelona, and barcelona-paris. venice-lauterbrunnen trains take about 7-8 hours, all have night arrival, and so far i haven’t managed to find flight from venice to lauterbrunnen. i don’t mind traveling by train but i’m just worried that i might not be able to easily find my way once i arrive because it’s late.

also, if i want to make reservation for the trains do i need to wait for the eurail pass to do so or can i just reserve first? i notice for some of the trains i mentioned above reservation is compulsory.

Oops! I should have caught that.

It’s best to wait until you get to Europe to buy reservations at the train station. The on-line travel agencies that sell reservations inflate the price and then add shipping and handling charges which usually double the price. Trains seldom sell out, so reserving about a day in advance for day trains and 3 days in advance for overnight trains is usually adequate. You can reserve most trains at any major rail station so a little planning and buying the reservations you’ll need in the future before you leave the train station when you arrive can avoid extra trips to the station.

Try www.whichbudget.com to see which low fare airlines fly which routes and check our “cheap flights” forum for more links, searches, tips and help.