Among the areas of Europe where business boomed were those countries most beset by economic misfortune. Greece, Portugal and Ireland all recorded double-digit growth in tourist numbers in 2011. Recession does nudge prices down, and budget-conscious tourists are quick to reap the benefits.

A Thomas Cook advertisement for the 1900 holiday season. Photo: Vintage Ad Browser

The Cook Connection

But cast back 150 years, before the days of mass mobility, and tourism was altogether a more select trade. In 1862, some 40,000 Americans visited Europe. Yet the travel game was not all one way.

A growing band of adventurous European travelers, particularly from Britain, were beginning to discover America as a vacation destination. Among them was a man called Thomas Cook, who had already established a formidable reputation in Britain for his appreciation of the nascent tourism industry.

Fighting Protectionism

Cook’s business had revolutionized tourism in Europe, with the amiable entrepreneur personally escorting tours to all the main “must-see” sights (often dubbed “the lions”) and to less explored territories. So Cook went to the US, full of expectation and just slightly miffed when, upon disembarking in New York, the United States customs levied a hefty import tax on his publicity materials.

Cook’s early efforts in the US met with a mixed reception. On the plus side, his company had a hand in fixing the first luxury cruise ever to depart from America’s shores, a moment that Mark Twain nicely recorded in Innocents Abroad. But not being a US citizen, Cook fell foul of US protectionism.

By 1872, the New York Times was bemoaning the fact that the USA had no home-grown Cook: “If we only had an American Cook, how much of the troubles of our tourists would be simplified,” opined the editor.

From travel tickets to travel finances

Thomas Cook & Son did eventually get a foothold in the US market, briefly engaging an American partner who turned out to be a scoundrel. In time Cooks grew to become an American institution as much as a British one, pioneering the use of hotels vouchers, travelers’ checks (then called “circular notes”) and allowing its American clients to book train tickets from one end of Europe to the other. Cooks would cover everything, providing reservations for the ocean crossing, for train journeys on European railways, meals and accommodation.

The First World War put a sudden stop to this brisk trade. And thereafter travel was never quite so simple as it had been in those halcyon days when an omniscient (and seemingly omnipotent) Cooks agent seemed to be available on every ship, at every quayside and on every railway station to smooth the path of novice travelers.

Those were indeed the days.

The post Those Were the Days: Tourism before mass mobility appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

I could take a €50 budget flight on easyJet and be there in about two hours. Or I could take the TGV to Germany, and then board an ICE train to Berlin (with a one-hour break in Frankfurt for lunch). The trip would take about ten hours and cost about €120. Which way should I go?

Many budget travelers wouldn’t think twice, of course. The flight was faster and cheaper, right?

I chose the train. First of all, I prefer the experience. I like boarding in the center of Paris, hopping on board with only minutes to spare, and rolling off toward my destination. I like moving down the aisles, grabbing a bite or coffee in the snack car, and watching the world zip by.

Aboard an Ave train from Cordoba to Grenada.

But, romantic details aside, I priced it out and the plane and train journeys weren’t that far apart. But wait, I hear you say, wasn’t that flight ticket only €50? Yes, but when I calculated the “real costs” of the flight, the ticket had become €89.

Now that the difference between the train and plane was only about €30, I could focus on my own travel preferences. I wanted to see the French and German countryside. I wanted to have time to read and daydream. I wanted to disembark in Frankfurt and have lunch. I considered the train a highlight of my trip—and didn’t look forward to the prospect of adding extra airports to my vacation.

Choosing between trains and flights

Of course, everyone’s trip is different. My decision was based on my own travel preferences, and I also happened to find a deal on the train tickets. Ticket prices for both rail and flights fluctuate quite a bit, and they both offer great deals, especially on advance bookings.

Which mode of transportation makes the most sense for your trip? It gets down to time, price and preference. Here are a few things to keep in mind when making the decision:

1. Is your trip really open to both planes and trains?

First, and most obviously: Are you really open to either mode of transportation?

If you need to get between two distant cities and you’re pressed for time, flying probably makes the most sense. (Thanks for reading!) Check out our guide to Europe’s budget airlines and book well in advance. If, however, you need to get between two distant cities and you’re not pressed for time, either method could work for you.

If you’re traveling between two cities that aren’t a great distance apart (for example, Madrid and Barcelona), either mode could work. However, you should still ask yourself the following questions:

2. What’s the real travel time of the trip?

How long will it really take you to fly or ride between the cities?

When calculating the time spent flying, add up the time to get to the airport, time for check-in and security, flight time, time for bag retrieval and customs (if applicable), and time to get into your arrival city.

