How to Get Around Europe: Trains, Planes, Buses & Cars (2026)

By Hannah Brooks, Senior Europe Editor · Last updated: June 2026

I once spent three hours on a Budapest park bench doing transport math: fly to Krakow for €39, take the night train for €59, or ride a bus for €19. Twenty-five years of European travel later, I can usually make that call in about ten seconds — and by the end of this guide, you will too.

The short answer to how to get around Europe: take the train for most city-to-city trips under six hours, budget flights for long cross-continent hops, buses when every euro counts, and a rental car only for the countryside. Mix all four — and use metros, trams and your own feet inside cities.

That’s the framework. The rest of this guide is the detail that makes it work: real 2026 prices, booking windows, the scams and surcharges nobody mentions, and exactly which mode wins on which routes. Whether you’re planning your first trip to Europe or your fifteenth, how you move between places shapes your trip more than almost any other decision — it decides your budget, your daily rhythm, and how tired you are when you arrive.

Getting around Europe at a glance

Here’s the honest comparison I wish someone had handed me years ago. Prices are typical one-way figures for popular routes booked a few weeks ahead, as of June 2026 — always check current fares.

Mode	Best for	Typical cost	Book ahead?
High-speed train	City-to-city trips of 1–6 hours	€20–90	Yes — 1–4 months for the cheap seats
Regional train	Day trips, small towns, scenic lines	€5–25	No — fixed prices, just turn up
Night train	Long hops while you sleep	€25 seat, €100+ sleeper	Yes — 2–3 months for cabins
Budget flight	Distances over ~1,000 km	€20–80 + bag fees	Yes — 6–10 weeks out is the sweet spot
Bus (FlixBus etc.)	Tight budgets, routes trains miss	€5–30	Helpful but rarely essential
Rental car	Countryside, mountains, wine regions	€35–80/day + fuel & tolls	Yes — 40–60 days for the best rates
Ferry	Islands and coastal hops	€10–40 short, €50–150 long	Summer island routes, yes
City transit	Everything inside cities	€1.50–3.20 a ride	No — tap in with your bank card

If you remember nothing else from that table, remember this: trains for the middle distances, planes for the long ones, buses for the savings, cars for the countryside. Europe’s transport network is so dense that the genuine question is rarely “can I get there?” — it’s “which of four options suits this leg best?”

How to get around Europe: my three-question framework

Every transport decision I make in Europe comes down to three questions. They sound simple, but they’ll save you hundreds of euros and entire wasted days.

1. Is the train under six hours?

If yes, take the train. This is the closest thing to an iron rule in European travel. A six-hour train beats a 90-minute flight more often than you’d think, because the flight isn’t really 90 minutes: it’s a 45-minute airport transfer, a two-hour check-in buffer, the flight itself, and another transfer from an airport that’s often 40 km from the city you actually wanted. Trains run city centre to city centre — you walk out of the station and you’re already there. I’ve broken down the full math in my flying vs train in Europe comparison, but the six-hour rule gets the answer right about 90% of the time.

2. Cities or countryside?

Cities punish cars; the countryside rewards them. Driving into Florence, Paris or Amsterdam means restricted traffic zones, €40-a-night parking and one-way mazes — while the Tuscan hills, the Scottish Highlands and the Provence lavender routes barely function without wheels. If your itinerary is capital-hopping, skip the car entirely. If it’s vineyards, fishing villages and mountain passes, a car transforms the trip. My Europe road trips guide covers the routes where driving genuinely earns its keep.

3. What’s cheaper: your time or your money?

A student with three months and €1,500 should ride buses and night trains. A family with ten days and a real budget should take fast trains and the occasional flight, because losing half a day to save €60 is a terrible trade when your holiday costs €400 a day. Neither answer is wrong — they’re answers to different questions. I cover the full cheap-travel playbook in my guide to seeing Europe on a budget.

With the framework set, let’s go mode by mode — what each one really costs, when it wins, and the traps to dodge.

Trains: the backbone of European travel

I’ll declare my bias upfront: I love European trains, and I’m not alone — once travelers discover them, most never go back to short-haul flights. The network is vast, the city-centre stations are glorious, and a window seat through the Alps or along the Ligurian coast is sightseeing you’d otherwise pay for. I’ve written a full guide to train travel in Europe, so here I’ll stick to what you need to choose and book well.

