Inter-Rail - How does it work?

[ajb3000]

I'm considering buying an Inter-Rail ticket for my trip to eastern europe, but would like some more information on how it works.

First of all, it says reservations will need to be made for some journeys, how for in advance does this need to be done? For example, can I go to the station in Budapest in the morning and book an overnight train to Bucharest leaving that evening, or would I have to plan the whole trip in advance?

Secondly, I presume the 16/22 days thing are consecutive days only?

Also, I was looking on the raileurope.com site and it gave me a cost of $22 for every return trip with a railcard, that seems a little pricey to me, and I thought it was only a few journeys that had a suppliment, what's the deal here?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[tumblezweedz]

I haven't used the interrail pass, but looking briefly at their site, it looks like the passes are good for travel within the time limit, ie. any time within the 16, 22 or 1 month limit. Obviously this pays off more if you do a lot of travelling.

Usually you can get a reservation on the day or the day before you travel - probably you wouldn't have to book too far in advance, particularly if you're flexible about where and when you're going.

Don't know the details of the $22 charge, but that sounds steep to me. You can travel a long way on $22 in this part of the world...

Hopefully someone has hands on knowledge of the interrail card, but looking at the details I've seen I personally wouldn't get the card.

Why don't you go by a student travel office and see what they can tell you about it?

[ajb3000]

Further to my previous thread, my revised itinary is as follows:

Fly to Budapest (Hungary), from there I expect to use to the train to travel to:

Bucharest (Romania)

Day visits to Brasnov and Draculas Castle

Varna (Bulgaria)

Sofia (Bulgaria)

Belgrade (Serbia)

Sarajevo (Bosnia)

Split (Croatia)

Zagreb (Croatia)

Then back to Budapest for the flight home.

Exluding the flights I'm hoping to do this for £500-600 and over 4 weeks.

Is there anywhere online (other than raileurope.com) that would give me prices for the individual journeys? If I didn't have the card, do you reckon I could just turn up at the train station an hour before the train leaves and buy a ticket then? Also, I've heard coach travel is stupidly cheap so I may look at that option for some of the shorter legs. I'm also quite keen to do most of the travelling at night, giving me more time to do siteseeing during the day and also save on hostels.

[Esterina]

Budapest-Bucharest train ticket with stopover in Brasov was about $45 (more details in your other topic) and Bucharest-Varna less than $20.