Is the Eurail Pass worth the money? My honest review

I’ve seen many “the Eurail Pass is a waste of money” comments on Reddit and I want to share my opinion.

I’m currently working on a list of pros and cons regarding Eurail and the process and functionality that I will hopefully be posting soon, but in the meantime, these are my thoughts solely on the cost of their passes:

In our case, my partner and I DID save money on the passes we purchased when comparing this to the individual ticket costs. I’ve provided a breakdown of these actual savings later in this article.

However, providing a definitive “yes” or “no” answer to whether the Eurail Pass is worth it isn’t possible. Everyone’s situation is different and what worked for our trip might not necessarily be the same for yours. This is why I want to show you how you can assess whether the Eurail Pass is right for you.

How to calculate if a Eurail Pass is cheaper than individual tickets

Don’t let the word ‘calculate’ intimidate you—I’ll explain how you can do it easily!

Write an itinerary

Even if you prefer to travel spontaneously, I’d recommend making a rough itinerary if you’re heading to Europe. Having an idea of the cities you want to explore will allow you to better estimate the number of travel days you’ll need.

After deciding on the counties/cities you want to visit, the best way to plan your itinerary is to make a route that connects to each of these cities. Start with the country you fly into and aim to create a loop or linear path that ends in your departure city. The goal is to avoid doubling back on your route as this will end up costing you more time and money.

To plan out possible routes, I recommend using Eurail’s Trip Planner to make your itinerary as it’s user-friendly and free.

Determine the right pass for your needs

After outlining your route, the next step is to calculate the number of travel days required. Once you know, you can then compare it with the duration options the Eurail Pass offers:

If you’re using Eurail’s Rail Planner they will also suggest pass options that best suit the duration of your itinerary.

Compare ticket costs

Now that you know how much a Eurail Pass will cost it’s time to compare this against the price of purchasing individual tickets.

There are numerous sites and apps available for purchasing train tickets, but I opted to use Trainline as it’s user-friendly and they provided tickets for all of my trains.

Keep in mind that as a third-party reseller, the ticket prices on the app may not always be as cheap as those offered directly by the train provider. However, their prices are a good reference point for comparison.

If you choose not to purchase a Eurail pass, Trainline also provides information about the train carrier, making it easy for you to book directly and potentially save even more money.

Tip: For a more accurate comparison, consider searching for and saving each journey in the Rail Planner app beforehand. This will enable you to cross-reference the exact trains in the Trainline app.

Why we chose the 2-month Continuous Pass

We were in mainland Europe from October 6th to December 6th, totalling 61 days. This conveniently aligned with the 2-month continuous pass, which offered 60 days of unlimited travel. Before buying this pass, we did consider the 15-days within 2 months pass.

However, after considering the day trips we were wanting to make, we realised that we would need more travel days. Fortunately, both my partner and I qualified for the youth pass (I turned 28 just 5 days after our journey started 😅), allowing us to save €206 compared to Eurrail’s adult passes.

Our savings breakdown

While we travelled as a couple, I’ve broken down the pricing to reflect just the costs per person.

Please note that this comparison excludes any trains not covered by the pass, including our tickets from Interlaken to Grindelwald and any fares for local train travel within cities.

It’s also worth mentioning that although the Eurail pass maintains a consistent price year-round, the savings can vary depending on the time of year you’re visiting. Routes might be cheaper in the off-season, and booking further in advance may offer better prices.

These are the ticket costs for 28 travel days, onboard 77 different trains:

With a Eurail Pass, here’s how much we spent per person during our two-month trip:

2nd class 2-month continuous Eurail Global Pass: €620

Additional cost for seat reservations: €127.84

Total: €747.84

If I had purchased each ticket separately, the total for my 77 train journeys would have been €1,358.67.

So, my total savings with a Eurail Pass were €610.83 – meaning we both saved 55%.

Feature Image courtesy of Unsplash