faxman75

After extensive research before going on our trip to europe and seeing 5 big cities I found the Eurorail was going to kill us as far as money went. I just want to make sure those who don't mind scheduling a bit more and sitting on the train a bit less know that they should do tons of looking around for cheap airfair. For our intraeurope travel a rail pass was about $800. Our airline tickets from Dublin to London to Amsterdam to Prague to Rome back to Dublin cost us aproximately $520. It saved us quite a bit.

We used bookingbuddy.com and clicked on every site to check out dates and for the best rates. We also used Ryanair which had some amazing deals as well. Good budget airlines in europe are:
ryanair
skyeurope
easyjet

check all their individual sites as well. Obviously if you want to come and go from these countries as you please and not on a time frame the eurorail would be beneficial but we got shocking looks on peoples faces at hostels when we tell them what we paid and how much time we saved. So I just thought i would pass it along.

aliz

It's a good point, and we did two plane trips on our last trip to save time, but I think if you are traveling a lot within on area, like how we were in eastern europe, my vote is for the train. to get between two cities that are, say, 3 hours by train would be a very short flight. the actual flight is probably less time than you would spend at the airport checking in, and I've always found that airports tend to be pretty expensive to get to and far out of town. if you measure the time it takes to get from the door of one hostel to the door of the next, it's probably pretty similar. so I think it's good to take lots of trains and save the plane trips for the really long trips (eg we flew from london to berlin and from munich to paris). also, in eastern europe you don't need a eurail pass. I agree that eurail passes are very expensive!

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MeTurk

I wouldn't totally discount the established airlines either.

Their under just as much pressure to provide cheap flights and while they may be €10 - €50 more expensive they can work out cheaper when you take into account the extra charges the low cost airlines tack onto your fair. Low cost airlines may take you to a far out airport meaning you have to spend whatever money you saved getting from the airport to the city you want to go to.

Typically it seems if your traveling within a country bus is the cheapest way to go. If your traveling between European country's Flying is cheaper.

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