Fotoeins Fotografie

German Rail Pass (fall 2012, RTW)

By HL fotoeins on 4 Mar 2013

In 2012, I spent the year traveling around the world. By October, I was making my way from the southern to the northern hemisphere, and a return to Europe. Spending a few weeks in Berlin, Germany in the fall meant that I had a number of friends to visit throughout Germany. Thus began the start of my “Germany tour”:

• Berlin to Heidelberg
• Heidelberg to Freiburg im Breisgau
• Freiburg im Breisgau to Köln
• Köln to Berlin
• Berlin to Frankfurt am Main: for a wedding!
• Frankfurt am Main to München
• München to Passau (daytrip)
• München to Berlin
• Berlin to Dresden (daytrip)

From the German Rail Passes website, I found the 10-day (within 1-month) rail-pass in 2nd-class for $428 USD in mid-November. I purchased the rail-pass with a valid start-date of 22 November 2012. While I was already present in Germany, my transaction was successful, the ticket printed in Dublin, and sent by DHL-courier to where I was staying in Berlin.

I checked fares on the Deutsche Bahn website in early-2013 after fare prices were raised on average by 2.8 percent in early-December 2012. I searched fares for trains on an assumed time and date of “10am, 15 March 2013”, and took note of the highest and lowest 2nd-class fares in the “Sparpreis” category, which are the cheapest available fares. The “Normalpreis” fares were more expensive than “Sparpreis” fares by at least 10 to 20%; some “Normalpreis” fares were two times more expensive. The distances shown are approximate and estimated from “Strecke” values returned by the Luftlinie distance calculator (in German).

Route (Nov-Dec 2012)	Distance	2nd class, Sparpreis
Berlin Hbf – Heidelberg Hbf	620 km	€ 69—129
Heidelberg Hbf – Freiburg (Breisgau) Hbf	180 km	€ 35—84
Freiburg (Breisgau) Hbf – Köln Hbf	430 km	€ 35—99
Köln Hbf – Berlin Hbf	560 km	€ 79—99
Berlin Hbf – Frankfurt am Main Hbf	540 km	€ 35—99
Frankfurt Hbf – München Hbf	400 km	€ 35—79
München Hbf – Passau Hbf, return	400 km	€ 38—44
München Hbf – Berlin Hbf	580 km	€ 69—109
Berlin Hbf – Dresden Hbf, return	400 km	€ 19—55
Total	4110 km	€ 414—797
Total in USD (1 € = $1.3 USD)	…	$ 538—1036
Ten-day German Rail Pass, in USD	…	$ 428
Minimum savings, in USD	…	$ 100+

The Rail Pass does not bind the passholder to a specific train on a given date and time; so, I gained the flexibility of choosing any Deutsche Bahn scheduled-train whenever I needed to travel. Even though I only used nine of the ten days in the Rail Pass, I still saved at least $100 USD. The savings increase with longer distances between destinations.

If a traveler knows they’ll be staying and traveling within a European country for some time, a European Rail Pass can be a good way to save money on intranational travel. Staying in Germany for up to 3 months meant that Rail Pass(es) represented good value for the money.

My previous posts about German Rail Passes:

•   Yet another trip with German Rail (2011)
•   Across the country with German Rail
•   Saving money with a German Rail Pass
•   Flexibility with a German Rail Pass

Disclosure: No Connection, Unpaid, My Own Opinions. I have not received any compensation for writing this content and I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein.I made the two photos above with a Canon EOS450D (XSI) camera. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.