High-speed trains: France’s TGV, Italy’s Frecciarossa and friends

Europe’s high-speed network is the fastest way between major cities short of flying — and door to door, it usually beats flying too. France’s TGV reaches 320 km/h and puts Paris–Bordeaux at just over two hours; Italy’s Frecciarossa and competitor Italo link Rome and Florence in about 95 minutes; Spain’s AVE does Madrid–Barcelona in two and a half hours, faster than any airport run. Germany’s ICE, while less punctual than it should be, knits the whole country together — useful when you’re touring with my Germany travel guide in hand.

The crucial thing to understand: high-speed fares work like airline fares. They’re dynamic. A Paris–Lyon TGV released at €25 can hit €110 on the day. Book the popular routes one to four months out and you’ll routinely pay a third of the walk-up price. Eurostar is the extreme case — London to Paris in 2h16 starts from around £52/€60 one-way booked early, but the cheap buckets sell out fast, especially around holidays. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are reliably the cheapest days to travel.

Regional trains: the ones nobody brags about

The unglamorous regional trains are some of my favourites in Europe. Fixed prices, no reservations, just turn up and go. Italy’s regionale trains cost a few euros between hill towns; Switzerland’s run with watchmaker precision into villages of forty people. They’re the right tool for day trips — Florence to Lucca, Munich to a Bavarian lake, Seville to Córdoba. One non-negotiable: in Italy, validate your paper regional ticket in the small green machines on the platform before boarding, or you’re technically traveling ticketless and risking a fine.

Eurail passes vs point-to-point tickets: the honest math

The question I’m asked most. As of June 2026, a Eurail Global Pass costs around €396 for 7 travel days within a month (adult, 2nd class; under-28s get roughly 25% off, and Eurail runs frequent sales). That’s about €57 a travel day — so the pass only wins if your average train ride would cost more than that bought separately.

My honest rule of thumb:

• The pass wins for spontaneous, fast-moving trips across 4+ countries, for Switzerland (where point-to-point fares are brutal), for night-train-heavy routings, and for under-28s with youth pricing.
• Point-to-point wins for fixed itineraries booked weeks ahead, single-country trips, and anyone taking fewer than five long rides. Advance fares of €19–29 on routes the pass-holder still needs a €10–20 seat reservation for make the pass hard to justify.

That reservation catch matters: in France, Spain and Italy, high-speed trains require paid seat reservations even with a pass, and France caps pass-holder seats per train. Factor it in before you buy.

Night trains: travel while you sleep

Europe’s night-train revival is the best transport news in a decade. Austria’s ÖBB Nightjet network keeps growing — Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Rome and more — with seats from about €25–35, couchettes from roughly €50–80, and proper sleeper cabins from around €100. You board at 9pm, you wake up 800 km away, and you’ve saved a night of accommodation. The catch: cabins on popular summer routes sell out two to three months ahead, so book the moment your dates firm up. For routes, my picks, and what each class actually feels like, see the night-train section of my European train travel guide.

Budget airlines: cheap, cranky, and sometimes exactly right

Let’s be fair to the budget carriers: Ryanair, easyJet, Wizz Air and Vueling have made Europe absurdly accessible. Lisbon to Zurich, Copenhagen to Nice, London to Athens — for distances like these, no train or bus competes, and fares booked six to ten weeks out start under €40. For long cross-continent hops, flying isn’t just acceptable; it’s the smart call. I keep a running breakdown of who flies where and who’s worth it in my budget airlines in Europe guide.

But you must do the true-cost math, because the sticker price is a fiction:

• Bags. As of 2026, Ryanair’s free allowance is one small under-seat bag (40×30×20 cm); the 10 kg overhead cabin bag requires a priority fare add-on from about €6–36 depending on route. Turn up at the gate with an oversized bag and you’re looking at a penalty fee that can exceed the ticket price — typically €46–75. easyJet’s free under-seat allowance is slightly more generous (around 45×36×20 cm), but the same logic applies. Checked-bag fees rose again across the industry this year.
• Airports. “Paris” Beauvais is 85 km from Paris; the shuttle costs ~€17 and takes over an hour. “Frankfurt” Hahn is nowhere near Frankfurt. Add the transfer cost and time to every comparison.
• The extras. Seat selection, boarding passes printed at the airport, card surcharges — the add-ons are the business model.

My honest accounting: a “€25” flight with a cabin bag and airport transfers is usually a €60–80, five-hour journey. Sometimes that still wins by a mile. Just compare it against the train’s real door-to-door time — my flying vs train breakdown runs the numbers route by route.

