The knee-jerk reaction of most budget travelers heading abroad is to gobble up a Eurail pass: get your plane ticket, stuff your backpack, send away for a rail pass. Many guidebooks, on the other hand, stress the importance of comparing the overall costs of single-fare train tickets and railpasses. While sitting down with a calculator in one hand and a train schedule in the other, remember that even if buying single-fare tickets to each of your destinations is cheaper in total than investing in a rail pass, these passes can make up in convenience what they might lack in value. At peak travel times, travelers with rail passes can circumvent long ticket lines, hop on their train, and laugh knowingly at all of the backpackers juggling calculators and train schedules on top of everything else.
The traditional Eurail pass, however-the one that grants you unlimited train travel in any of 17 countries for a limited period of time-costs an astounding $838 for one month, $1188 for two. Most travelers, therefore, should shy away from the traditional Eurail pass, but they should not entirely abandon the idea of acquiring some sort of pass. Everyone should simply be more selective in choosing the specific rail pass (there is now a baffling variety) that will best suit an individual itinerary.
