First time Interrailing? Try these routes

Curious about Interrail but not sure where to begin? Bart Giepmans, author of Platform Europe, has picked four European train routes he’d recommend to first-time Interrailers.  

One route takes you on one of the longest direct train routes through the Alps. Another passes cathedrals, student cities and (arguably) Europe’s most beautiful train station.

Bart explains why these trips are a good start and what you might find along the way. 

Brussels to Istanbul by train and handcycle

More than 2,500 kilometres. Entirely by train and handcycle.

“What could possibly go wrong?” asked Katie Renker, before she and her friend Archie left on their trip. 

In this essay, Katie breaks down what it was really like to travel from Belgium to Türkiye—the good, the bad and the unexpected. 

“We rode a train through a wildfire, stayed with strangers from Facebook who offered us beds, swam in a Serbian waterfall, nearly got left halfway off a train carriage, ate food both unfamiliar and delicious,” she writes. “Every part of it was worth it.”

She’s taken night trains across the world. Here's what she's learned

Monisha Rajesh, journalist and author of Moonlight Express: Around the World by Night Train, has taken sleeper trains all around the world. We spoke with her about her favourite European routes, tips for first-timers and advice for getting a decent night’s sleep onboard a night train. Hint: you'll want to take the coat hangers off the wall.

"I love the fact that [night trains] give you time," she said. "From the moment you board until the next morning...you have a whole stretch of time to do whatever you want with. That's something that we don't really give ourselves very much anymore."

To the edge of the world and back: a train trip through Norway

Last summer, journalist Maya Toebat travelled 3,000 kilometres north from Brussels all the way to Svalbard, Norway. She took a combination of trains and a sailboat to reach the remote archipelago near the North Pole.
 

One month later, she was back on mainland Norway, heading home. Along the way, she hiked and camped as much as possible, trekking part of the famous Seven Sisters mountain range, sleeping in a free cabin near Trofors Station and pitching her tent on an island near Oslo.

Why I travel the same route with my family year after year  

Every summer, Seth’s family travels north. They start at their home in Utrecht and take the train to cities like Hamburg, Copenhagen, Malmö and Stockholm, then onwards to Finland.

“Europe stops being an idea and becomes something physical and continuous,” Seth writes, reflecting on the now-familiar trip. “Countries arrive gradually through windows, platforms, languages, announcements and landscapes.”