Tips on avoiding reservations

We know you want to save as much of your travel budget for sight-seeing, souvenir-hunting and of course a spot of partying, so here are some tips to avoid having to pay train reservations.

You can often avoid paying reservation fees by researching an alternative route. This means using slower trains connections or changing trains more frequently, but it will save you paying extra costs and you’ll have the chance to visit more new places, as regional trains make more stops along the way.

Finding trains that don’t need reservations
 

1. Visit the Deutsche Bahn timetable.
2. Enter your departure and arrival stations.
3. Select ‘All without ICE’. Have a look at the list of trains generated. This list should include train routes with connections to trains that all (or mostly) do not require a reservation.
4. If you still see trains requiring a reservation you can try selecting ‘only local transport’ which should produce a list of routes with no reservations, however journey times could be longer in this list.
    

Alternative route example: Paris – Amsterdam

If you want to travel from Paris to Amsterdam, but want to avoid the extra costs of reserving the high-speed Thalys, or if the seat allocation for InterRail travellers has been fully allocated (possible during high-season) you could take this alternative route:

Paris Nord – Amiens – Lille Flandres – Antwerp Centraal – Amsterdam Centraal

Start with a freshly baked croissant for breakfast in Paris, before taking a short train ride to Amiens. Have a coffee in this little French town and make sure you pass by the pretty cathedral. Next stop – Lille Flandres – stretch your legs and grab a snack at this historical station built in 1892, before boarding a train to Belgium’s super cool city of Antwerp.

It’s definitely worth spending a few hours taking in some of the city’s beautiful architecture and savouring a delicious lunch, washed down with a refreshing Belgian beer. Later in the afternoon hop back onto the train for the short ride to Amsterdam, just in time for dinner at a canal-side restaurant! What a jam-packed day!
 

Alternative routes for popular destinations: