Use railsaver.com Follow the "I know my itinerary" route and click "use a railpass only if it saves money.

Whether or not a rail pass saves money depends largely on where you’re traveling. If you’re traveling in France, Benelux, Germany, Austria, Switzerland or Scandinavia, some kind of rail pass is likely to save money. The classic consecutive day pass is usually not the best deal. Look at a select pass for the specific countries you’re traveling in.

ErinO writes:

quote:I’m only planning on going to about 5 places over the course of 2-3 weeks. … My goal is to just go as I please, with about 5 main places in mind, but i don’t want to be traveling between them too much, because I want to just be liesurely about the whole thing …

If you qualify for a youth Flexipass and you have a well thought out itinerary, my response might change.

There are so many intra-Europe discount airlines (EasyJet, German Wings, Vueling, RyanAir, etc.) operating there, now, that it might be more economical to fly between your Destinations.

I would suggest that you give us something more to work with: like your proposed month(s) of travel and a rough itinerary the next time you post.

well roughly speaking, and this is subject to change, i was going to fly into paris, move across germany maybe stopping in munich, go to vienna, hang around and then possibly work my way down into italy in venice rome and maybe naples.

I gave a really sketchy overview, because at this point it is really sketchy.

I’m only definately travelling in the first weeks of april.

Look at a 3 country select pass for 5 days to cover France, Germany and Austria. If you think you’ll use an extra day, you get a 7th day free with the purchase of a 6 day pass if you buy it before the end of March. I’d buy point to point tickets in Italy.

A pass is probably going to save money, but it won’t be a huge amount, so I wouldn’t worry too much about the decision.

Doesn’t sound like it would be worth a railpass to me. Point to point in Italy is fairly cheap. So is the Czech Republic. You can get from Paris to Frankfurt for about 50 Euros on an overnight bus if I recall right (www.deutsche-touring…) and you won’t be traveling much in Austria. If you arrange to travel across Germany on a Sat or Sun you can cover quite a bit of ground for 30 Euros on the Happy Weekend ticket.

Railsaver is a good tool but unfortunately doesn’t provide you with all the options that can make travel cheaper.

I just returned from a week in the Black Forest (it was mostly white this time of year!) and traveled around on the trains there for free for 3 days. There’s a deal there whereby you stay in certain towns and the local tourist office gives you a guest pass for unlimited regional travel. So basically I parlayed a 17/Euro/night stay at a cozy B&B into a nice little ground package.

Germany may have some other rail deals that are good for you too. At their website (www.bahn.de) I found a ticket from Stuttgart to Zurich for 19 Euros – just printeed the ticket here at home before I left – and there are other such specials as well.

Thanks for all the advice. I ended up getting one anyway because I couldn’t wait any longer to decide. i still might get a refund on it, but It’s valid for two months so I might go to spain in may and get some more use out of it between spain and france.