Interrailing 2016: The Logistics

 I've just returned from the most amazing 17 day inter-rail trip around Eastern Europe and am seriously suffering from the post-holiday blues. I went with 10 (yes 10) friends and, despite one argument, the trip went swimmingly. We started our trip in Prague then made our way to Bucharest via Vienna, Ljubljana, Lake Bled, Zagreb and Belgrade.

There are a variety of different interrail passes you can choose from, depending on your age, length of trip and class of travel. We opted for the under 26, 2nd class, 5 days within 15 pass which cost around £150. The most popular place to purchase the pass is directly from the interrail website, but at the last minute we discovered that National Rail also sold them with a 5% discount. Postage for the pass is pretty pricey, coming in at £10. If you're going in a group it's best to get all the passes delivered to one address and split the postage costs.

The '5 days within 15' pass essentially means that you can travel by train on any 5 given days, within a 15 day period. If you're travelling on multiple trains within one day, as long as it's part of a feasible journey, then your pass is valid. You may end up taking 8 or 9 trains within your 5 allotted travel days, but this is fine as you may need to take more than one train within a single journey. 

It get's a tad confusing if you're planning on getting a night train though, as we found out 15 minutes before boarding ours. If you've travelled via train before 7pm on the day you'll be boarding a night train then you'll have to use 2 travel days on your inter-rail pass. However, if you're travelling on trains after 7pm on the day you board your night train, then you only need to use 1 travel day (this will be the day you arrive, not the day you depart). Kind of confusing if you're travelling on multiple trains before the actual night train, like we did, but we eventually got our heads round it.

Some trains require a reservation before you board and others you can just turn up and jump on at the station. As we were in a big group we always pre-booked seats, usually for a small fee the equivalent of £2-£3. Most trains we went on were pretty full, so for the small cost I'd recommend reserving seats as you risk not being allowed on the train as there are limited seats reserved for inter-rail tickets.

There's a handy Interrail app that has the majority of train timetables stored and doesn't need the internet to work - ideal for those who don't have data abroad. It would be better if you could also use the app to reserve trains, but this functionality is only available for Italian trains. You can use the Interrail website to reserve train seats, however I wouldn't recommend doing this while you're away. If you try and reserve online then the reservation has to be posted out to you, there's no option for an e-ticket. We booked our night train online before leaving, however the reservation was only confirmed once we were away. We had to get the tickets posted out to a hostel, which was a massive faff. Going straight to the station and reserving seats is probably the quickest and easiest way to guarantee your seats. 

While inter-railing can save you a lot of money and allows you to travel the majority of Europe, the pass isn't always the easiest thing to use or get your head round. It would be great if you could quickly reserve seats via the app, or print off e-tickets once you'd made a reservation online. Despite this, I loved every minute of my trip!