How many train rides do you plan? Passes are usually more expensive than tickets, unless you travel a lot. Short train rides in Europe are about 30-50 dollars, long one's are useless cause it is cheaper to fly budget airlines. Passes are around 100 dollars per day on average, not worth it.
We're planning to travel around these countries via trains, the only plane we're taking will be from Dublin to Edinburgh. However, it seems that the combine cost of the above tickets are somewhat rather expensive. I'm tempted to purchase tickets from the station but am rather afraid that I might ended stranded if I don't get the tickets for the trip in time to check into our hostels.
How do you calculate the cost? There are always discount fares available which are significantly lower than published fares. Example from last summer: Train London- York: 18.70 pounds per person (roughly 30 dollars) Train York- Edinburgh: 13 pounds per person (20 dollars) Bus Edinburgh- Glasgow: 4.50 per person (6 pounds first ticket and 3 pounds additional, or 7 dollars per person) Bus and ferry Glasgow- Belfast: 25 pounds per person (40 dollars)
Total cost of travel over the span of 2 weeks in Britain: 97 dollars per person. Try finding a pass for this much. All tickets were purchased ahead of time online, from NationalExpress.com and citylink.co.uk
Similar deals available in France and Germany. In France we took high speed train to Lyon and back from Paris for a day trip, costs? 40 euros per person (return ticket, one way half that much). Go to voyages-sncf.com
Unfortunately, there wasn't much calculation on this aspect. My friend and I are pretty much clueless on this. If that's the case, does it mean that it would be cheaper for us to just forget about the Britrail tickets and simple purchase the tickets from the sites that you had mentioned?
We'll be in Scotland/UK for like eight days, it would've meant a substantial amount of money saved. What I'm worried is that we might not be able to get the tickets and to our destination on time as most of our hostels are book online.
The Britrail flexi-pass are costing us an amount of US649 for 8 days in two months and I'm hoping to avoid any more unnecessary expenditure if possible.
I would suggest going to the sights I mentioned and checking how much it would be. I bet though it would be less than 649 dollars.
As for the tickets: In Britain there are usually two types of tickets- cheaper ones you buy ahead of time, they can not be returned or exchanged, and give you reserved seat you can not change either. The other type is more expensive (regular fare), can be bought any time, even 5 minutes before the train, and have no seat reservation. There are particular cars on each train for this tickets, so you can just hop in and take a seat which you like. There is never shortage of this tickets, since they have no train number on them. But the price is much higher, usually at least 2 times, sometimes 3 times higher than low fare tickets.
If you find the options you need, tickets can be purchased online, and then at the train station all you need to do is enter a code you get, and tickets will be printed out. Here is what it said in my confirmation email:
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Example from last summer:
Train London- York: 18.70 pounds per person (roughly 30 dollars)
Train York- Edinburgh: 13 pounds per person (20 dollars)
Bus Edinburgh- Glasgow: 4.50 per person (6 pounds first ticket and 3 pounds additional, or 7 dollars per person)
Bus and ferry Glasgow- Belfast: 25 pounds per person (40 dollars)
Total cost of travel over the span of 2 weeks in Britain: 97 dollars per person. Try finding a pass for this much.
All tickets were purchased ahead of time online, from NationalExpress.com and citylink.co.uk
Similar deals available in France and Germany. In France we took high speed train to Lyon and back from Paris for a day trip, costs? 40 euros per person (return ticket, one way half that much). Go to voyages-sncf.com
Reply
We'll be in Scotland/UK for like eight days, it would've meant a substantial amount of money saved. What I'm worried is that we might not be able to get the tickets and to our destination on time as most of our hostels are book online.
The Britrail flexi-pass are costing us an amount of US649 for 8 days in two months and I'm hoping to avoid any more unnecessary expenditure if possible.
Reply
As for the tickets: In Britain there are usually two types of tickets- cheaper ones you buy ahead of time, they can not be returned or exchanged, and give you reserved seat you can not change either.
The other type is more expensive (regular fare), can be bought any time, even 5 minutes before the train, and have no seat reservation. There are particular cars on each train for this tickets, so you can just hop in and take a seat which you like. There is never shortage of this tickets, since they have no train number on them. But the price is much higher, usually at least 2 times, sometimes 3 times higher than low fare tickets.
If you find the options you need, tickets can be purchased online, and then at the train station all you need to do is enter a code you get, and tickets will be printed out. Here is what it said in my confirmation email:
Ticket Collection ( ... )
Reply
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