One more 2026 note: airport border queues at first entry into the Schengen area now involve the biometric EES registration (fingerprints and a photo, replacing passport stamps). It’s quick but adds time on arrival — and from late 2026, the €20 ETIAS authorisation starts phasing in for visa-free visitors. Full details in my Schengen, EES and ETIAS guide.

Buses: the budget traveler’s best friend

Nobody writes love letters to intercity buses, but they deserve at least a thank-you note. The green FlixBus network now blankets nearly every European country, and fares are startling: book a week or two out and medium routes like Berlin–Prague or Milan–Munich run €15–25, with promo fares from €5. BlaBlaCar Bus undercuts even that on French and Spanish routes, from about €5. Wi-Fi, power sockets and a free hold bag are standard — a sharp contrast with the airlines’ fee-for-everything model.

The trade-offs are real: buses are slower than trains, motorway traffic makes timetables optimistic, and legroom is what it is. But two scenarios make buses the outright winner:

• When the budget is king. If you’re stretching six months of savings across a summer, the €40 you save per leg compounds fast. Buses are a cornerstone of my Europe on a budget strategy.
• Where trains don’t go. The Balkans, much of Eastern Europe, Spain’s smaller cities, and most airport connections are bus territory — in Croatia, Bosnia and Albania the bus network IS the public transport network.

Night buses exist and are the cheapest beds in Europe, but I’ll be straight with you: I board them only when the alternative is not going at all. You arrive at 5am, creased and under-slept, in a city where nothing opens until nine. A night train sleeper is worth the difference when you can swing it. Routes, operators, comfort tiers and booking tactics are all in my bus travel in Europe guide.

And a quirky middle option worth knowing: BlaBlaCar carpooling, huge in France and Spain, matches you with a driver already making the trip. It’s often faster than the bus, costs about the same, and comes with conversation practice included. I’ve ridden from Lyon to Geneva discussing cheese the entire way; I regret nothing.

Renting a car: freedom where it counts

Some of my favourite European days would be impossible without a car: cresting the Stelvio Pass at dawn, crawling between Douro Valley wine estates, finding an empty cove in the Peloponnese that no bus has ever seen. The rule from my framework bears repeating — cars are for the countryside, not the cities. Pick up the car the morning you leave the city, drop it before you enter the next one, and you get all of the freedom with none of the parking grief. My renting a car in Europe guide walks through the whole process; here are the essentials.

What renting really costs and how to book it

Expect €35–80 a day for a compact in 2026, plus fuel (€1.60–2.10/litre depending on country), tolls and parking. Booking 40–60 days ahead typically saves 30–60% versus walking up. Three traps to dodge: manual transmissions are the default (automatics cost more and sell out — reserve early if you need one); cross-border one-way drop fees can run into hundreds of euros (loop back to your starting country when possible); and always decline dynamic currency conversion at the counter — pay in local currency. Photograph every panel of the car before you drive off.

The 2026 paperwork: IDPs are being checked

If your licence is from outside the EU, you’ll likely need an International Driving Permit — a cheap translation booklet (about $20 from AAA in the US) you can only get in your home country before you leave. Thirteen European countries formally require one, including Italy, Spain, Austria and Greece, and enforcement has tightened noticeably this year. Skip it and the risk isn’t just a roadside fine: an insurer can refuse an accident claim because you weren’t legally licensed. Twenty dollars buys a lot of peace of mind.

Tolls, vignettes and the zones that mail you fines

Three systems to know. France, Italy, Spain and Portugal use pay-per-distance motorway tolls (budget €20–40 per long driving day; Paris–Nice runs about €80 in tolls alone). Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary and Czechia use vignettes — prepaid stickers or digital passes you must buy before touching the motorway (Switzerland’s is CHF 40 for the year; Austria sells 10-day versions). Germany, bless it, has no passenger-car tolls.

Then there are the camera-enforced zones: Italy’s ZTL restricted-traffic areas guard most historic centres — Florence, Rome, Milan, Bologna — and one wrong turn triggers an automatic fine of €80+ that arrives by post months later (rental companies add an admin fee for forwarding it). France requires a Crit’Air emissions sticker in Paris, Lyon and a growing list of cities; Germany’s green Umweltplakette works similarly. Europe now has well over 200 low-emission zones, so check your route before you drive. The full rulebook — speed limits, alcohol limits, equipment you’re required to carry — lives in my driving in Europe guide.

