Trains, planes or automobiles: The best way to travel in Europe

Train line near Zermatt, Switzerland

Last week a woman traveling with us to Croatia asked if she needed a car see the country after finishing our biking trip. It got me thinking.

I’m a big believer in public transportation, but I also rent cars often. Why?

In deciding on a mode of vacation transport, one needs to first look at what you want to see when traveling. If, for example, you like cities and intend to spend your time in museums, then traveling by train makes sense because that is what trains do, they run from city to city.

In on the other hand, if you plan to visit small towns, parks, and mountain villages, it is going to be more difficult to travel by train. It’s always fun riding a train, but it may be difficult to go where you want.

That brings us to buses. They still don’t go everywhere, but they go many more places than trains and to many smaller places. There are long-distance buses, rural-line buses, and local buses, such as a city bus. The long-distance buses run long distances across Europe and often at much lower costs than trains. The rural buses, sometimes called “Post” buses, can go into very rural areas.

Buses scare me a bit as locations and schedules can be more difficult to decipher, but if you start with something like the Rome2Rio website (www.rome2rio.com – and there is also a phone app), you can see the routes and then you can usually link to a bus company’s own website.

So buses will get you more places, but you’ll need to work a bit harder to figure them out.

The ease of trains and buses also vary with the country you’re visiting. Some countries simply have more of them. I’ve said that trains typically go from city to city, but this is not totally true. In Switzerland, train lines run nearly everywhere and cog railways and cable cars enable you to get well into the countryside. Plus there are Post buses that connect well with the trains. It’s wonderful. Unfortunately, Switzerland is the outlier. Most countries do not have such well developed public transportation.

And that brings me to cars. Basically, one can bring you anywhere, any time you like. They’re convenient and in a way you can live out of your car, not needing to pack everything away in a suitcase every time you change hotels. They can cost more, but not always. To book cars in Europe we use AutoEurope (www.autoeurope.com). If your credit card will cover insurance, the prices are good.

Also, don’t forget to consider where you’re driving. If you’re in Ireland or the UK, you’ll need to drive on the left side of the road. If you’re in Italy, you may find the drivers more aggressive than you’d like. But these are insurmountable obstacles. After watching a few YouTube videos I was ready to drive in Ireland. I did fine (although the stress level was occasionally a bit high).

So my advice is to be kind to the environment and take public transport whenever you can. But understand that it can’t always serve your needs. When that’s the case, don’t feel guilty about renting a car.