Vienna Travel Forum

I'm taking a 25 day trip through eastern Europe in June. I'm flying into Vienna, from there doing the following:

Vienna-Prague-Krakow-Eger-Budapest-Ljubljana-Bled-Zagreb-Split-Korcula-Dubrovnik, then I'm flying back to France from there.

I was originally planning on buying train tickets as I went, but after reading a lot of the posts here, I got a little nervous about it. Is it doable? Do trains get booked a lot? Or should I put some work into booking tix now? Thanks all!

-Michael

Trains never get 'full' unless they are reservation-only (and these are few).

Check times/routes/reservation-only trains for each leg here (for all Europe):

http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml

You'll need the individual country's rail website for fares unless your journey starts in Germany.

If there are no seats available on a train (apart from reservation-only) one simply stands (between carriages) until a space becomes available.

If you are concerned about the availability for reservation-only trains on which you wish to travel then simply buy the onward ticket in advance when you arrive at a destination. You can buy tickets up to the moment of departure as long as there is space!

The one rider I would add is that, sometimes for some trains, there might be advance purchase offers. It's worth exploring the individual country's websites to see if these exist for what you want to do and when you want to travel.

I really don't think you should be over-worried about your luggage. Just use common sense.

Hi A few years ago we took 2 train trips, Vienna to Prague and Vienna Bratislava return. No problem purchasing tickets , but I was warned that travelling on weekends, includes Friday can be busy and you should purchase your ticket previous day to avoid disappointment. Also be aware og public holidays as the demand will increase.

regards
Mike

I would post this question in each country,s forum as the circumstances can vary a lot. I am in favor of reserving a seat as it is only Euro3 and better than risking no place to sit. On popular stretches trains can be full, and by this I mean no seats left, and on a long train journey this would be horrible and you would regret not spending the E3 to reserve. I had a horrendous train trip from Lisbon to Madrid and hadn,t reserved, and couldn,t even go to the loo as the seat would have been gone when I returned. Some people sat on their cases in the aisle the whole way.
I would recommend that you buy your train tickets the day before each trip at the latest and reserve a seat.

He is not going to "hundreds of countries" he is going to 4 or 5!

Thanks everybody! I'll look into checking out trains now for at least the weekends. I got stuck sitting on my bag once between Valencia and Nice so I know how much that's a pain. Now what about hostels. I've been told that June is not quite "high tourist season" yet... My schedule is extremely flexible- I just know I have to be in Dubrovnik at the end of June- so I've been hesitant about booking reservations in case I decide to stay somewhere a day or two longer. It that playing it too risky?

I'd be wary, but then I'm old and over-cautious anyway.

I'd advise you to at least book your first/last nights' stays in advance, and also consider pre-booking very popular places (Prague? Budapest? Dubrovnik?) and/or those which have limited cheap accommodation options (am thinking especially of Ljubljana and Bled here).

www.hostelworld.com and www.hostelbookers.com are good sites to explore options.

The Slovenian tourist info site on:

http://www.slovenia.info/?_ctg_namestitev=0&title=Accommodation

has a very good accommodation search engine which lists all available options.