By Rachel Drake and Louis Backstrom (PhD candidates, School of Mathematics and Statistics).
Published on: 2 September 2024.
So, you’ve decided to embark on a sustainable and thrilling trip through Europe by train. Often, an Interrail ticket is the cheapest way to do this. But how do you go about actually booking the trains you need for your research trip? This guide is designed to help, based on our own recent experience of Interrail travel. There are various steps to the booking process, namely booking an interrail pass followed by some specific set reservations but once this was done and we got to grips with the phone apps for tickets on the go it all worked smoothly. We would definitely travel this way again.
We used Interrail to travel from St Andrews to Sempach in Switzerland this summer (2024). The trip took around 15 hours each way but we were able to enjoy lots of fantastic views and even a stop in Paris. Most trains also had free Wi-Fi and plugs, perfect for working on the go. Cost-wise, for a four-day pass and all reservations we totalled at £270. Equivalent flights would have costed around £200. However, flying would have produced an estimated 472kg of CO2 whereas the train used only 3kg making the train a much more sustainable option.
There are a few things you’ll need before you get started:
- An Interrail/ Eurail account: signing up beforehand is essential to ensure you don’t lose your booking information throughout the process. You can make an account here.
- A bank account that can make international payments in Europe: if your bank is based in the UK this is usually included with a standard account but there may be a currency conversion/ transaction fee associated with payments.
- A valid passport: you need this to board the Eurostar to travel from the UK to Europe and back again. More information here.
- An uninterrupted 30 minutes: completing the booking process in stages can get confusing; we recommend you finish booking in one session.
Step one: choose your trains
Log in to your Eurail/Interrail account first. The website has a habit of deleting your selected trains when you log in.
We used the Interrail Timetable tool to find route options. It’s worth checking the number of transfers and transfer times as not all routes are feasible. You will want to repeat this for each travel day, opening one tab for each separate travel day (e.g. Edinburgh to Paris, Paris to Zurich, Zurich to Brussels, etc.).
Step two: buy your pass
Beware the difference between Eurail and Interrail passes! Interrail passes are for anyone who is a resident or citizen of a European country (including the UK), Eurail passes are for everyone else. They function similarly but you need to choose the correct pass to be able to travel. More information here.
All Global Passes (regardless of length) cover a maximum of two days travel in your country of residence (i.e., the UK). It is best to think of these as your travel days to and from home. If you’re traveling from St Andrews, you may want to get from Leuchars down to London and across the channel on the Eurostar in one day. This generally means an early start on the first day of your travel, to give you plenty of time to get down to London and across to Continental Europe!
Count your train tabs from step one and see how many days you’ll need on a pass. It can also be useful to round up and add an extra couple of days in some cases for things like day trips or unexpected alterations to your travel plans. For example, during our trip to Switzerland we had two extra travel days and used one of these for sight-seeing.
To book your Global Pass, open another tab (keeping all your trains open) and head to the Global Pass page to select your desired pass. The Global Pass Youth extend up to 27-year-olds and provide a good discount. All passes are regularly discounted so if you are planning your journey several months in advance, it may be worth waiting for a few weeks to see if they go on sale before booking. We booked a mobile Pass; this is the standard option and helpfully allows you to edit your travel days throughout the trip on Eurail Rail Planner app.
Step three: book your trains
Major European trains and the Eurostar
Now that you have your pass, go back to each of your travel day tabs and book each train. This is only for trains requiring seat reservations (mostly major long-distance routes like the LNER or Eurostar). Otherwise, for trains without reservable seats you just need to show your pass on the train when asked.
To add your reservations to cart, you need to click the seat reservation tick box by using the drop-down menu for each train.
Once you’ve received the confirmation emails with your seat details you then need to add your passport information to the Eurostar train to confirm your reservation. You don’t need to do this immediately, but you won’t receive your tickets until it is done so we advise doing this ahead of time.
Your booking emails also give you the option to check your seat reservations and you can change your seat too depending on availability.
Domestic UK trains
As well as seat reservations for your major European trains, any domestic UK trains also require a seat booking ahead of time. These aren’t too expensive – from Edinburgh to London they cost us £4 each way per person. Seat reservations can be booked through www.acprail.com. You’ll be emailed a confirmation which we printed to show when boarding the train. You can also scan your Eurail pass at the automatic gates in the station, but this was hit or miss.
Step four: going mobile
It’s worth having a backup copy of each of your seat reservations and passes printed in case of any issues on the day, but the apps provide a lot of extra functionality that we think makes them worthwhile. It is advisable to have a method of charging your phone on hand for long journeys, power banks can be used without the need for an adapter on the go.
Eurail app
Once you have all your email confirmations through, download the Eurail Rail Planner app and connect your mobile pass. You need your pass number from your booking email to do this. Before you activate your pass, you can use the planner tab to find each leg of your trip and add them to a saved journey by clicking on the option that matches your booking and using the ‘Save Journey’ button. With all the legs of your journey saved, you can go ahead and connect the trip to the pass.
To make use of extra travel days in your pass on the go, once again use the planer tab to find the trains you’d like to take for the day and add them to the same saved journey which already has your pass connected. Then, when you want to board, you can go to your pass and activate the travel day.
Eurostar app
Using your booking reference from the Eurostar emails, you can add your tickets to the Eurostar app. This ticket can then be added to your phone wallet for ease of access. The app also gives you live updates on delays or cancellations.
And there you have it; a one stop shop guide to booking your Interrail tickets for your sustainable rain travel for all your research trips in Europe! Happy train-ing.