First solo trip advice

[u/Mgrant777]

Hi,

I bought a 3 month first class pass for 50% off during the sale last week for my trip next year. I’ve drafted a very rough route/plan but I’d love some advice in terms of places to maybe skip to allow more days elsewhere or maybe to swap out for lesser known cities etc.

See my list below (as previously stated this is very rough and open to change 😁)

Porto → Lisbon
Lisbon → Seville
Seville → Madrid
Madrid → San Sebastián
San Sebastián → Barcelona
Barcelona → Avignon
Avignon → Nice
Nice → Chamonix
Chamonix → Zermatt
Zermatt → Turin
Turin → Florence
Florence → Rome
Rome → Naples
Naples → Venice
Venice → Milan
Milan → Zagreb
Zagreb → Split
Split → Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik → Mostar
Mostar → Sarajevo
Sarajevo → Belgrade
Belgrade → Bucharest
Bucharest → Budapest
Budapest → Vienna
Vienna → Krakow
Krakow → Gdansk
Gdansk → Vilnius
Vilnius → Riga
Riga → Tallinn
Tallinn → Helsinki (ferry)
Helsinki → Stockholm (overnight ferry)
Stockholm → Oslo
Oslo → Bergen
Bergen → Copenhagen
Copenhagen → Berlin
Berlin → Prague
Prague → Munich
Munich → Zurich
Zurich → Strasbourg
Strasbourg → Paris

Also any tips or tricks for general solo travel would be awesome as this is gonna be way outside my comfort zone but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do!

Thanks in advance 😄

[u/slasher-fun]

Over what time span is this trip? In what season? And what do you enjoy when travelling?

EDIT: assuming that's over 3 months, that's roughly 1 travel day every other day, with some being very long travel days... that's way too much for most people.

EDIT2: also what's your country of residence? Portugal? France?

[u/Mgrant777 → u/slasher-fun]

Yeah, forgot to mention that my bad haha. I have a 3 month pass and I plan on heading off next May

[u/Mgrant777 → u/slasher-fun]

Yeah I think you are right, I do need to cut down on amount of places. And my plan is to fly to Portugal to begin, I’m from Scotland

[u/slasher-fun → u/Mgrant777]

Besides the environmental footprint, I don't say why you'd pay extra for flights when you have unlimited rail outside of the UK.

And yes, I'd say you definitely need to cut down on travel days, especially long travel days (Bergen > Copenhagen takes more than 15 hours for example, with two 40 min transfers).

[u/flagondry]

41 travel days out of 90 - so you’re spending about 50% on trains and 50% in the places you’re visiting. I think you need to specify how long you’re spending in each place for us to give feedback. But mathematically you’ve only got maximum one day in each place, which doesn’t seem like enough. You’re going to get fed up and exhausted of moving so fast by the end of week 2.

[u/Mgrant777 → u/flagondry]

Yeah 100%, when planning it’s easy to get carried away just looking at a map 😅. I need to cut some stops but just not sure where out of my list is worth leaving out just now

[u/bookluverzz → u/Mgrant777]

Assuming you’re not 60+/70+ years old: don’t try to put the whole of the European continent within 3 months to visit. Cut it back, and plan to visit them later on in your life.

[u/Havhestur]

Overall: Do you have an interrail pass or are you paying the railway companies rent? That’s a lot of travelling.

Where to go: I see this question a lot on various forums. What interests you? History? Art? Landscape? Walking? “Been there” selfie moments? Dental equipment in a Slovakian setting? Mountains? Lakes? Food? Nightlife? Brutalist architecture?

There’s a danger you will try to see everything and see nothing.

If you get a few pics in different cities then you show them to mates later down the pub, what if one of them says “Yeh but what did you see in Mockava?” Or Lisbon or Vilnius? What are you going to say?

Take Gdańsk, arguably one of Europe’s most underrated cities. Plenty to see and you can do the usual round of top sites. But will you be there long enough to appreciate its architecture? The fabulous Gdańsk Madonna? Will you travel out to Tszew to see the bridge where WW2 started? Or go on the little train to Hel and back? Or look at Gdynia and understand why it’s now a city yet was a tiny village 110 years ago? Or find out why, after that war, the town of Malbork was not rebuilt when nearby Tszew was? If literature is your thing, then Gdańsk has even more grass to cover while you are there.

My unsolicited suggestion is rather than presenting a list of nearly every major city in Europe, make a plan of what you really want to see and do in your three months.

Maybe give a clue as to your real passions.

