WLike the young, like the old: the Interrail ticket, once intended as a publicity stunt, has been the door opener to Europe for 50 years. While it used to be teens and twenty-somethings who spent countless nights in poorly sprung train compartments armed with backpacks and sleeping bags, now more and more best agers are using the ticket.
Since the previous age restrictions were gradually lifted and the national railways lure people with comfortable high-speed trains, train travel has also become interesting for people who are older.
The issue of flight shame has brought a renaissance to the ticket that allows you to travel all over Europe. But the Global Pass is not worth it for everyone. If you prefer to explore a country extensively, you are better off with the One Country Pass.
The stages of the journey are recorded in the Interrail pass
The Interrail pass is not just a ticket; the booklet, which can usually be found in digital form on mobile phones today, tells stories. 67-year-old Pete Riley, for example, is a committed Interrailer. In August 1975 – three years after the ticket was introduced – the then-teen Essex player went on tour with his friends Adel and Eric for the first time.
They went to Amsterdam via Ostend and from there to Cologne, Interlaken, Zurich, Innsbruck, Venice, Nice and Paris. Overnight stays were at campsites, in youth hostels and often in compartments in order to save on the travel budget.
The Brit still has his passport, in which the individual stages of the 30-day journey were handwritten, as well as countless black-and-white photos that remind him of the adventurous trip. “We often had to sit on the floor in the aisle, but meeting other Interrailers compensated for a lot,” says the train fan.
The Interrail ticket cost him £49 back then. If he sets out on a commemorative tour in the summer, the monthly pass for seniors over 60 will cost him a whopping 603 euros.
From the North Cape to Lisbon – without your parents
A ticket for 21 countries at a flat rate: 50 years ago, this idea revolutionized the travel behavior of under-21s. Today Venice, tomorrow Nice and in between a merry night in a rattling train compartment: The ticket with the imprint “Interrail”, which the International Union of Railways issued on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, made traveling by train through Europe affordable.
87,000 tickets were sold in 1972 by the participating railway companies. They made travel flexible long before the word Interrail found its way into the standard vocabulary of tourists.
Interrail experienced a boom in the 1980s and 1990s
Source: pa/dpa/Werner Baum
For the target age group, the pass was more than just a ticket to the train to somewhere. For many Interrailers, train hopping was part of growing up. For the first time they traveled without their parents, from the North Cape to Lisbon; for the first time they could decide for themselves whether to stay another day in Vienna or to go straight on to Rome.
The cities of the Eastern Bloc were still closed to train freaks, but the ticket was often the only way to get to Portugal or southern Spain. In return, the young travelers were happy to accept that the travel fund only allowed overnight stays in sleeping bags on the beach.
Airlines competed with the railways
More than twelve million passengers have embarked on this type of adventure over the past 50 years. The boom times were in the 1980s and 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of tickets were sold over the counter every year. When Europe presented itself as a reunified continent in 1990, 400,000 young adults dared to make the trip.
After that, things went downhill steeply, with a low of around 100,000 tickets at the beginning of the third millennium. Business suffered from competition from airlines, primarily low-cost airlines. Bali instead of Budapest, Luang Prabang instead of London was now the motto of the backpackers who came to distant countries for little money.
Deutsche Bahn and the other railway companies involved reacted to the decline with different instruments. On the one hand, the age limit was changed again and again, on the other hand, a whole portfolio of passports was added.
Interrail has become a product for everyone. The offer is no longer just aimed at people under the age of 21 who love to travel, but at everyone: high school graduates and students, backpackers and trolley owners, young families with small children and retirees who receive a ten percent discount on the adult fare.
The Interrail offer is much larger today
In addition to the classic, which is now called the Global Pass, there is a whole hodgepodge of tickets, the price of which depends on the period of validity and the number of days of travel. As a result, the product has lost its charm of simplicity – one month in Europe at a fixed price – but the range does justice to different wishes much better. Seven days of train travel within a month for 335 euros for an adult over 28 years of age have replaced the classic in the favor of passengers.
Thanks to the changes, the Interrail train has picked up speed again in recent years. 300,000 passports were sold in 2018, three times as many as in 2005. The environmentally friendly alternative to flying has many friends, especially among Scandinavians, who invented the word flight shame.
With the reorientation, the concept of comfort has also become more important. There are also passes for first class – unthinkable for the first-generation Interrailers, who still tell of hot flirts in overcrowded compartments with sparkling eyes.
For them, Interrail stood for a way of life, for a piece of freedom between backpack, sleeping bag and sleeping mat. In return, the travel-loving people even put up with the stench that wafted through the carriages after five days without a shower. For Kerstin, a 58-year-old Swede who has already discovered half of Europe by train, the ticket is simply “a practical form of travel because I can always decide anew whether I should continue my journey or stay another day”.
Reservations are required for many express trains
33 countries are now involved, including Turkey. Only Albania and Kosovo are staying away. The more Europe grew together, the more borders fell, the greater the available route network between Ireland in the west and Turkey in the east, between northern Sweden and the deep south of Spain.
Theoretically, the traveler could head for 40,000 destinations; but it’s no longer as easy as it used to be – buy a ticket and just drive off. Many express trains, especially in France, Spain, Sweden and Italy, require reservations. “And often only small contingents are available for Interrailers,” warns David Scheibler, founder of the Train Travel Blogs.
For example, if you want to take the TGV or other high-speed trains, you have to pay between ten and 15 euros for a seat reservation. That can get pretty expensive on a number of trips.
Not everyone needs the Global Pass anyway. For example, if you want to follow in the footsteps of Agatha Christie, who created a literary monument to the Orient Express between London and Istanbul, you can also do “seven days within a month” and save a whopping 335 euros compared to the usual monthly pass.
The “One Country Pass” is ideal for those who only want to discover one country. “However, you should calculate exactly whether it would be cheaper to travel with single tickets. In Eastern Europe, traveling by train is significantly cheaper than in Western European countries,” says David Scheibler.
Kerstin, the Swedish train enthusiast, has already booked the next Interrail adventure. In the summer we head south for four weeks, with side trips to Rome, Belgrade and Athens.
Tips and information:
Price examples: The bestseller “7 days within a month” costs 335 euros for adults aged 28 and over. Seniors aged 60 and over pay 302 euros. Two children between the ages of four and eleven travel for free. The classic, with which you can travel through Europe for a month, costs 670 euros for adults over 28 years of age and 603 euros for seniors. For those who just can’t get enough of the train, there are also two- and three-month passes.
Country passports: The passport for Italy is particularly popular. Eight days of rail travel within a month costs 240 euros, or 216 euros for seniors. The France passport costs 344 euros or 310 euros for senior citizens. There is also a national passport for Germany. For 375 euros, a person over the age of 28 can travel back and forth across Germany for seven days in one month.
All passes are available as paperless tickets that you can load onto your smartphone. The advantage: the trip does not have to be started immediately and can be conveniently planned using the app.
Further information on all passes is available on the Internet: interrail.eu