I’ve been travelling by train for years and pretty much full-time since March 2022. Yet, March 2024 is only the first time I travelled with an Interrail pass. Until now, I always bought individual tickets, even for big trips crisscrossing a country. But it was time to try out the Interrail pass and compare it with my single ticket system. Is it really so much easier, does it take less planning and maybe most important: is the Interrail pass worth the money? You’ll find all the answers here. And if not, you can leave a comment with your question, and I’ll get back to you!

What is the Interrail pass?

For those who don’t know what the pass is at all, a brief explanation. The Interrail pass is a pass that allows you to travel by train for an x number of days “for free”. For example, you buy a pass for 7 days in a row, or for 10 days in 2 months. On those days, you can then travel by an unlimited amount of trains within those 24 hours. That’s the short version.

In reality, it takes a bit more work. It’s certainly not always free. For many trains, you still need a seat reservation. So in addition to the cost of the Interrail pass, you pay extra to board the train. These are prices from €5 to €15 or more for an overnight train. This is far from every train, and you can often get around it. It’s usually the fast trains that require seat reservations, and night trains, for example. So if you take a little more time for your journey, regional trains often allow you to make the same journey without seat reservations. This may cause more transfers, and you may have to plan a bit more.

For the “free” trains, you still have to make some kind of reservation in the Interrail app by flipping a slider. This way, you use a travel day and can show where you’re going when you’re checked. Don’t forget this! Simply showing the pass isn’t enough, they need you to show them where you’re going. You can do this up to 5/10 minutes before boarding the train. 

So it does take some planning to take the train. If you go for free regional trains, you sometimes come across trains that only go once every 2 hours. So if you miss your connection, you have to wait for 2 hours. But even if you want to make a stop for lunch somewhere in a town along the way, you need to pay close attention to the time because there isn’t always a next train going every 15 minutes. With seat reservations, the price can add up quite a bit if you have a number of transfers, and they all require seat reservations.

Of course, you can also make these stopovers if you buy single tickets. The only downside to this is that it sometimes costs extra. Direct from A to B is for instance € 35 and with a stop on the route you pay a total of € 38. It varies per location how big this difference is, but sometimes it can add up. Sometimes it can also be cheaper if you take regional trains. But that’s another bit of research. Interrail saves you that puzzle to a large extent, the only question now is whether or not you need a seat reservation.

Extras of the pass

Besides the pass itself, you also get some extra perks with the pass. For instance, you can get discounts on tours through Get Your Guide, hostels through Hostelworld and discounts on luggage storage at stations. This will ultimately save you money during your trip. There are also sometimes extra benefits per location, such as local food tours, city passes and local museums.

Downsides Interrail pass

The biggest disadvantage of an Interrail pass, as far as I am concerned, is really the fact that you still have to plan a lot. I expected the pass to save me a lot of time and effort, because I thought you could just hop on and off everywhere, but that’s not really the case. In fact, you still “buy” a ticket for every train, either in the form of a seat reservation or with the slider in the app. The slide is easy and could be done right before hopping on a train, but if you have to buy a seat, they might even be sold out at the very last minute.

Besides, the passes are costly. To make it your money’s worth, you need to either travel in expensive countries, or do A LOT of travelling in one day. I know train travellers that take 12 hour journeys, starting at 8/9 am, stopping for lunch and dinner in 2 different countries, en route to country number 3 where they actually stay. This journey would be so expensive, that you easily earn back to pass. But if you only take 2/3 hour trains, which are normally less than € 25, it’s hardly worth using an Interrail pass.

Are you under 27? Then you get a 25% discount on an Interrail pass. Then it’s immediately a lot more interesting.

So in short:

• Still lots of planning
• Extra (hidden) costs for the seat reservations
• Risk of seats being sold out (especially in high season) because there are a limited amount of seats available for Interrail
• Expensive card to begin with, that’s definitely not always worth it

Personally, the cons outweigh the pro’s for me at the moment. I was constantly checking the normal prices to see if I could better spend a travel day or buy a separate ticket. So, this actually increased my travel planning time, instead of decreased, what I expected.

I was also almost stranded in Paris for 3 days, because I missed my train and the Interrail seats were completely sold out for the next 2 days. (Even though half the train was empty, I realized when the people at the platform let me board the next train after all.)

So, is the interrail pass worth the money? For my trip, it wasn’t. Italy isn’t expensive, except for the long-distance fast trains (Milan-Rome, Venice-Lecce etc.). Most of my trips were € 10 max, with 16 destinations, that comes down to € 160. I had a 10 day in 2 months Interrail pass which is € 286. I had to make quite the effort to make it it’s money worth. But I do admit that my travel style has an impact on whether or not the Interrail pass is worth the money. I just travel too slow, I guess.

When is the Interrail pass worth the money?

Down the line, the Interrail pass wouldn’t exist, if it really wasn’t an appealing product. So, even though it didn’t work out for my trip, I think there are certainly situations where the Interrail pass is worth the money.

• If you’re quickly crossing multiple countries over land, to get to a certain destination. Let’s say you’re going from Scandinavia to Croatia over the course of 2 long travel days, it would be multiple trains during the day and 1 or 2 nighttrains. This might save you € 300 in just one day, so then it’s immediately worth it.
• When you travel in expensive countries, like France, the UK, The Netherlands or Scandinavian countries. Just a few hours on the train could already cost you € 200/300, so that also easily makes the Interrail pass worth it’s money.
• When you take privately operated trains or specific tourist trains, like the Eurostar trains or the Bernini express in Switzerland. These trains are usually quite expensive, unless you book super early. So just paying for a seat reservation, makes them a lot more appealing.
• When you’re taking multiple nighttrains. Nighttrains are often quite expensive and with the Interrail pass you can save up to € 200 per train. So if you take 4, you could save up to € 400. Totally worth the money!

It’s also worth looking into local passes. Either from the country itself, or the Interrail country passes. These Interrail passes are a bit cheaper than the multi-country passes, so might be a better fit if you stick to one country. However, some countries have their own passes as well, like the Swiss rail passes or the German “Deutschland card“, which is only € 49 a month.