Train or plane? The city-to-city decision
Count the door-to-door hours, not the flight time. Under about five hours the train usually wins in Europe, with more luggage, a seat at a table and a station in the middle of town. Where the plane still makes sense.
Between two European cities the question is rarely price alone. It is time you can use, luggage you can carry, and where you land.
Count the whole journey
A one-hour flight is not one hour. Add the ride to an airport outside town, being there two hours early, the queue at security, the wait for bags and the ride in from the other airport. Most short flights are five hours door to door. A train from the centre of one city to the centre of the other is exactly as long as the timetable says.
The five-hour rule
If the train takes about five hours or less, it is usually the better day: Paris to Amsterdam, Madrid to Barcelona, Rome to Florence or Naples, London to Paris, Vienna to Prague, Berlin to Hamburg. Many of these are faster than flying once you count everything, and the hours are yours to read, work or watch the country go by.
What the train gives you
Luggage is not weighed or measured, and you keep it by your seat. No liquids rule. You can turn up fifteen minutes before departure. Children walk around, there is a table, there is often a café car, and you arrive rested in the middle of the city, not forty minutes outside it. Booked a few weeks ahead, fares on the main routes are often close to a low-cost flight once bags and transfers are added.
When the plane still wins
Over about six hours by rail, across water without a tunnel or a good ferry, between two cities with no direct line, or when the train fare on the day is three times the flight. Southern and eastern Europe have fewer fast lines; check the time before you assume.
The night train
A sleeper turns a long leg into a night's sleep and saves a hotel. Vienna, Zurich, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Rome are among the cities with night trains again. Book early; cabins sell out first.
How Travlyo does it
Add a train, bus or flight leg in Bookings and it carries the typical time for that kind of journey, with the links to compare fares on Omio and Skyscanner, so you weigh the whole day rather than the flight time alone.
Do it in Travlyo
Pick a city, and the days, the bookings, the money and the packing list are one plan — free to start.
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