My Interrail experience and advice for first-time Interrailers

To anyone out there thinking about going interrailing at some point, my advice is stop thinking and go and do it. Interrailing was by far the best experience I have ever had and the best summer I have ever had. In my experience there are two main ways you can Interrail, they are the plan everything in advance way (the way I did it) or the let’s just wing it way. No matter which way you decide to interrail you will love every second of it.

My Interrail experience

I went interrailing last summer with my boyfriend and it was truly amazing. We decided as it was the first time either of us had done something like this that we would plan and book everything in advance, so we did. We booked our flights, bought our pass, planned our route, booked our trains and our hotels and then we were off. However, we did keep in mind that no matter how much planning you put in, not everything would go to plan. For example, one of our night trains was delayed meaning we missed our connection in the morning, but we just had to stay calm and get on the next one.

The route we chose to do was this. We flew to Brussels then went on to Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Rome, Venice, Munich (where we did a day trip to Salzburg) and finally Berlin. It was incredible we managed to see so many amazing places in such a short amount of time. In the space of 3 weeks, we saw the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Vatican, the canals of Venice, Mozart’s birthplace and the Brandenburg gate, just to name a few. Seeing all those amazing things and places would be almost impossible without interrailing. You get to travel all over Europe for half the price it would cost to fly, and the train journeys are incredible. I think one of the most memorable journeys was watching the sunrise over the Alps while travelling to Milan.

Although my experience was great there are several things I would definitely do differently next time. I would definitely double check my travel days on my pass to make sure I don’t accidently use two for one journey and end up having to buy an extra train ticket. I would also pack lighter, I took so many clothes and extra things that I never used and towards the end it just became an annoyance to carry it everywhere.

See the best Interrail backpacks

My advice to first-time Interrailers

Don’t over pack. If you end up over packing it’s not the end of the world but remember when you are packing, you’re not staying in the same place for very long and you’re going to have to carry your luggage wherever you go.

Book your train seat reservations. If you are booking everything in advance, make sure on any train where a reservation is possible (even though it does cost a little bit) you book seats. Trains get super full and the last thing you want is to be doing an 8-hour journey sat on the floor.

Make sure you buy the right Interrail pass. There are several different types of pass for Interrail so when buying your pass make sure it has enough travel days on it, because the last thing you want is for the pass to run out of travel days before your last journey.

Make sure you fill in your pass correctly. This is super important because if you don’t fill in your travel days correctly you can lose a travel day and you really don’t want that. So, take your time when filling it in to make sure you do it right.