Best interrail destinations?

A while back our group went 1st to Paris, then to Milan, Brindisi (heel of Italy) then ferry to Corfu. After week on the beach went to Athens. Then back through Serbia, Croatia to Vienna (which is a v expensive place). Then to Copenhagen and then back to England.

We ALWAYS travelled at night so we minimized hotel or hostel stays to save £. We bonded like mad and none of us will EVER forget it.

Have fun.

Thank you! I think we'll give Vienna a miss then, but then again it does look really pretty

I've been to Amsterdam once as a kid, all I remember is almost getting hit by a bike every time we crossed the road Thanks for the tip though, looking beyond the weed and red light district stuff it actually looks rather lovely!

We're now thinking of doing Amsterdam -> Berlin -> something (Prague? Krakow? Vienna?) -> Budapest -> something (Slovenia? Croatia?) -> Milan -> Marseille and flying back from there. Thank you so much for all the advice!

not really an "interrail", but in one week i did vienna >> budapest >> bratislava >> salzburg i travelled via train and as mentioned previously, vienna was v expensive, but i thought it was worth every cent because it's a gorgeous place! bratislava was pretty lowkey and really really picturesque, we actually took a boat there and it's honestly just a piece of art! budapest was rly cheap but i found that i got bored pretty quickly (perhaps it was the hot weather haha) but it's worth a visit. salzburg was really touristy but as a sound of music fan, i HAD to go there!


croatia is a must! i went to split, dubrovnik, and zadar. out of all of them i'd recommend dubrovnik because there's so much to do and see, split was more lowkey but very pretty. you can probs skip zadar, there's a lovely beach though.

Thanks for the recommendations! We both looove food, so knowing us that's what most of the budget will be spent on

We're not travelling to drink but it would be nice experiencing some nightlife, so maybe we could have one big night out in Poland. We actually found this hostel online that does massive pub crawls for a tenner!

Hmm thanks for the heads up, we haven't really looked into travel times yet. Did you prebook all your trains or did you find you can just turn up at a station and hop on? I'm a big fan of planning stuff out myself but my boyfriend insists most of the fun in backpacking is the flexibility to go wherever life takes you or something Those baths sound lovely, we do love a good spa day so we'll be sure to check that out, thank you


Thank you! That sounds like a lovely lil trip, we haven't really considered Bratislava, is there much to see/do there? Salzburg looks sooo pretty, I'd love to go, but my boyfriend's scared of mountains Rightfully so, I do like hiking myself so I'd be dragging him along

Dubrovnik looks absolutely stunning, isn't it really really busy though?

admittedly, bratislava's old town is quite quick to cover within a day and there isn't anything OUTSTANDING there in terms of things to do, but they have nice galleries and it's generally a nice place to walk around. i found a lot of amusement walking through narrow lanes and gazing at the buildings, and there's really cute cafes and restaurants (local delicacies are worth a try!). it's a very historically rich place and it shows!

salzburg is gorgeous, and i didn't find the mountains a problem! however, like vienna, there's a price for going in castles and other attractions.

yeah dubrovnik is sooooo busy!! my croatia trip was actually a road trip and we struggled to find parking! stunning but very touristy, so we'd leave our apartment early so we can beat the crowds, and we walked on side streets (which was very insightful!).

Thank you! I think we'll give Vienna a miss then, but then again it does look really pretty

I've been to Amsterdam once as a kid, all I remember is almost getting hit by a bike every time we crossed the road Thanks for the tip though, looking beyond the weed and red light district stuff it actually looks rather lovely!

We're now thinking of doing Amsterdam -> Berlin -> something (Prague? Krakow? Vienna?) -> Budapest -> something (Slovenia? Croatia?) -> Milan -> Marseille and flying back from there. Thank you so much for all the advice!

That's extremely similar to what we did. We flew to Milan, then to Budapest, Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, home.

Best and cheapest by a fair margin were Prague and Budapest.

Hi, I though I’d reply to this as I’ve just spent this evening sorting out trains for our summer hols. We tend to do inter railing for two weeks at a time to fit in with work commitments. A couple of years ago we travelled from Budapest to Vienna to Prague. Budapest reminded me a lot of Prague except that it was less crowded and so more enjoyable. Vienna is totally different to Prague and Budapest, it’s more like a western city and was expensive as others have said.

Rome is also a beautiful city if you can fit that into your schedule with lots of interesting things to see. Berlin is great too.