Ferries: the slow, scenic connective tissue

Stand on the deck of a Greek ferry leaving Piraeus at dawn, coffee in hand, islands sliding past — and suddenly transport is the holiday. Europe’s ferry network matters anywhere there’s coastline: the Greek islands above all, but also Croatia’s Adriatic chain, the Italy–Greece crossings, the Baltic capitals, Norway’s fjord lifelines, and the workhorse England–France runs.

What it costs, roughly, in 2026: short island hops — Split to Hvar, Naxos to Paros — run €10–40 depending on whether you take the slow car ferry or the fast catamaran. Long international crossings with a cabin (Ancona–Split overnight, Bari–Patras) run €50–150+ per person. Greek conventional ferries sell cheap deck class — you don’t need a cabin for a four-hour daytime crossing, just a seat at the stern bar.

Booking logic: shoulder-season ferries can be bought dockside the day before, but summer routes to Santorini, Mykonos and Hvar genuinely sell out — book those a few weeks ahead (Ferryhopper and Direct Ferries aggregate schedules well). Two practical notes from hard experience: the Aegean’s meltemi wind cancels fast catamarans more readily than the big slow boats, so build slack into tight connections; and if you’re island-hopping toward a flight home, never book the last possible ferry. Full route maps, operators and seasickness strategy in my ferries in Europe guide — and pair it with my best beaches in Europe list for targets worth sailing to.

Getting around inside European cities

Here’s a happy truth: in European cities, the cheap option and the best option are the same option. Metros, trams and buses are how locals move, and visitors who copy them save serious money over taxis while seeing more of the city. I’ve written a dedicated guide to public transport in Europe; these are the principles that apply everywhere.

Tap your bank card and go

The single biggest change of the past few years: in most major cities you no longer need to queue for tickets or decode fare machines. London, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels and dozens more let you tap a contactless card or phone straight at the gate, and the better systems cap your daily spend at the day-pass price automatically — London’s Tube caps your zone 1–2 day at roughly the price of three rides (singles are £2.60–3.20). Rome’s Tap&Go now works across buses, trams and metro alike. Paris is the notable holdout where you’ll still want its own system: a Navigo Easy card with single fares at €2.55 (metro/RER) or a €12.30 day pass — worthwhile from about five rides.

Three city-transit rules save the most grief:

• Validate where validation exists. In tram-and-bus cities from Lisbon to Prague, paper tickets must be stamped in the little machines on board. Inspectors are plainclothes, fines are €40–100, and “I’m a tourist” has never once worked.
• Day passes pay off fast. The European average single fare is about €2.60 (Munich tops the chart at €4.10); if you’ll ride four or more times, a day pass usually wins. Germany goes further — its €63/month Deutschland-Ticket covers regional trains and city transit nationwide, astonishing value for a longer stay.
• Airport transfers: check the train first. Nearly every major European airport has a rail or metro link that beats taxis on both price and traffic immunity.

Trams, funiculars and boats: transit as sightseeing

Some city transport is the attraction. Lisbon’s wooden tram 28 rattles through Alfama’s tightest corners (ride early morning to dodge both crowds and pickpockets — more in my Portugal guide). Budapest’s line 2 tram hugs the Danube past Parliament. And Venice’s vaporetto water buses turn the Grand Canal into a €9.50 cruise — get the multi-day pass if you’re staying, and watch the palazzo facades drift by from the bow seats. Wherever you are in Italy, the public option usually doubles as the scenic one.

Walking and cycling: the zero-euro modes

European city centres predate cars and it shows — most of the famous core of Paris, Rome or Barcelona is best covered on foot, and trip-planning that assumes a vehicle between every sight wastes half your day. Where the walking runs long, rent a bike: Paris’s Vélib’ share system now serves over 1,000 km of bike lanes, Copenhagen sees nearly a third of all trips happen by bicycle, and Amsterdam is simply built for it. My one safety note: in the Netherlands, the bike lane is sacred ground. Stand in it daydreaming and you’ll learn some Dutch vocabulary quickly.

The regional cheat sheet: best mode by part of Europe

Europe isn’t uniform — the right default changes as you move around the map.

