Interrail: 6,379Km and 13 Countries over 7 weeks

> Worst during the interrail trip.

That wouldn't surprise me. "your worst train experience" still would, unless the person only taken trains in Europe. But the world is big, and some places are just on a different level. Ever taken a train in India? I'd like to hear those people complain about the German train experience :)

I remember that there had been a discussion about providing free Interrail tickets to all EU citizens at some age (18 or 19 maybe?), which I found a brilliant idea. I don't know whether this actually ever materialized, though.

I would love to take an Interrail, eg to visit France, but it's x days in one month (8 days is 292€ per person) and doesn't match my travel habits. I would prefer to make short travels everyday rather than long travels 8 days of the month.

Edit: global passes let you travel everyday of your pass, with passes of up to 3 months: https://www.interrail.com/en/interrail-passes/global-pass

> Eurostar St Pancras is dangerously crowded and needs tearing down

Agreed. It's horrific. They need to get rid of some of the shops, knock through, and double or triple the size of the departure lounge. EES has made it even more chaotic.

We do this all the time in the UK - give too much space to retail. You can understand why though - we spend like crazy at airports and railway stations.

I did a first class Interrail earlier this year, not planning much, not staying in hostels. It was quite stressful as unsurprisingly Paris, Milan, Florence etc are popular and expensive places! Trying to chase good weather was annoying as it was a terrible winter in much Europe - we had all this flexibility but didn't want to go anywhere as everywhere was cloudy and rainy.

We ended up abandoning it half way through, when we were in southern Spain during the terrible week of multiple derailments. We aren't religious but we took that as a sign to head home

I'm still committed to trains but I wouldn't repeat the experience. I would base myself somewhere with good trains, stay somewhere a bit cheaper, and do day trips via train

In addition, there's about 2x year a 25% sale and you have a year to activate the passes.

The in southern Europe (e.g. France, Spain, Italy), required seat reservation is most common and most expensive.

I don't mind requiring seat reservations, but that it is separate from the ticket price and significant (eg 15€/seat reservation in Italy), feels like price gouging. It also feels different from say the optional (and way lower priced seat reservations in German ICE's (high speed rail)). I rather pay for a "high speed rail supplement" instead of seat reservation haha :).

I interrailed last year through Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Italy and Switzerland.

In Germany I was lucky, I only had a small delay on the way back.

Austria was exceptional in everything. On time, modern trains and facilities. I guess the food on the train was expensive and bland, but I've never seen a train where that's different.

Slovenia was the weirdest and had the most delays. Train cars for which I had seat reservations consistently didn't exist or arrive. They use old stock, but that also made it kind of fun and there were great views. I couldn't rely on the time table though.

Italy has lots of high speed rail, but required (paid) seat reservations. The problem is that for almost any medium-long distance there's no slower speed alternative. The normal speed stock is fine (can be taken to go to smaller cities) and was generally on time.

Trains in Switzerland are exceptional too. Funnily enough, I did have fairly significant delays 2/5 times.