One tip is that most cities have “free” walking tours that are worth going on. (They also have the usual paid tours, but these are probably out of your price range and the free ones are just as good). The tour guides expect a tip but this can be as much or as little as you like, a few euros is fine.They are a great way of finding out about new places and we normally do them at the beginning of the time in each place as the guides point out other things of interest to see.

Hi, nice to see you pop up on here as well

You make Budapest sound great, we absolutely loved Prague so a second city like that would be fantastic, thank you Did you think Vienna was worth the money?

Rome would be nice too, it's just a bit far out, also we're afraid it'll be very very busy and we all know one anxious boy who can't deal with that too well Another idea we did consider is go all the way down Italy then cross over to Greece, but we'd probably miss out on Berlin and Amsterdam because our budget doesn't stretch that far sadly

Thank you, those walking tours actually sound really nice! We'll definitely look into that a bit more, thank you

Oh noooo, that is a proper horror story!! Poor you! I don't get how people can go stay in a dormitory, knowing full well they're going to keep everyone up all night, and then just sleep like a baby

Thank you! Bratislava does sound nice and it'd be good to have a less busy destination in the mix to just chill out a bit, so we'll def consider that any local delicacies you'd recommend?

We're going in September so hopefully it'll be a bit less busy then... Did you go there by car then? Seems impossible to reach by train :/

We did enjoy Vienna and on that holiday the general consensus was that Budapest was the best, then Vienna, then Prague. I think that we had a different sort of holiday than you will though as we paid to visit attractions (we bought a Vienna Pass) and also stayed in a 4* hotel. You probably need to find out how many free (or very cheap) attractions are in each place to find out whether it is worth staying there.

Parts of Rome were busy but a lot of it is really quiet streets with small pizzarias. There are also lots of free things to see and areas like villa borgese are lovely to stroll around in.

it's a nice chill place! my mother had the slovak goulash, and i had potato dumplings filled with meat, served with sauerkraut and fried onions! i can't seem to find the slovak word for it, but trust me it's delicious! would like to warn you on the service charge though, honestly wasn't expecting it to be so much.

we flew to zadar (because at that time there were only flights to zadar), rented a car, and drove to split, and drove down to dubrovnik (and paying a quick visit to a small bosnian town called neum!), before driving up to zadar for the last 2 days. it seems very inconvenient, but road trips in croatia never get boring! the views are stunning and often we'd find ourselves pulling over just to look at the view.

That food does sound good, can't wait to try all of it

Ooh no that sounds lovely, I love road trips and just stopping whenever you feel like it! We were thinking of renting a car for a bit actually, but I'm not sure whether we'd be allowed, my boyfriend's only had his license for two years. Did you like Bosnia?

A while back our group went 1st to Paris, then to Milan, Brindisi (heel of Italy) then ferry to Corfu. After week on the beach went to Athens. Then back through Serbia, Croatia to Vienna (which is a v expensive place). Then to Copenhagen and then back to England.

We ALWAYS travelled at night so we minimized hotel or hostel stays to save £. We bonded like mad and none of us will EVER forget it.

Have fun.

How was Serbia?

As you are on a tight budget, here are a few money saving tips that we have found from various European cities:

Eating out at lunchtime or early afternoon is usually cheaper than eating out in the evening. Sometimes it’s the same menu, but prices seem to go up later in the day. If you are only eating out once, then earlier is definitely the way to go.

Various museums and attractions offer free admission at certain times of the week or month. There are also free or discounted admissions for under 25s at some places (the under 25 thing used to be for EU citizens, so I’m not sure how brexit has impacted on this). These places will get busier during the free periods, but you’ll just have to see how you cope on the anxiety front.

Guidebooks are useful for this info. The Lonely Planet Guides have a section called “for free” and list all of the above for the particular city or place. They also have websites for the free walking tours that I mentioned earlier. I’m sure other makes of guide books offer the same thing. I usually get these from my local library but as the “for free” section appears quite early in the book, you can read these on the amazon preview “look inside” of the book and find out the info that way. I’ve just checked this out in the lonely planet Berlin book and found a whole list of things.

As you are travelling in the summer, the other things to look out for are free performances or concerts in the main parks. Again. I think there are links to them in the relevant guide books. We have seen lots of different things over the years from local music to Shakespeare plays and lots in between. It’s a nice way to end the day.