Interrail Passes, Randomness, and Extensive Planning

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Not always. Sometimes. Equally, you can often have the most watertight plans fall to pieces with a random strike of rotten luck. Today, things fell the right way.

I’ve been planning—at first vaguely, but recently in considerable depth—how to travel around Europe. Specifically, how to balance air and land travel. Freedom and forward planning. Comfort and budget. Time. I’d landed soundly on the idea of a flexible Interrail pass. Pick seven individual days within month, and travel, in short, as much as you’d like on any national EU railway. In isolation, it is a great idea. Especially so if you’re under 26 and qualify for the youth discount. Given our total lack of hard deadlines and commitments, the flexibility was perfect.

Well, that didn’t end up happening. Not because it wasn’t a good idea. But because a better alternative randomly popped up. I went to go and book the 7-day pass, and weirdly saw that the one month continuous pass was almost the same price. That shouldn’t make sense. It allows 30 days of unlimited travel. Not just seven. You don’t even have to pick.

Turns out there was a nearly unheard-of promotion going on. Half price for all continuous passes over one month in duration. Ending in two days. An offer that was running for a week only.

I didn’t know about it. I thought I’d made a mistake. Yet, it’ll end up saving us maybe close to a thousand dollars over the next month. Great preparation helps. Sometimes things falling the right way helps even more. I feel spoiled for choice now with the unlimited pass. Time to see what I can do with it.