Interrailing through Italy and Eastern Europe advice

Question

I'm planning on going interrailing this August and September for about 2 or 3 weeks. I'm going to go from Bari - Rome - Milan - Venice - Budapest - Krakow - Prague

Would it be cheaper to buy an interrail pass or just to buy the individual tickets?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Answer 1

There are too many variables to provide an exhaustive answer to this - your age, the specific type of pass, the exact trains and class of service you'll be using, availability and whether you take the time to get the discounted prices on the individual tickets ... Generally, the passes are advantageous if you use a LOT of long distance regional trains where you don't have to pay the supplement that goes with the pass. Here in Italy, you pay an additional 20 eurp for each AV train, 15 for a Eurostar or 5 for an Intercity train - there are also supplements for night trains.

Individual 2nd class ticket prices in euro (Amica discount fare; ES - Eurostar, IC - Intercity):

Bari - Rome:    41.80 (33.40) ES    36.00 (29.90) IC

Rome - Milan   56.10 (44.90) ES    45.00 (33.00) IC

Milan - Venice 25.20 (20.20) ES     24.00 (16.80) IC

Italy price: 79.80 to 123.10 euro; the interrail supplement will be 15 to 45 euro for these trains

Night train to Budapest - the 1st 2 prices are seats the 2nd two are for a berth in a 6 bed compartment (Smart discount fare). the supplement with the IR pass will be 5 euro for seats 19 euro for the berth.



Ven - Bud        55.00 (29.00)          69.00 (43.00)  

Bud - Prague   48.00

Prague - Krakow  29.00  approximate Interrail supplements 7 - 27 euro depending on the specific selections you make.

The overall price for individual tickets is somewhere between 185.80 and 269.10 euro.

If you get a global IR pass good for 10 days in a 22 day period, it costs 359 euro (adult - 26+) or 239 euro (youth) before considering the supplements. Supplements for these selections would run roughly in the range 27 to 91 euro. You can draw your own conclusions.

You could work out routes using mostly regional trains without IR supplements, but it would take a lot longer to travel, require many train changes, and the individual tickets would also be cheaper.