Interrailing Proposal Summer 2015

First of all, this document was written on Word 2003 (whilst I was supposed to be workingshhhhhh), so is liable to look worse than desired. Anyway
This is something that Ive been interested in doing for quite a while, but never got round to
doing anything about. Essentially, Interrailing (fairly obviously) is travelling from place to place
using trains- in this case, around Europe. You can buy a couple of kinds of passes; one that is
valid simply within one country, and another that is valid over most of Europe, the idea being
that you travel all around either that country or Europe, spending time in various cities/places
that you want to visit as you go, staying overnight at hostels, or even on-board sleeper trains
(which wastes less time). Buying one of these passes is far cheaper than buying individual train
tickets or flights (assuming you want to visit a few places of course), and is a great way of
cheaply exploring the vast array of sights and cultures that make up Europe. Okay, its not as
exotic to some as going to, say, Thailand, but the benefits are: a) its a lot cheaper and b) lets
face it, its probably far more interesting (or at least, I think so). Thats not to say that the trip
would be cheap as chips, because that would be a complete lie. However, when you look at how
cheap it is compared to how many places youre visiting, well then it looks rather economical
indeed. Put it this way- if you were to start in the UK each time to visit each place that was
chosen to stop off in, the overall cost would probably be well over 5x higher (and thats just a
figure that Ive plucked out of my head- its quite possibly much higher than that). And to be
honest, in the grand scheme of things, it isnt that expensive anyway.
Here are some figures below (again, apologies for the Word-2003-ness of this):
Available Interrail Passes
5 days within 10 days
10 days within 22 days
15 days continuous
22 days continuous

Approx Accomodation
Interrail Pass
Food
Flights
Misc
Total:

150
220
253
280

~10/day
~25/day

10 days
100
150
250
70
100

15 days
150
220
375
70
100

22 days
220
220
550
70
100

670

915

1,160

As I said earlier- this is not a luxury trip. The whole idea is that stuff is done on the cheap- the
emphasis being on travelling and seeing new things, rather than 5* hotels (there seems to be
plenty of free wifi though). The flight cost above is based on a normal easyJet/LCC flight to a
starting point (say, for example Paris) and back from an end point (e.g. Athens or something).
Anyway, I suppose the whole point in writing this rambling mess of words is to see whether
anyone else is interested in doing such a thing, and if they are, whether you all have the time or
not. If anyone is worried about the money involved, I would say, if anything, that the amount Ive

quoted above (whilst fairly rough) is probably at the higher end of the scale, and various things
could probably be done to bring the cost down.
Personally, some of the major places I would like to visit are: Amsterdam, Berlin, Frankfurt, Kln,
Mnchen (not that there is any link between the last 4, not at all)
However, obviously, the idea is to do whatever people want to do- so there are many, many
combinations of destinations possible, travelling to wherever people want to go. The idea would
be to do this trip probably during late August, as I shall be working until the end of July. Again,
this is flexible. Basically, everything is flexible, with a sprinkling of spontaneity over the top.
Unless we want to be 100% German in our mindset and plan every single minute of every day,
but wheres the fun in that?
Thanks for reading this. Below, I have listed a set of handy options:
1) You hate the sound of all of this
1) You hate the sound of this, but with more swearing
2) You cannot be bothered even thinking about it
3) What the hell are you going on about Steffan?
4) Are you actually a little bit special Steffan?

5) I have far better things to do with my time/money

6) Ive kinda forgotten who you are and now hate you
7) I have more interesting friends now, so
8) This sounds like it could be vaguely interesting

Suggested action: Ignore me completely

Suggested action: Actively insult me and/or
firebomb my house
Suggested action: Ignore me completely
Suggested action: Ignore me completely
Suggested action: Actively insult me,
my intelligence, life and future
prospects
Suggested action: Ignore me completely
Suggested action: Ignore me completely
Suggested action: Ignore me completely
Suggested action: Actively insult me,
my intelligence, life and future
prospects, firebomb my house, and
then let me know youre interested.

In all seriousness, please do give it a think through, and I know youre probably a lot busier than
I am, so thank you very very very much for reading this. And please dont be put off by the
amount Ive written- when uninterrupted, Im liable to ramble considerably, and I didnt want to
suggest any of this without at least seeming like Ive put some thought into it.

Tl;dr; Stop being so lazy sensible with the use of your time and read what Ive written. Ta.

Stephen (if you read this): if there are any grammatical mistakes in this, I dont care. Same goes
for spelling and numerical. (Okay, actually, I do care, just dont rub it in my face- thanks).

Appendix:
http://www.interrail.eu/

The Interrail Pass website for all the info I havent mentioned.

Basic map of the major rail routes- note, travel on more regional rail services (e.g. the S-Bahn
in Germany which is fantastic) is often included in the pass as well, as are some coach services
(eugh) and discounts on ferries:

More complete map link (pdf)

Guide to budget travelling