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Interrailing Proposal Summer 2015

First of all, this document was written on Word 2003 (whilst I was supposed to be working-

shhhhhh), so is liable to look worse than desired. Anyway… 

This is something that I’ve 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, it’s not as

‘exotic’ to some as going to, say, Thailand, but the benefits are: a) it’s a lot cheaper and b) let’sface it, it’s probably far more interesting (or at least, I think so). That’s 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 you’re 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 that’s just a

figure that I’ve plucked out of my head- it’s quite possibly much higher than that). And to be

honest, in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t 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 £150

10 days within 22 days £220

15 days continuous £253

22 days continuous £280

10 days 15 days 22 days

Approx Accomodation ~£10/day £100 £150 £220

Interrail Pass £150 £220 £220

Food ~£25/day £250 £375 £550

Flights £70 £70 £70Misc £100 £100 £100

Total: £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 ornot. If anyone is worried about the money involved, I would say, if anything, that the amount I’ve

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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, Köln,

München (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 where’s 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 Suggested action: Ignore me completely1) You hate the sound of this, but with more swearing Suggested action: Actively insult me and/or

firebomb my house

2) You cannot be bothered even thinking about it Suggested action: Ignore me completely

3) What the hell are you going on about Steffan? Suggested action: Ignore me completely

4) Are you actually a little bit special Steffan? Suggested action: Actively insult me,

my intelligence, life and future

prospects

5) I have far better things to do with my time/money Suggested action: Ignore me completely

6) I’ve kinda forgotten who you are and now hate you  Suggested action: Ignore me completely

7) I have more interesting friends now, so…  Suggested action: Ignore me completely8) This sounds like it could be vaguely interesting Suggested action: Actively insult me,

my intelligence, life and future

prospects, firebomb my house, and

then let me know you’re interested. 

In all seriousness, please do give it a think through, and I know you’re probably a lot busier than

I am, so thank you very very very much for reading this. And please don’t be put off by the

amount I’ve written- when uninterrupted, I’m liable to ramble considerably, and I didn’t want to

suggest any of this without at least seeming like I’ve put some thought into it.

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

Stephen (if you read this): if there are any grammatical mistakes in this, I don’t care. Same goes

for spelling and numerical. (Okay, actually, I do care, just don’t rub it in my face- thanks).

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Appendix:

http://www.interrail.eu/   The Interrail Pass website for all the info I haven’t 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 

http://www.interrail.eu/http://www.interrail.eu/http://www.interrail.eu/sites/interrail.eu/files/documents/interrail_map_2015.pdfhttp://www.interrail.eu/sites/interrail.eu/files/documents/interrail_map_2015.pdfhttp://www.interrail.eu/plan-your-trip/tips-budget-travel-europehttp://www.interrail.eu/plan-your-trip/tips-budget-travel-europehttp://www.interrail.eu/plan-your-trip/tips-budget-travel-europehttp://www.interrail.eu/sites/interrail.eu/files/documents/interrail_map_2015.pdfhttp://www.interrail.eu/