I am traveling to Europe for the first time, is it best to travel around by eurail or plane?

Question

I will be starting in London, then spending the majority of my 4 week long trip in France, Spain, Portugal and possibly Italy and/or Greece.

Answer 1

With trains your schedule has mostly more space to change. If you book planes you have to fly on the date on your ticket, if you travel by Eurail pass with reserved seats you will have to pay for a new reservation, if you have no reservations you can just take a train whenever you like.

The train stations are often in the middle of the town, while airports are farther out, making you using buses or trains for the last little bit.

You can also combine the two, like taking a plane London-France, (as with a eurail ticket you have to pay for the English part of the train ride) and use trains for the rest.

Answer 2

What is best is to make an itinerary that does not have you running around trying to see too much in too short a time.

Too many people make every trip a competition to see how many cities they can check off of their list.

The result is that they see a half dozen popular tourist sights in each of a dozen places and come away without the faintest understanding of where they have been, the culture of the places they have seen or real ambience of each place.

This is known as the "If its tuesday this must be Belgium" syndrome. It is encouraged by tour operators and chalatans like Rick Steves who push ludicorus itineraries on naive tourists.

In four weeks a first timer starting in London would be best off with a plan to see, for example, London, Paris, and Amsterdam or perhaps London-Paris-Rome.

A sensible itinerary also means that you are probably better off flying using low cost European air carriers. Train trips are, for most people, just as dull in Europe as they are anywhere else.

Rethink your plans! See a few places well rather than a bunch of places superficially.

Answer 3

I woulds say both have their ups and downs. It basically depends on your budget and amount of time. You should check some prices and schedules for both trains and planes to see what's more convenient. Overall, in the actual trip, the bad thing about planes is that they have very tight security and you might be a long time in the airport, but on the other side it's faster (the flight I don't know in total) and you get more privileges like snacks and music.

Answer 4

It depends what kind of a travel experience you want. If you want to get to a specific location quickly so you can spend all your time exploring there, use the plane.

If you want to see the countryside and get a sense of the country (albeit that part of it that's near the train tracks), go by train.