Despite having spent 5 years of my life living in Europe, and having visited 24 European countries during that time, there was something on my bucket list that I’d never had the opportunity to do until this past spring: take a train trip across Europe! I’d taken plenty of trains from point A to point B, but the train had never really been the *point* of the trip. Until now.
For two and a half weeks in May, we took 14 trains through five countries on our first proper train trip across Europe. While it was a lot of fun, it took a lot of planning! So, here’s how to get started if you want to plan a European train trip of your own.
1. Choose Your Starting and End Points
While we live in Spain, we did not start our train trip in Spain. Instead, we flew from Alicante to Brussels, Belgium, which was the actual starting point of our trip. You can either choose to have your train trip be a loop, where you start and end in the same place, or have it be a one-way trip with a different start and end point. For us, this particular trip was a one-way, with us ending in Zürich, Switzerland, but we’re actually taking another smaller train trip across Europe in a few weeks, where we’re starting and ending in Basel!
As you’re determining your start and end points, keep in mind that certain regions of Europe are more train-friendly than others. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and (surprisingly) Czechia are all very rail-dense. On the other hand, Southern and Eastern Europe aren’t quite as well-connected, which means routes may not be as frequent or direct. Keep this in mind while planning.
2. Choose Other Cities on the Route
Now that you know where you’re starting and ending, here’s the next question: where will you go in between? Keep in mind that all your stops don’t have to be directly on the path from your start to end point — maybe you’ll have little day trips in there, or diversions from the route where you go a bit out of the way to see something that’s interesting to you.
For example, when we left Belgium (where we stayed in Brussels but took day trips to Ghent and Bruges), we went on to Cologne, Germany. Instead of continuing directly to Heidelberg, we zigzagged back to the southwest to squeeze in a few days in Luxembourg. Was it the most efficient? No, but we really wanted to visit Luxembourg, so it was worth it.
3. Use Google Maps To Estimate Train Travel Time
On our trip, we pretty much decided that we didn’t want to spend more than about 3.5 hours on any leg of our train trip. Sometimes, that was easy — like the direct 3 hours from Brussels to Cologne; other times, it was a combo of one or two 1+ hour trains. Either way, we met our goal of not spending too much time traveling on any given day. Depending on your preferences, you might want to spend more or less time on trains.
Even before looking at specific train routes, you can use Google Maps to help you estimate your commute time between two cities. Pro tip: If you are planning this while you’re in a different time zone, your results might not be accurate based on what time it is in Europe while you’re searching. It might tell you the routes are complicated or time-consuming, but it might just be in the middle of the night in Europe! Choosing a different “depart at” date and time while searching should help.
4. Start Building Out Your Calendar
I’ve been planning trips with a lot of moving around for about 10 years now, and I keep coming back to the same style of basic Google Sheets/Excel spreadsheet to help me keep things organized.
I start by putting in the things I know. Like I knew we’d be flying into Brussels on May 15 really early, and out of Zürich in the late afternoon on June 2. From there, I looked at all the cities I thought I wanted to go to, and I start plugging them into the calendar and moving things around. At the same time, I’m doing my own research about how long you need to spend in each place.
Sometimes I realize that we don’t have enough time to go every single place we wanted to go. Originally, we thought we could squeeze in a day in Liège, Belgium, or even a day in Strasbourg, France. Once you have your calendar going, along with the travel times, you start to figure out what’s realistic for your trip and what needs to wait for another time.
5. Book Your Train Tickets
Finally, once you have your plan for where you want to be and when, it’s time to start actually booking your train tickets!
If you’ve ever taken the train in Europe, you may be familiar with train booking companies such as Trainline and RailEurope. These are good options because they generally have a user-friendly interface and can aggregate train results from multiple rail operators into one place. But the downside is that you’ll be charged a service fee for each booking. When you’re taking a longer trip with more bookings, and multiple people, that can add up. (I’m also not 100% sure how it works if your train is delayed or canceled — I would assume it would be covered, but I don’t have any personal experience to say for sure.)
Booking directly with a national or regional rail operator can save you money, but it can also be a lot more frustrating. We booked our entire trip with Deutsche Bahn, but the website was horrible. Luckily, the app was a lot better. But in the end, it’s just a matter of personal preference: a better booking experience for a slightly higher fee with a train booking company, or muddling your way through a hard-to-use rail operator website but paying less in fees.
(Oh, and if you’re flying to/from your start/end point, don’t forget to book your flights, too!)
For more about taking a train trip across Europe, check out my other posts:
- 7 Things To Know Before Taking a Train Trip in Europe
- Europe Train Trip Pros and Cons: Is a European Train Trip Worth It?
Those are my best tips for planning your own train trip across Europe! What questions do you have? Or any other thoughts? Let me know in the comments!
-Cathy
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