Region	Default mode	Why
France, Benelux, Germany, Switzerland, Austria	Train	The world’s best rail web; cars only for Alps & wine country
Italy	Train + the odd ferry	Fast, cheap rail spine; ZTL zones make city driving miserable
Spain & Portugal	Train + bus mix	AVE is superb between big cities; buses fill the gaps better than slow regional rail
UK & Ireland	Train, booked early	Walk-up fares sting; advance fares are fine — see my UK guide
Greece & the islands	Ferry + bus	Rail is minimal; ferries are the highway system
Balkans & Eastern Europe	Bus	Buses are faster, newer and more frequent than the trains
Scandinavia	Train + budget flight	Distances are huge; Oslo–Bergen by rail is a must, but flights save days
Iceland, rural anywhere	Car	No meaningful alternative

What real routes cost in 2026: three worked examples

Theory is nice; here’s how the math shakes out on routes I’ve actually compared, with typical prices booked 3–4 weeks ahead.

Route	Train	Flight	Bus	My pick
London → Paris	2h16, from ~€60	~1h15 + 3h of airports, ~€90 true cost	8–9h, ~€30	Train, easily
Berlin → Prague	4h, ~€25–40	No sensible direct option	4h30, ~€15–20	Train (bus if saving)
Lisbon → Rome	2 days, €200+	3h, ~€60–90 true cost	Don’t	Fly — this is what budget airlines are for

That last row is the honest counterweight to my train evangelism: across the continent’s full width, flying wins on every metric. The skill isn’t loyalty to one mode — it’s matching the mode to the leg. That’s also exactly how I build the sample routes in my Europe itinerary guide.

Eight mistakes I see travelers make constantly

• Comparing flight time to train time instead of door-to-door time. The airport dance adds 3–4 hours to every flight, every time.
• Buying a rail pass without doing the math. For a fixed two-week itinerary booked ahead, point-to-point is usually cheaper. Run the numbers both ways.
• Renting the car for the whole trip, then paying €35/night to store it in city garages while it collects dust and a parking dent.
• Ignoring bag rules on budget airlines. The €46–75 gate fee for an oversized bag is the most avoidable expense in European travel.
• Skipping the IDP because the rental site didn’t mention it, then meeting an Italian traffic stop or an insurer’s claims department.
• Not validating tickets on regional trains, trams and buses. The fine costs more than a week of rides.
• Booking the last connection of the day — ferry to flight, train to train. Europe mostly runs on time; “mostly” is the operative word.
• Over-planning transport in cities. Inside the centre, your feet plus the occasional €2 tram beat any elaborate scheme.

Booking windows: when to lock each mode in

My simple calendar, working backwards from departure: rental cars and night-train cabins 2–3 months out; Eurostar and popular high-speed routes 1–4 months out (they release seats up to 6–11 months ahead); budget flights 6–10 weeks out; summer island ferries 3–4 weeks out; buses and regional trains days ahead or on the day. If you’re traveling in August or around Christmas — peak crush, as I explain in my best time to visit Europe guide — shift everything earlier. Festive exceptions like Christmas market weekends sell out trains that sit half-empty all November.

Getting around by traveler type

The “best” mode shifts with who’s traveling. A few honest adjustments from years of watching different groups move around Europe:

Families with kids

Trains, and it isn’t close. Kids can walk around, tables hold the colouring books, nobody confiscates the water bottles, and under-4s ride free almost everywhere (many countries extend free or half-price travel well beyond that — in the UK, under-5s free and 5–15s half price). Four budget-airline seats plus bags often cost more than a family rail fare anyway. For countryside stages, a rental car with pre-booked child seats beats hauling your own gear — just reserve the seats at booking time, not at the counter.

Budget backpackers

Your toolkit is the bus network, regional trains, BlaBlaCar and the occasional €20 flight won by traveling with hand luggage only. Move every third day instead of daily and transport drops from your biggest cost to a rounding error — the slower rhythm is better travel anyway. The complete cost playbook is in my budget guide, and if you’re doing the classic multi-country circuit, my itinerary templates are built around cheap, logical transport legs.

Comfort-first and older travelers

First-class rail is Europe’s underrated luxury: on many routes it costs €15–30 over standard and buys wide seats, quiet cars and, on the best services, meals at your seat. Skip night buses entirely, favour direct trains over tight connections, and in cities use the excellent airport rail links rather than wrestling luggage through metro stairwells — not every station has escalators, something worth checking for anyone with mobility considerations. Where stairs are unavoidable, station staff will usually help if you ask; major hubs offer bookable assistance services.

Couples on a once-in-a-while trip

Spend where the memory is: a sleeper cabin on the Nightjet, the Glacier Express panorama car through the Swiss Alps, a convertible for two days on a coastal road. Save where it isn’t: the metro from the airport costs €5 and the taxi costs €55, and both deliver you to the same hotel breakfast.

