In addition to the itinerary, it also depends on your planing. If you want to be very flexible, it's most likely cheaper than buying a long-distance ticket at the station/in the train.
If you want to plan and book your trips ahead of time, it may well be that, with early booking discounts, it's cheaper to book ahead of time. This would also allow you to reserve seats/a table, which I'd recommend if you travel with kids.
Also note that in Germany, and maybe in other countries as well, kids < 15 years travel for free with their parents if noted on their tickets.
If you travel a lot within one country, you may also want to check their frequent traveler programs. E.g. in Germany, the DB sells cards that give you 25%, 50% or 100% off of the ticket price. The 25% one can be ordered for a duration of only 3 months and costs 19 Euros, so it should pay off quickly! Note, however, that it is an subscription that you need to cancel.
it is an option. usually not the cheapest one, but in quite a few cases makes more sense/convenience compared to flying - ie if you have less than 5-6 hour distance to cover it's faster, plus the hassle of airports, security, baggage limits, ending in the middle of nowhere compared to city centre etc are not that great.
another good thing is, you can buy in most cases tickets just days ahead, most trains have constant prices so your price isn't within 50-1000 eur boundary for same flight, same seat, depending on timing.
They are certainly more expensive than the discount airlines, but it comes close when you add up the costs of getting too and from the airport. I easily justify the extra euros for the half day saved by not hanging around in airports and security queues.
I think it's worth to book a bit ahead if that means you can save that much money. E.g. book the flights ahead of time and then still spend a few weeks at every destination. This itinerary is meant to take like 2-3 months. You can still go to all the little towns and villages. But it might make sense to fly into the cities to score the cheap deals. And if you're on such a tight budget just don't stay in super expensive places like London or Paris (just use them as connection hubs...)
All I want to do with this itinerary is show the economies of traveling in Europe e.g. flying from London to Linz and not to Vienna which will cost you 5 times as much. Or flying from Rome to Barcelona instead of Zurich to Barcelona lets say.
Usually it's not just 50 EUR cheaper, but a few hundreds EUR cheaper.
Is it worth the risk? It depends. I use it regularly to visit friends and family back in my home country. Usually not a big deal if it gets cancelled. If I have something important to do I flew out a few days early and sped that time with my family.
I don't have a BahnCard, just looking at the site I'm really not sure I'd use it enough to justify it. Booked a couple of months in advance, and compared flight prices on that day to the train. Flights were significantly cheaper.
To clarify, I was talking specifically about domestic flights within EU countries. Here in Germany you're often paying about double for a train ticket, even if you book early.
It's August. I don't want to travel to Berlin in December, I want to travel today or tomorrow.
However if you do want to book stuff months out, advanced purchase tickets are a staple of the airline industry. From Berlin you can get to a host of locations for about €20 each way, including Venice, Milan, Budapest, Madrid etc - far further than a domestic train.
just checked some prizes out of curiosity for that route and found tickets starting from 400 EUR for 2 adults and two kids (unless you have to travel on the most expensive dates). Make it 600 EUR but it still does not sound like a big difference and you are not factoring in the depreciation and maintenance a car costs for a long trip like that. Financially i don't think it makes a big difference, it's probably about convenience in the end.
E.g. people commonly compare cheap plane tickets to the "regular" train ticket price, not to a savers ticket (which is bound to a specific train) booked early, which is more comparable to how you typically book a plane ticket. Similarly, the rebate cards quickly can make sense if you're not only traveling once. On the other hand, it certainly does happen that you can find cheap plane tickets on a connection where the cheap train tickets are already gone.
Time also depends, e.g. on where you're going in the destination town etc. If you take into account time to go to the airport, waiting and security time there, time to get from the airport into the city, ..., the train often isn't that much worse than it appears at first. Especially since e.g. a 6 hour train ride means I can sit down for 6 hours and work or nap, whereas the plane alternative is lots of short trips/wait times, which I personally find more stressful. I've flown inside Germany, but think it only makes sense in exceptional cases or if it's making a connection to an international flight.
It's not cheap if you are over 26. But if you want to travel a lot and not plan ahead it gives you peace of mind and most likely some moderate saving compared to buying tickets on the spot.
It's not different in Germany outside of theses three months. A day ticket in most cities cost 5-10€. That's why this ticket will be so appealing, 2-4 trips are enough to make it worth for the whole month.
Also cheaper by plane. Being a student with a limited budget, this very much affects my decision.
My tips would be:
* Book at least a week in advance.
* Buy a Bahn Card 25.
* Get up early.
If you do this Berlin -> Munich is €44.90 next Saturday on the 4 hour fast train. Also don't forget, it costs around €11 to go from Munich airport to the city.
I found European train tickets between popular/useful destinations to be just as expensive as airline tickets. And, generally, airline tickets were cheaper if you could put some advance purchase days into your schedule.
When we were touring Europe (pre-Covid), we never had a city-to-city transition where the trains were significantly cheaper than air travel.
I suspect this is a function of the popularity of the cities being connected.
Costwise this kind of depends on where you're going... overland bus travel in Asia is much cheaper than, say, taking a train domestically in Germany.
But I totally agree on the schedule part. Every time I've booked in advance something has come up that has made me have to change plans, and I've regretted it. Buy one-way tickets and no more than a month in advance.
Taking the train between major cities is often more expensive than flying in Europe. People choose the train because it's comfortable and convenient, not because it's cheap.
Also 150 EUR is a full price ticket. If you book a few weeks in advance, and are willing to take the 'slow' train you can probably get a ticket around 30 EUR.
"airfare-level prices"? In Germany and Austria my experience was that flying was generally cheaper than the train, and sleeper trains more expensive still.
I'm on a (day) train between Berlin and Vienna this very minute and it costed me €99 (one way!) where as a flight would have been about €50.
You can get cheaper tickets if booking well in advance (months) but the same applies to budget airlines.
If you want to plan and book your trips ahead of time, it may well be that, with early booking discounts, it's cheaper to book ahead of time. This would also allow you to reserve seats/a table, which I'd recommend if you travel with kids.
Also note that in Germany, and maybe in other countries as well, kids < 15 years travel for free with their parents if noted on their tickets.
If you travel a lot within one country, you may also want to check their frequent traveler programs. E.g. in Germany, the DB sells cards that give you 25%, 50% or 100% off of the ticket price. The 25% one can be ordered for a duration of only 3 months and costs 19 Euros, so it should pay off quickly! Note, however, that it is an subscription that you need to cancel.
Enjoy Europe :-)
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