Traveling by train across Europe at a flat rate: it is mainly young people who have been traveling the continent with an Interrail ticket for decades. But there are also special Interrail passes for adults and there are also discounts for seniors. But is the offer worth it? All information at a glance.
A backpack, a tent, an Interrail ticket – that’s all Tom Steinbrecher needed for his 1983 summer trip. As a student at the time, he took the night train from Hamburg to Paris without any reservations. He pulled two seats together in an empty compartment and let himself be lulled by the sound of the train. Staying free and getting on at the same time, that was an ideal combination, he says in retrospect. And so he continued: during the day he tired himself out walking in the French capital, at night he rested on the lazy regional train to Bordeaux.
When, a few days later, it started to rain on the Atlantic coast, the backpacker moved on the next best train to the Mediterranean Sea. That’s what it was like, the great freedom to travel in its first 20 years!
Interrail for adults: is it worth it?
Nearly 40 years later, Tom Steinbrecher has done it again: As an adult, he packed his bags, albeit without camping gear, and bought an Interrail pass, albeit a purely digital one. It is available at a ten percent discount on the adult fare “for all young Interrailers aged 60 and over”, as Deutsche Bahn writes. Young at heart… The 61-year-old felt addressed and clicked on range of offers.
The international monthly pass he had in mind still exists, but it costs 633 euros even for the elderly. Too much for what Steinbrecher had in mind: a rather short trip. First in Austria, then in Italy and again within three weeks. After all: spread over four days of travel, it exactly matched the smallest and cheapest category of the Interrail Global Pass, “4 days in 1 month”. Cost point: 232 euros.
Also interesting: costs, passes, countries – the most important information on Interrail
The pitfalls of digital
When using the app, however, Steinbrecher felt a bit like a “digital immigrant” and abandoned it: to transfer the pass to Interrail’s associated mobile “Rail Planner App”, he needed the help of his children, who used as a “digital native” clearly easier.
And then that too: Right at the very first, the first ticket check on ICE shut down the network, says Steinbrecher. The mobile pass, which also works offline, was of little use: the conductor asked for a QR code. His intuition: “I should have tackled the app more intensely before leaving. Then he probably would have figured out how to use it to reserve seats instead of booking them individually in advance with the train companies and printing them on paper. A procedure he didn’t have to go through 40 years ago.
Freedom has given way to a complicated system
Interrailers from the very beginning are still enthusiastic about the great freedom and flexibility. Knowing full well that this is long gone: night trains about now always require a reservation. Many have been removed from the timetable altogether. Why beat yourself up at night in a noisy carriage when the TGV high-speed train takes just two hours to travel from Paris to Bordeaux? However, this speed also has its price: seat reservations are required TGV mandatory and can cost up to 20 euros per trip if demand is high.
The more popular a connection is, the lower the chances of getting on board as an Interrailer. From and to France, the quotas for passport holders are partially limited. Supplements are also due in Spain and Italy. For adults who want to Interrail, this means: book in advance, plan for additional costs and familiarize yourself with the complicated reservation system.
“It’s annoying,” says Wolfgang Strassas, senior Interrail user and professional professor of sustainable tourism. He commissioned a specialized travel agency to book the connections through France and Spain. “But that makes it more expensive,” says the 65-year-old. Seat quotas for passport holders could mean they are left behind on the way to London, for example, although there are still seats available on the Eurostar train.
Interrail for adults: more advantages than disadvantages
Overall, however, Strassas underlines the advantages of the offer: “The big advantage is that I can search between different railway companies and their connections on a single portal and use them with a single ticket.” Interrail subscription. For this he needed 60 hours and a thick textbook, with which he selected the best connections. Today you could cover the route in half the time, the comfort would be greater, the textbook would be virtual – only Morocco is no longer included in the Interrail pass. But Eastern European countries have been added, and between Istanbul and Bulgaria you can still experience the Interrail atmosphere of the past, says Strassas.
“Travel takes time, the landscape changes and, unlike air travel, you notice it on the train”, says the expert on sustainable tourism, who promotes “climate protection on medium-haul routes”.
Travel at a slower pace
Stopping halfway, looking around, and making movement part of the vacation is actually a good idea for retirees. Unless they target rural regions. Reason: “Apart from the high-speed lines, the train offers are generally extremely bad – significantly worse than in Germany,” says Strassas with a view to Europe.
It is true that it is still largely young people who travel with Interrail: but still: the percentage of users over 60 was 8% in 2021. According to a railway spokesman, demand is expected to increase.
Even Tom Steinbrecher isn’t averse to rebooking an Interrail pass after waking up after 40 years. But preferably without hidden extra costs. He also describes an episode of the Eurocity from Bolzano to Munich. There the inspector collected an Interrail surcharge of ten euros, despite a valid seat reservation. Rightly so, because there are trains where special supplements become due. This connection via the burner is one of them.
But it confirms the impression: Traveling throughout Europe with an Interrail pass for a price – often no longer works.
Information at a glance on Interrail
Various railway companies 33 countries participate in the Interrail programme, including Deutsche Bahn, Renfe in Spain and SBB in Switzerland. Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Malta, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine are not included.
THE customer groups in 2021: 64% were young travelers under the age of 28, 28% were travelers aged 28-60 and children under the age of twelve, and 8% were senior citizens over the age of 60 .
THE Price depends on the period of validity, the number of travel days, whether 1st class is used and age: travelers under 28 and over 60 have a discount, everyone under twelve travels for free.
With material from dpa
