Interrail

[sunee123]

Hi there.I am not too sure what an interrail pass is and does. Can someone help?

[Kim]

An Inter-rail pass is " is available to persons who normally lives in Europe or has lived in Europe for at least six months immediately prior to the first day of travel."

If you are a non-European resident, you will want to get a different form of a rail pass-a Eurail, Select or one of the others.

Rick Steves has a good section on his site explaining what each pass is good for:
www.ricksteves.com/rail/home.htm

Basically, a railpass can either have consecutive or flexible travel.

For example, a pass with consecutive travel would be a 15 days pass-which means you could travel on any of the 15 days but once they were up, the pass was finished.

A pass with flexible travel would be good for (an example) 8 days of travel within a 2 month period, which means you could travel on any 8 days within two months.

You can get passes that are good for an individual countries or good for many countries.

Basically, you have to decide which countries you want to travel to and how many days you plan on making travel days.

If you aren't planning on travelling much, you could also buy point to point tickets once you are in Europe.

If you do decide to go with a pass, you have to validate the pass within 6 months of buying it. On your first day travelling, you will have to take the pass to one of the wickets in the train station and get them to stamp it. That signals the day your pass starts. If you have a flexible pass, you will be required to fill in the date in a little box on the ticket every time you use it. The conductor will ask to see your pass on every ride, and frequently your passport as well.

If you end up buying an expensive pass, like the 3 month Eurail pass (3 months is the longest pass you can buy), it's a good idea to buy the insurance on it as well, in case it is lost or stolen.

That's all I can think of for now!

Kim