Hello everyone. I plan on visiting two major cities, Paris and Berlin. I'm curious to know what transportation passes would be the most economical for travelling within Paris and Berlin. I plan on visiting these cities for 3-4 days. :lookaround:

Generally, if you're visiting a city for a few days and have a lot of area to cover in a little bit of time, invest in a metro pass for those few days. Another thing you may want to look into is Fat Tire Bike Tours. They work in two of your cities, I rather like the idea of seeing a city from a bike. You get exercise, you get to see the lay of the land, and you get the benefit of your guide's knowledge. If you do it like day 1 or something you can note where you want to come back to and do it in your next days.

When I went to Paris a couple of years ago, for the Metro I got a "carnet", which was basically a stack of 10 individual tickets. It must habe cost about 10 euros or something like that. The transfers between lines are included in the price. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure how the tickets worked while I was using them, sometimes I'd get to the machine and find that my ticket wouldn't let me through, so I'd start on a new one. Other times, my ticket was still good.

Anyway, for my trip of something like 4 days (I can't believe I don't remember how long I was there for!) I only used the 10 tickets.

As for Berlin, I think we bought a day ticket each day we were there, which gave us unlimited travel in all zones, and on all public transports, for one day. These were well priced, and worked out fine for us. I believe there are other passes though, if you do want to have unlimited travel for your whole stay.

metro day passes or the 10pack passes they have in alot of cities are good things to have. at the same time though, bike tours are great cause you get to see more of the city than just the major attractions.

i enjoy walking alot when im in different cities so i normally opt to hoof it from one place to another if its less than 2 or 3 miles. that way i get a chance to see some of the city by foot, and it gives u a chance to hop into little shops and stuff along the way. sometimes u run into really cool stuff that can consume the rest of your day.

another option that isnt super cheap but i have done before and is pretty nice is to do one of the tourist bus tour things. it sounds cheesy and kind of is most of the time, but alot of them are narrorated so u get some interesting facts about the city and the buses on a circle route to pretty much everywhere site see'ers want to go. thats a good way to see a city if you only have a day and you want to see all the major sites without being underground all day. but since that normally runs like 20 bucks a day it can add up if you do it in more than one city or if you want to pay the fee to see the site everywhere you go.

If you plan on checking out a lot of the museums and such, another possible option is the city sightseeing cards (google "Paris City Card" or "Berlin City Card", for example) - be sure to research them before you go, we've used them in some places, but not others, depending on how they match what we want to do. Usually, a good bonus that those cards offer is unlimited public transit, as well as all the museum/tourist destination entrances.

Some also offer a free or discounted city tour. Ironically, since I was once a tour guide on city bus tours, I seldom opt to take them, but in some instances (like when they're included in a pass you've already paid for), they actually are a pretty interesting introduction to a place. We particularly enjoyed the one we took in Tallinn, especially since we went in February and wandering around in the bitter cold was not so appealing. Taking the tour showed us things that we wouldn't have bothered with had we had to wait for buses in the snow.

If you don't plan on visiting a ton of tourist sites, you can usually buy short term transit passes - integrated ones are best, so you can have max. flexibility that cover the length of time you'll be in town. Often there are 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 day passes - but if you're only going to be in town for four days, chances are the 5 day pass is still a better deal than paying for each fare. Most budget travelers tend to use public transit more than other visitors who are perhaps less comfortable with public transit in their home towns, and might find the adventure of taking a metro to and from a single museum quite sufficient for one day.

Or, if you think you might spend the better part of a day at, say, the Louvre, buy the three day pass and visit the Louvre before or after the pass is valid, just paying for the in and out fare on that particular day. Plan your visit so that the day you plan to use transit least is not in the middle of your pass's validity!

:tumbleweed: