UK Ferry Tickets

Living on chips and mayonnaise and sleeping off a night’s drinking at Nice station, before being woken up at 5am by a security guard emptying a hosepipe on us. Ah, I have such fond memories of Interrailing around Europe.

For my generation, an Interrail trip was a right of passage after school or university, in the same way as a gap holiday is for young people today.

Now, ‘new improved’ Interrail passes, allowing one month’s continuous travel by train around Europe, are being launched by Rail Europe for this summer.

There’s also a first-class option, which seems to me to completely miss the point, but I digress.

According to Rail Europe, we have the heaviest workload in Europe and are dying to dash off on a spontaneous trip abroad, by train of course. It all helps our guilty conscience, too, because it’s 97 per cent more carbon efficient than flying.

A one month Interrail pass will set you back from £292, rather more than I paid back in 1982, but you can now go to countries that didn’t exist back then.

The pass allows you to visit 29 countries (some going in a month) including Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

And, of course, if you run short of funds, you can always hop over to Nice station for a quick kip.

Guest Article by Jeremy Skidmore

Monday, April 9th, 2007