Going on an interrail trip is usually something you would associate with backpackers in their early 20’s on tight budgets, staying in the lousiest hostels in large capital cities of Europe. Since my partner and I had never been on an interrail, we thought it could be a fun way of spending our summer, exploring the continent of Europe in a more sustainable way of traveling.

Table of contents

1. Initial thoughts and ideas about interrail vacation
2. Our itinerary for a 21 day long interrail vacation in Europe
3. My best planning tips for your interrail: Tips and tricks for traveling with a paper pass! + Useful links
4. My favorite country for interrail was Italy
5. The WORST country for interrail (in my opinion!)
   1. Please don’t leave us behind, Mr. train driver!
6. My favorite part of the interrail: Arriving in Italy for a four day beach and hiking vacation!
7. The most unexpectedly beautiful city: Ljubljana!
8. Luggage on interrail: How to choose between a suitcase and a backpack?
9. Conclusion

Initial thoughts and ideas about interrail vacation

Being two adults with well-paying jobs we were not interested in staying at cheap hostels during our trip. We were really keen on having an overnight train in a 4-berth sleeper from Germany to Switzerland, and possibly also from Budapest to Germany.

Something we also thought was important to stay relaxed and comfortable was to book as many of the seat reservations prior to the trip as possible. This turned out to be a great decision!

We knew for certain that we would like to spend a long while in Italy, since we had been recommended to visit Cinque Terre, a UNESCO World Heritage Area along the coastline in Italy.

Another thing that was important for me was to visit several new countries. Having never visited Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary we were trying to fit in these countries on our itinerary.

Our itinerary for a 21 day long interrail vacation in Europe

Since both my partner and I got new jobs in 2023, we wanted to have our vacation in the main vacation month in Denmark: July. It is the busiest month for interrail, one of the two hottest months to survive in old trains and also where most track maintenance is performed.

We planned to get to Italy as fast as possible, then move across the country to some of the other coastal Mediterranean countries before going inland to beautiful Budapest before returning home to Denmark.

We chose this Interrail pass type: 21 days unlimited travel.

We visited the following countries in this order: From Denmark to Germany, then Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Germany and back to Denmark.

Here is the final itinerary of our interrail in July 2023 in detail:

• Copenhagen to Zürich (Switzerland), via night train from Köln (Cologne) to Zürich
• Zürich to Monterosso (Cinque Terre, Italy), via Milano and Genova
• Monterosso to Pisa
• Pisa to Florence (Firenze)
• Florence to Venice
• Venice to Ljubljana (Slovenia), via Trieste
• Ljubljana to Rijeka (Croatia)
• Rijeka to Zagreb
• Zagreb to Budapest (Hungary)
• Budapest to Leipzig (Germany)
• Leipzig to Copenhagen via Hamburg, Fredericia etc..

Despite having booked the seat reservations for a lot of the travel legs, we still had time for some spontaneity on our interail.

My best planning tips for your interrail: Tips and tricks for traveling with a paper pass! + Useful links

• Planning the trip was made really easy through the Interrail Eurail website.
• Head here specifically for more inspiration for different itineraries!
• You can find the Eurail time schedule planner here.
• Here you can find the genius Latest 2024 Interrail map in PDF, where you can see routes, estimated travel times, time zones, currencies, Greek islands map and more. (Note: The link takes you to the interrail.eu website, where you automatically download the pdf)

Moreover;

• It can be difficult to decide how much time you need in each city. BUT – if you travel long-distance trains with max one change, then train travel is quite relaxing. Preferably two nights or more in each city is good. Less can be exhausting though.
• If you have a paper pass you need to read extra carefully before you write things in your pass. Head to the official website, where you will find all the answers to your questions!
• If you have unlimited travel like we did, you need to print extra lines (just a basic A4 paper print!). It is really convenient to have just in case you exceed the 30 lines on your pass. In our case our hotel manager in Monterosso printed the extra lines for us 🙂
• If you get paper passes like we did (we had no choice!), don’t write the time of the train until just prior to boarding. In this way, you don’t ‘loose’ any lines in your pass. If you have printed new lines, this will not be any issue if you happen to miss a train.

My favorite country for interrail was Italy

I loved our time in Italy (you can read a lot more in detail here). Not only for the beach days in Monterosso, the pizzas and the bountiful gelatos. But the public transport was just ON POINT!

You are required to make seat reservations for the high speed trains. This is great because you avoid any hassle. You have to print your seat reservations, which is why it is nice to have planned your Italy trip from home, from where you can easily print this. The distances between Pisa, Firenze (Florence) and Venice are not short – but the journeys are swift and care free!

All in all, we had good experiences in Italy, until we reached Trieste on the border to Slovenia. From here it just went downhill.

