My interail itinerary

I've been trying to organise a proper length trip for a long time now. For years I've been coming back here and posting and reading (though I still haven't got around to blogging my own trips) and I finally have a trip that is going ahead to discuss!

I have done a lot of short trip budget travelling (worked for a period of time as cabin crew) and have spent 3-4 weeks in individual countries, but i have never travelled by land through multiple countries unless you count driving to holland or Spain!

Along with a couple of friends I have decided to go via interail on a trip around Europe for a period of 30-40 days. We will be going at the end of May through June and I will then either go off on a solo trip around the world or work an additional couple of months and then leave depending on ticket prices and the time of the year I decide I want to be in different countries. (Note: I have finally got the money to go woooo!).

For now though I am focusing on getting the European trip sorted as I've got less time to get it sorted.

This is the planned route (please bare in mind I haven't gone through all of the train timetables so there may be slight changes that need to be made):

1 travel day
2 days Denmark
1 travel day
3 days Norway
1 travel day
3 days Sweden
1 travel day
2 days Germany
1 travel day
3 days Poland
1 travel day
3 days Austria
1 travel day
5 days Croatia
1 travel day
Greece (at this point the interail pass has run out and we remain in one location in Greece until taking a flight back)

This leaves one day worth of interail time to use either in Greece or to have as an additional day in any of the previous countries. (Note: travel days above involve waking in one country ending in another, days listed as in a country include waking and going to sleep in the country ie full days).

The plan is to wild camp where we can, definitely in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, possibly in a couple of the other countries as well. And stay in hostels in the other places.

We are budgeting between 700 and 1000 pounds each as travel money after paying for interail pass, camping gear and our flight home.

My questions to you guys are:

Does this look like a workable route through Europe?

Given we will only have a handful of days in each country, what are your key things to see in the countries we have chosen?

I know the budget is a little light, but is it doable? Reply to this

Hi, I did an interrail trip like this many years ago. I did feel that it was a lot in few days, and you may consider if you want to cut something out and stay longer in one place. But your itinerary seems good enough. Only a few comments. Norway is very expensive, so you may want to spend fewer days there. It would probably make more sense not to go to Poland and travel from Germany to Czech Republic and Hungary. Both Prague and Budapest are beautiful cities, and those countries are cheap too. You can camp in the wild in Sweden (for one night as long as it is not close to someone's house), which of course is not so easy in big cities. You can't camp in the wild in Denmark, most land is fenced. It would make sense to start in Norway (Oslo) and then travel down the Swedishe west coast. On your route (Oslo to Cophenhagen) you can visit Goteborg and Malmo while Stockholm will be a bit off the way. The first two cities are very nice, so well worth a visit. Then pass over to Denmark and continue to Germany. That would make a quite relaxed trip. Then in Germany you probably need to choose one place, Berlin is certainly a great place to visit and you may find two days isn't enough. As for the end of the trip, I can only recommend spending more time in Greece, probably doesn't need much explanation why. However, find out how to get from Croatia to Greece, it isn't very easily done. Railways are slow, and maybe bus is better. Quite a long trip though. In Greece you can sleep on the beach, although not legal people do it all the time. It is easy enough to get to one of the Cyclades islands from Pireus, choose the slow ferry which is cheaper but much slower. As for the money, it isn't much (25 Euros/day), so you need to budget carefully, taking overnight sleepers is a way to save on hostel fees. Remember that museums can be expensive, if you have a student card you may get reductions. Local travel can also be costly. I don't know if it is worth buying camping gear unless you really plan to camp for many nights and camping sites are not cheap usually. Enjoy the planning and the trip. Reply to this