So me and some friends are currently planning a trip through Europe. Nothing is really set in stone yet, our first question is if we want to do a roadtrip with a camper-van or an Interrail trip.
I guess the advantage of a train would be, that it would be a lot more enjoyable to cover larger distances than with a camper. I thought, maybe it would be really cool, if we did like a larger tour through Europe, so I researched a bit and planned a hypothetical trip through Germany (where we live) to Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and back to Germany.
That sounds like a lot, but with the train routes, I looked up it would be doable with only 9 travel days, 4 of which would take the whole day (10-12 hours) and 5 of which would only take half a day (4-6 hours). I thought, that could be quite reasonable and it would be a great adventure type trip.
Do you think that could be cool, or would it get exhausting to quick?
It sounds perfectly doable to me: I count 7 countries you want to visit, and then it depends a bit on where in Germany you start the first day and end the last day. Two nights in one place is mostly fine. On some of the legs, there are not many daily trains though, so that adds some constraints. There are no night trains in the Baltic countries, but especially the Finnish ones are nice (I’m partial but confirmed by others). You could take a ferry shortcut Stockholm-Turku (Viking Line or Tallink) or Umeå-Vaasa (Wasaline’s carbon neutral ferry), especially if you don’t take night trains up to northern Sweden and down to southern Finland.
This year is a special occasion in northern Finland though, because sometime around Midsummer a train route (by VR) is starting that crosses the twin-city border from Haparanda, Sweden to Tornio, Finland (continuing to Kemi). Also, Oulu is this year’s European capital of culture so you may want to stop by.
To save some time in the Baltics, I might not stay overnight in Tallinn (with the frequent Tallink ferries over, it’s basically a twin city of Helsinki, which is also not huge) and instead continue to Tartu or Riga. Then the train to Vilnius runs only once per day, but from there you could travel through Poland back to Germany even in a single day if need be.
Regarding smaller Swedish towns, check out Lund. It would be a suitable place from which to make day trips in the Malmö region and again, Copenhagen is a twin city (connected by Öresundståg Lund-Malmö-Copenhagen). The section Germany-Denmark-Malmö-Stockholm is known as a bottleneck at times with overcrowded trains and cancellations, but when you get to the Malmö area you can relax a bit as there’s the alternative route to Stockholm via Gothenburg (perhaps worth a visit too!).
Check out the night trains! https://back-on-track.eu/night-train-map/
I would look in to night trains that you can get with interrail. Just because you can have more time on the location and don’t have to spend money on accomodation.
Otherwise it can be quite nice trip my friends did 14 days last year through Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Austria, and were quite satisfied with the decision.
I have done these kind of trips when I was younger. It’s nice if you enjoy travelling by train (bring some card games) and want to see some city centers / sights.
In retrospect being older now I would say the time spend moving around, checking in and out of hostels etc, just to see some old buildings and ultimatly quite unremarkable urban tourist sights isn’t really worth it. But it is this kind of bucket list activity younger people do to later smugly explain that it isn’t really worth it 😅
Yeah I agree. I also decided some time ago that I’d rather only see some small parts of a country instead of moving every two days during a holiday.
With a itinerary like OP I’d choose one thing to do per country (and not just visit the capital in each and then continue). Maybe choose one museum in Denmark, then a 2 day hike in Sweden, then a sauna by the lake in Finland, then maybe actually visit a city like Riga of Tallinn, then go horse riding in poland.
Depends mostly on how much energy you have and how draining travelling is to you. For me it would be too much.
I would recommend going either the Denmark - Sweden route or the Poland - Baltic route. And then really visit the countries you are travelling through, instead of only seeing the biggest cities one day and then leaving already. If you have a camper, then you have the option of seeing more of the countryside instead of being reliant on public transport, but the driving takes more energy than just sitting in a train. If you are mostly interested in visiting cities, then the train would probably be the better option, since you don’t need to find a parking space everywhere you go.
And I also recommend night trains, they are a good way to travel and still have a full day for seeing stuff.
You probably want to take some ferry trips. Certainly Helsinki-Talinn maybe also Stockholm-Helsinki. Train tickets in the Baltics and Poland are also rather cheap. So you might want to look into doing Denmark and Sweden with Interrail or buy all tickets separatly. That also would allow you to buy sleepers, which makes the long trips much nicer and saves you a hotel.
Don’t spend half your holiday on a train or driving a campervan - the moving-around part of travel is really not great.
I completely disagree, I travel mainly in a campervan and the moving-around part is a lot of fun, we get to see what a place looks like from outside the touristic areas and it’s slow enough to make you feel the distances. To me you miss most of your trip when you travel by plane or don’t move around much.
It might be a little short. I’d say 2 full days at a location is probably a good place to be, as long as you have rest in between (your travel days).
I think on later trips you could stay longer in areas you really liked or explore further in those areas.
Have fun on your trip :)
