Under 30s rail vacations in Europe

“I remember the first time that I decided to take a train instead,” says Scott Batchelor, from our 18-30 rail vacation specialists Euroventure. “I was traveling from Italy to France… going through the countryside and realising how much more beautiful it was to look out the window and see the environment slowly shifting. We were going through the Dolomites region; the mountains were just stunning outside. And I was thinking, ‘You know what, if I was sitting boxed in with no leg room on a plane somewhere, I wouldn’t be getting all this.’ And I thought that wherever possible from now on, this is how I’m going to do it.”

That’s the consensus for many travelers on under 30 rail vacations in Europe. There are plenty of environmental reasons to travel by train, of course (a casual 75 percent cut in planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, for instance), but really that’s a mighty big bonus on top of discovering that traveling by rail is easy – and really, really fun. There’s a reason why Interrailing around Europe in the 1970s was the original backpacking route.

“For me, it just all seems to fit together and really make sense,” says Scott. “Because not only are you doing a good thing for the environment by taking a public mode of transport that creates fewer emissions, but you are getting a genuinely more positive experience out of traveling as well.”

Imagine. You arrive at an architectural masterpiece of a train station 20 minutes before departure time. There are no security lines and no 100ml liquid limits. You can crack open a beer and snack on chocolatey Sachertortes while rolling between Vienna and Budapest. Even the cosiest couchette in a sleeper train is worlds better than trying to snatch some shut-eye while sitting up on a packed flight.

It’s all enough to change a frequent flier’s ways. “I think the first time that I decided to make the switch was the best train trip for me,” says Scott. “Classically, I was one of those people who would fly from destination to destination – even when sometimes I could’ve just got the bus or train instead... I remember it being a bit of a game changer when I realised that this is so much easier and it’s better for the environment. Ever since then, I’ve been traveling as sustainably as possible. Flying is very much a last resort now.”

Like many first-time train travelers, that first trip shifted Scott’s perception of train vacations. “I think people’s views get tainted by past experiences… and they just think, ‘Oh, there’s no way I would want to be messed about with a train cancellation if I was in the middle in Sweden.’ When in reality you would very rarely have to deal with something like that and, if you did, the customer service really does back it up. I’ve had a train cancel on me before, and it took less than five minutes to find a representative, and then I was on a different train. So it’s still very, very easy if things do go wrong.”