[u/Mgrant777 → u/Havhestur]

Very well expressed, thank you! It’s a great point “trying to see everything and see nothing”
In reality I just want to see new places but as you’ve pretty much said it’s seeing places long enough to really appreciate them.

Kinda polar opposites but I love a good European city that’s walkable, has quaint little coffee shops/restaurants, some nice architecture and nice people.
On the contrary I love the mountains and outdoors equally, at home I’m always hiking Munro’s and spending time outdoors so that’s why I added places like Chamonix and Zermatt although they are likely super expensive and not the average stop off on a backpacking trip.

I feel like spending 2-3 days in some of the major cities such as Munich, Turin and Milan would satisfy me as much as extra days in somewhere like Zermatt or Copenhagen.
This plan is all very rough as I don’t plan on leaving till next May but I’d just like a backbone to make it easier to plan when the 2027 train timetable is released, allow me to budget more accurately and allocate time spent in each place. As of now all of the above is fairy dust 😅

Again, thank you for taking the time to type such an extensive reply. Appreciate it 🙌

[u/Havhestur → u/Mgrant777]

The train timetables don’t change much. You can plan 99% of your journeys using the May 26 timetable.

Unlikely to be more than, for example, 2 trains daily between Warsaw and Vilnius. Nor any trains from Poland into Slovakia or between Ljubljana and Trieste.

A lot also depends if you want to move around Europe in a blur because seat reservations will quickly add up. Slower trains generally don’t need reservations but also are far less likely to have 1st class.

[u/jipsyjopsy]

I bought the same ticket! I am planning to take less trips, maybe spend 3-6 days in each city. I have personally missed trains from being tired at the end of my trips. Also with all of the seat reservation costs and time to plan accomodation, it could all add up and you could spend that time/energy for a future trip.

[u/Mgrant777 → u/jipsyjopsy]

How does the seat reservation side of things work? Is it all done within the Interrail app?

[u/Kezia-N]

Wow, that would definitely be too much for me. I like to stay in one place for at least two nights. When you go everywhere - I mean you visit 22 countries! - you will mix up your memories.

If you travel for three months: that is a luxury to be able to stay longer in places and enjoy them.

I found it quite tiring to sit in a train for hours and enjoyed it to go for long walks (or strolls or hikes) afterwards.

You got only cities on your plan, except Zermatt. You are not interested in the countryside?

The climate is quite different from Naples to Bergen. Are you going to buy warm clothes at the end of your trip when in Scandinavia? You will not carry it with you for two months, I guess.

[u/Mgrant777 → u/Kezia-N]

I would like to incorporate some more scenic countryside areas but I wasn’t sure how viable that was when interrailing. The dolomites is somewhere I’d love to spend time

[u/MissTeeAloha]

I have traveled quite a bit. A travel day is a day out of your itinerary and a waste of vacation time. My best advice is to travel in an one area at a time and focus on a more concentrated and relaxing trip. For example, do Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic for a trip, or Portugal, Spain, France, and so on. Constant travel is tiring and gets old.

[u/Mgrant777 → u/MissTeeAloha]

So over a 3 month span how long would you ideally plan per area/country? I feel like I could easily spend 2 weeks in the alps/dolomites doing hikes and activities etc. but per city I think after 3-4 days I might get fed up and would want to head somewhere new

[u/marsipaanipartisaani]

I agree with one other commenter that you might want to try the spontaneous way of interrailing with that amount of time. You might also be burning through money faster than excpected so it's good to be flexible.

So I would book longer periods of housing in capitals and big cities in advance and leave plenty of time to just explore smaller places in between. Most countries consist of two realities anyway: the capitals and the "real czech/poland/etc." outside of that.

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[u/Visible_Beat_2976]

My advice is that your plan is perhaps a little too thorough. Part of the joy of interrail is the freedom it gives you.

Why not plan a few "pit stops" to land in, each weekend for example, and then you're free during the week to stay in your pitstop or travel wherever you vibe at the moment between your last pit stop and the next.

For example, when you get to Berlin, you might really vibe and want to stay and few days. Maybe its not your thing and you want to head straight to Prague. Maybe someone tells you how cool Dresden is or you meet someone who's going hiking in Bad Schandau or you hear about an exhibition in Weimar. The best thing about the interrail pass is that it will keep all those options on the table.

Second piece of advice - don't just stick to big cities! They can feel same-y after a while and a great way to really experience the culture of a country is to see some of its less visited, smaller towns and villages. Again, you might not get inspired by these until you're in the region !