The WORST country for interrail (in my opinion!)

I may be a little biased from this one incident. But in my opinion, I had the most uncomfortable travels while in Croatian trains. But I also didn’t travel to more eastern European trains, so I can’t say if there may be even more cruel trains!

First of all; The Croatian trains were ancient. That is not an issue if they were functional though. The train from Ljubljana in Slovenia was old but well equipped, and we traveled to Rijeka in Croatia at a good pace. We even got our own compartment with space for 6 people!

In general, when we looked at possible itineraries in Croatia we saw how long the journeys would take (typically 4-6+ hours between major cities). There were very few fast speed trains, and there were no good connections to Split from Rijeka.

Please don’t leave us behind, Mr. train driver!

However, the journey from Rijeka to Zagreb was horrible. We were scheduled to go with the regional train through the mountain region, plenty of stops along tiny little abandoned mountain train stations.

The trip was supposed to last 4.5 hours through 46 train stops (sigh!). After only 5 or 6 stops, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. After 15 minutes the train started again, but only now the vague aircondition had ceased working!

About to be boiled alive with no windows to open inside the coupé, all the passengers were sweating heavily. It was quite stressful, and several of the young backpackers onboard had only brought a tiny bottle of 0.5 Liters of water along for the 4.5 hour (planned!) journey.

At a train station named Plase, the train stopped working again. A local Croatian guy told us this was ‘a bad sound’ and that we needed to stay updated and in communication with the train driver. The train driver then appeared in our wagin and informed all the passengers (in Croatian) that we all had to get out of the boiling train. Then we waited in the shade at Plase for 2 hours. Some people had already vanished due to lack of trust in the train service, but we felt that since so many local Croatians were on the train, the train driver would not leave us behind.

Finally, the train moved on and the aircondition worked slightly. There was a lot of train track maintenance along the way, and the workers must have been dying in the heat from the hard labor!

My favorite part of the interrail: Arriving in Italy for a four day beach and hiking vacation!

My favorite part of our interrail trip was arriving in Cinque Terre after traveling through Germany and Switzerland.

We got really unlucky with our first train from Copenhagen, and we missed our (the only one we had planned!) night train from Cologne to Zürich, so we caught another night train from Hamburg to Zürich instead – but we were sitting straight up for 11 hours during the night.. Therefore, after two good nights sleep in Zürich, emptying our wallets on food and drinks, we were just THRILLED to arrive in beautiful Monterosso!

We had four nights in Cinque Terre, plenty of time to relax and visit the five towns along the picturesque shoreline. We hiked from Monterosso to Vernazza, and from there we took trains between the other towns – using our interrail passes!

The train which runs between the five cities are covered in the pass, making it a really great idea to visit Cinque Terre while doing an Interrail. One thing to consider is that Cinque Terre is not a cheap location. But if you have a good budget (like we had), I think you will enjoy it as well 🙂

The most unexpectedly beautiful city: Ljubljana!

We had not done much research prior to visiting Ljubljana in Slovenia. While spending many hours on the train, we managed to read a little about Ljubljana and we learned about the Free Tours, that run in the city centre in front of the church on the photo below, on Prešernov Square.

On the Free Tour with the yellow umbrellas, we had a local Slovenian guide, who showed us some important monuments in the city, while she also informed us about the cuisine and way of life in Slovenia.

All in all, I got a really good impression of Slovenia from just seeing Ljubljana. It is also the capital city, thus it is parading the best sides of city life. The city was colorful, clean and there were little heavy traffic and the option for free bike taxi drives in the city centre! The prices were really reasonable, and there were a wide range of activities to spend your time on.

We will for sure be back in Ljubljana for more!

Luggage on interrail: How to choose between a suitcase and a backpack?

If you pack light – choose a backpack. It is way more convenient to tuck a backpack in the overhead on the train, than to store a suitcase in the wagon. It will also save you from any looks while you drag that suitcase along the cobblestone roads in Florence. I brought a backpack, and my partner used his suitcase. We had both over-packed a little, which meant my backpack was a little too heavy – but I survived it.

Conclusion

We had great success on having an adventurous interrail during summer, while still maintaining a high comfort level. We enjoyed all the countries that we visited, and we got to experience some new places, some more known than others. Now we know where we would like to return for more someday. My favorite country for interrail was Italy, and especially the high speed trains that connected the large and famous cities (Milano, Pisa, Firenze, Venice). I was really surprised by how lovely a city Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, is.

One thing was for sure: Interrail in your 30’s is certainly possible! And I took about 500 photos with my mobile camera, and a few hundreds with my good camera so I plan to write a couple of posts based on the trip 🙂

-Traveling Female Ornithologist

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© All photos are my own unless stated and may not be used without permission.