Getting around Europe FAQ

What is the cheapest way to get around Europe?

Buses, almost always. FlixBus and BlaBlaCar Bus fares start around €5 booked early, and even last-minute medium routes rarely top €30. Night buses double as accommodation for the truly frugal. Regional trains and carpooling come close behind. Flying is only cheap if you travel with a tiny bag and ignore the airport transfer costs.

Is it better to travel Europe by train or plane?

Under six hours of rail time, take the train — door to door it’s usually as fast as flying once you count check-in and airport transfers, with none of the baggage fees. Over six hours (Lisbon–Rome, Copenhagen–Athens), flying wins decisively. Night trains are the elegant middle option: long distances without losing a day.

Is a Eurail pass worth it in 2026?

It depends on your style. At around €396 for 7 travel days (2nd class adult), the Global Pass pays off for spontaneous multi-country trips, Switzerland-heavy routes and under-28s. For a fixed itinerary booked 2–3 months ahead, point-to-point advance fares are nearly always cheaper — and remember pass holders still pay seat-reservation fees on French, Spanish and Italian high-speed trains.

Do I need to rent a car in Europe?

Only if your trip leaves the cities. For capital-hopping, trains beat cars on cost, speed and stress — and historic centres actively punish drivers with restricted zones and €30–40/night parking. For countryside trips — Tuscany, Provence, the Highlands, Iceland — a car is transformative. Many of my favourite itineraries use trains between regions and a one-or-two-day local rental.

How do you get between European countries?

All four modes cross borders seamlessly within the Schengen area — no passport checks on most internal trains, buses or flights. High-speed international trains (Eurostar, TGV, ICE, Railjet) link the core; budget airlines connect everywhere to everywhere; FlixBus crosses most borders; ferries link Italy–Greece, Spain–Morocco and the Baltics. Non-EU visitors should understand the EES biometric registration and the coming ETIAS authorisation before arrival.

Can I use my phone to pay for public transport in Europe?

In most major cities, yes — tap your contactless card or phone at the gate in London, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Amsterdam and many more, and daily fare caps apply automatically. Paris and Berlin still favour their own ticket apps or cards. I still recommend one physical bank card in your pocket for gates: phone batteries die at legendary moments.

How far in advance should I book trains in Europe?

High-speed and international trains: one to four months ahead for the cheap fare buckets, and Eurostar releases tickets up to 11 months out. Night-train sleepers: two to three months. Regional and local trains: no need — prices are fixed, just buy on the day. If a fare looks good, take it; dynamic prices only move one direction as departure nears.

Is it easy to travel Europe without a car?

Easier than with one, for most itineraries. The rail-bus-ferry web is so dense that you can cross the continent — cities, beaches, even many mountain villages — without ever touching a steering wheel. Switzerland’s network alone reaches places cars can’t. The exceptions are rural deep-dives and Iceland, where a car remains essential.

Final thoughts: the journey is half the point

After twenty-five years of crossing this continent every way it can be crossed, here’s what I know: the trips I remember aren’t the efficient ones. They’re the vaporetto at golden hour, the night train waking up in the Alps, the wrong bus in Andalusia that found the better village. Master the framework — trains for the middle, planes for the long, buses for the savings, cars for the wild — and then leave room for the happy accident.

Start with the places worth getting to, sketch the route with my itinerary guide, check the country guides for the local quirks, and book the big tickets early. Europe’s transport network is one of the wonders of the modern world — it’s time to go ride it.

Photo credits

All images are used under their respective free licenses via Wikimedia Commons. Thank you to the photographers who share their work:

• Vaporetto on the Grand Canal, Venice — Photo: Jean-Pol GRANDMONT / CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Antwerpen-Centraal station — Photo: Phil Richards from London, UK / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• TGV high-speed train, France — Photo: Ermell / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• ÖBB Nightjet, Vienna — Photo: Bahnfrend / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Ryanair Boeing 737 landing — Photo: Alf van Beem (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons
• A FlixBus intercity coach — Photo: WrS.tm.pl (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons
• Stelvio Pass, Italian Alps — Photo: Raul Taciu (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons
• Greek island ferry — Photo: Jean Housen / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Abbesses Métro entrance, Paris — Photo: DIMSFIKAS / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• A yellow tram in Lisbon’s Alfama district — Photo: Jorge Franganillo / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Amsterdam canal houses — Photo: Basile Morin / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons