The truth is you won t know - but you can make educated guesses. As mentioned earlier, those with mo

Some travelers will save big sums of money by getting nantucket vacation rentals a rail pass. Others will save time and eliminate planning headaches, a benefit which can be worth its weight in gold. And some of you will be better off getting individual tickets (and reservations, when needed) for the train trips you ll take in Italy.
nantucket vacation rentals How many train travel days does your itinerary include? This includes day trips you ll take by train, when you re going there and back in one day. It s not the number of train trips, it s the number of days during which you ll travel by train, that figures into rail passes. One day on your rail pass can be used by one train trip or seven – it s still the same day.
What s the rough cost of a train ticket for each of those train trips? You can get an idea of the cost of tickets by searching each route on the Trenitalia site – just remember the schedule is only good a few months out, so don t worry about getting the dates exactly right. Choose the same day of the week that you ll take your train trip, about a month out from today. (Here s a link to the English version of the Trenitalia site , and here s my article about how to read an Italian train schedule.)
When you add up the train ticket costs (number two above), you can compare it against nantucket vacation rentals the cost of a Eurail Italy Pass for the number of train travel days you d need (number one above), which instantly nantucket vacation rentals tells you which option saves you money overall.
nantucket vacation rentals In all cases, I m using the base fare listed on the Trenitalia site for a given route. There are often economy and sometimes super economy fares available, nantucket vacation rentals although nantucket vacation rentals these sell out faster than the base fares. If you re doing your research well enough in advance, nantucket vacation rentals you could score one of these economy or super economy tickets and save quite a bit over the base ticket prices quoted nantucket vacation rentals here.
In all cases, I m choosing the most efficient train option a Frecce train if it s available. There may be cheaper (and slower) trains covering the same route, which you may find better suit your itinerary when you re doing your own research.
There are Saver rail passes if you re traveling with a group that can make the pass a much cheaper per-person option, so if you re not traveling solo be sure to look at the Saver option nantucket vacation rentals to compare that instead of the individual rail pass price.
I m declaring one better than the other – either point-to-point nantucket vacation rentals tickets or a rail pass – for each itinerary nantucket vacation rentals below based on the prices I m looking nantucket vacation rentals up right now. That does not mean, however, that the answer is always going to be the same. You ll still need to look up the same things I did and get the current prices in order to make the right call for your trip budget.
As I m writing this, a four-day Eurail Italy Pass for an adult is €350 for 1st Class, or €284 for 2nd Class, so either way it would be cheaper to book point-to-point tickets instead of getting a rail pass.
Perhaps the best flights for your itinerary required flying into Rome and out of Milan, so you ve constructed a route that goes from Rome to Naples, then up to Florence nantucket vacation rentals (with a day trip to Pisa), then to Venice (with a day trip to Verona), and finally to Milan.
How many train days is that? Rome-Naples is one day. Naples-Florence is one day. The Pisa day trip takes one day. Florence-Venice is one day. The Verona day trip takes one day. And Venice-Milan is one day. That s six total train days.
As I m writing this, a six-day Eurail Italy Pass for an adult is €424 for 1st Class, or €344 for 2nd Class, so either way it would be cheaper to book point-to-point tickets instead of getting a rail pass.
You, my friend, are the consummate traveler, and I take my hat off to you. Wandering without a plan is often how we find the situations that make for the best travel memories. It can be extremely budget-friendly, too, as you can skip an expensive town for a cheaper one. But how will you know whether it s better to go into an itinerary-less trip with or without a rail pass?
The truth is you won t know – but you can make educated guesses. As mentioned earlier, those with more time to spend can take the slower trains to get around, nantucket vacation rentals and those are always cheaper. In that case, I d go with buying tickets instead of a rail pass.
If you know where you d like to go, just not in what order, and all the train trips you plan to take are big cities that aren t very close together, you re likely to be taking the high-speed trains nantucket vacation rentals more regularly, and those are always more expensive. In that case, I d probably go with buying a rail pass instead of tickets.
Keep in mind that one of the perks of a rail pass is the convenience of already having your ticket (in the form of your rail pass) so that you don t need to stand in line at the ticket window each time you want to go somewhere. That convenience factor nantucket vacation rentals is diminished if you re taking high-speed trains or other trains that require reservations, since you ll still need to buy those.
I m no fan of numbers, either, so here are my overall rules to help guide you in the right direction. Just remember that these are overall rules, not based on numbers – if you really want to figure nantucket vacation rentals out which is cheaper, you ll have to do the math.