The best part of interailling for me was turning up to a major train station, looking at the giant departure board, choosing an enigmatic destination and just getting on the train. No booking or reservations or even planning at any point.

Is this not possible any more?

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jamescrowley 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Quite a few countries (France, Spain, Italy for starters) require seat reservations in advance for any long-distance/high-speed trains now. And worse, they have a quota for passes, so even if the train has space, you might not be able to reserve a seat and therefore get on the train. A real shame as it makes it far less flexible than before.

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mr_toad 10 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s usually cheaper to book in advance. In particular if you want cheap seats on the Eurostar you have to books months in advance.

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edent 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes. The app makes it really easy to do that. In our last trip we did it a few times.

But, as you get older, there's a certain joy in making plans in advance.

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jmkd 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Thanks, great to know. I hear you on at least knowing where you might sleep. Age 18-23 even this isn't that critical, when 'beach' or 'park' are viable answers.

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embedding-shape 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> But, as you get older, there's a certain joy in making plans in advance.

Am I the only one who feels the opposite? I used to take great care in making plans, knowing what's up ahead, knowing what I should know and so on. Spontaneous moments like "Lets go to X" were very infrequent. Nowadays, as a Proper Adult, I much more like going places without knowing anything about them, with as little plans as possible, figuring out what the place is from the people I meet there, and only start reading about the place once I'm there.

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kd5bjo 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I fall somewhere in the middle these days- I really like knowing in advance that I have a place to sleep each night and that I have a way to get there, but then just do whatever I feel like in the moment for everything else.

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iso1631 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I never really planned in my youth, however as I'm older I have more responsibilities and planning in advance. We've just booked part of our summer family holiday for example

	▲	embedding-shape 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> however as I'm older I have more responsibilities Yeah, same here, I guess that's why I'm opting for less planning, not more. I guess some people are just wired differently, that's what makes the world so interesting probably :)

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vachina 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I used to do this but with Flixbuses and Ryanair. Back then one could fly from Frankfurt am Main to Milan for 15 euros.

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gib444 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For faster/intercity trains, it is still like that in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and most of central and eastern Europe [0]

France, Italy, Spain, Portugal & Sweden require seat reservations, as do most international services

Making reservations varies from easy to a complete pain

[0] https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-an-interrail-pass.htm