Eurail Passes Grow Up

As a college student I did what so many kids my age did, bought a Eurail pass and set out to see Europe. It's still the same, execept for the name. The Eurail Pass is now called The Global Pass, a bit of a misnomer because it covers just 20 mainland European countries.

There are also options to travel within two to five adjacent countries or simply see just one country.

The options can be as daunting as a Chinese menu when you are stumped choosing one from Group A and one from Group B.

There are several ways to slice and dice your pass, but mainly the trick is to plan where you want to go first and for how long and then figure out how many of those days you want to travel on the train. It could be 15 days in say, a period of one, two or three months.
This year Croatia and Slovenia were added to the Global Pass. The train tracks between Zagreb and Split actually bank in such a way that the train tilts around the curves to shave time off the trip.

Eurail passes are good for passengers who want the train trip to be part of their experience and are not in a hurry to get to their destination. Passes also benefit the budget traveler because they carry added value?freebies or discounts on boats, cable cars, museums.

In this day and age of low-fare carriers, it may not be a fair comparison to pit train travel versus intra-European flights. The planes might get you there faster, but unlike the trains, if you see the landscape breeze by at eye level, you?re in big trouble.

Benefits of the trains that you can?t quantify include arriving directly into city centers, carrying as much overstuffed luggage onboard as you want provided you schlep it yourself, and you can work, chat or sleep for long periods of time.