The flight from Paris to Berlin might only last two hours, but you’ll need to be at the airport an hour early, and it will take about an hour to get to and from both airports. Thus, the flight’s total travel time will be about five hours, minimum. Flight delays can easily make this much longer.

Calculating time for a train trip is a bit easier: How long does it take to get to the station and how far in advance would you like to arrive? Do you need to be extra early to pick up tickets, or do you already have them? In most cases, the train stations will be located in the center of both departure and arrival cities.

My train trip, including an hour for lunch in Frankfurt, was ten hours. I arrived at the Gare de l’Est 30 minutes before departure, and it took me about 30 minutes to get to the station. A friend picked me up at Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof. Total travel time: about 11 hours.

3. What’s the real cost of the flight?

Europe’s budget airlines are notorious for tacking on extra charges to compensate for their bargain-bin rates.

The €50 Paris-Berlin ticket I found on easyJet was just the base charge. However, a bag costs €14 to check in online (which is cheaper than checking the bag at the airport!), and the airline charges a fee to pay by credit card (a whopping €16 in the Paris – Berlin example). Add the Orlybus (bus to Orly: €6.90) and the Airport Express bus from Schonefeld to Berlin (€2.10). And voila! That ticket had become €89.

Let’s take another example: A Ryanair flight between London to Madrid on January 17, 2012.

• Ticket price: £11.99 ($19)
• One checked bag (up to 20 kilos): £25 ($38)
• Paying by credit card: Add £6 ($9)
• Bus to London Stansted: £9 ($14)
• Metro from Madrid’s airport into town: €2 ($3)
• TOTAL: £54 ($83)

(Read a full list of Ryanair’s extra charges.)

Even after adding in the extra charges, however, these flights are still cheap: $89 for Paris to Berlin, and  $83 for London to Madrid.

4. What’s the best deal you can find on the train trip?

Finding the best deal on the train trip can be tricky.

If you’re American, you can always consider one of the Eurail passes geared toward American travelers. These sometimes offer savings, although this is usually only the case for travelers who are spending lots of time traveling by train (for example, cramming in as many rail journeys as possible to make the pass “worth it”).

We also know travelers who purchase rail passes because they offer some peace of mind—their tickets are taken care of (although, in truth, passes still require seat reservations on high-speed trains).

We recommend searching directly on the official Web sites for the rail companies, most of which allow advance booking. These include:

• Austria: OBB
• Belgium: SNCB
• Czech Republic: Czech Railways
• France: SNCF
• Germany: Die Bahn
• Ireland: Irish Rail
• Italy: Trenitalia
• Netherlands: NS.nl
• Poland: Polrail
• Spain: Renfe
• Sweden: SJ
• Switzerland: SBB
• United Kingdom: National Rail

A few notes:

Check multiple countries: For international trips, check on sites for both departure and arrival countries for availability or to try to find a deal. For example, for a trip from Paris to Madrid, check ticket prices on both the SNCF (French) site and the Renfe (Spanish) site. The ticket prices may not be the same.

International trip note: Be aware that some railway Web sites don’t offer booking for international trips. For a Paris – Prague trip, for example, you can buy tickets from the SNCF, while the Czech Railways site doesn’t offer online booking for international trips.

Break it up: For international trips, also try breaking up the journey to find a deal. For example, for my Paris to Berlin trip, I found a €49 ticket from SNCF from Paris to Frankfurt, and a €71 ticket from Frankfurt to Berlin on the ICE. Added together, these tickets were less expensive than the direct Paris – Berlin tickets I found on the SNCF or Bahn Web sites.

Book in French: On the SNCF site, stick to French if you can. (Read our tutorial on how to book SNCF tickets in French.) If you switch to English, you’ll be redirected to RailEurope, which is a ticket agency geared to foreign visitors. RailEurope is a helpful site and sells the same train tickets as the SNCF, but they don’t always have the same sale rates.

Book in advance: As Hidden Europe previously explained in their post, you can normally book up to three months in advance for most high-speed trains in Europe. Searching in advance for high-speed rail will increase your chances of finding a sale fare. Ticket prices for slower regional trains do not normally fluctuate.

Make up your own mind

Once you know how long each method will take and how much they’ll really cost, make an informed decision.

In my case, I had to choose between a 5-hour flight experience that I wasn’t looking forward to, and a 11-hour train trip that excited me. The flight was €30 cheaper. I chose the train. Many others would choose the flight. That’s the beauty of travel—you can choose your own adventure.

Your advice?

What else do you consider when deciding between flying and taking a train? Do you have any advice to share with other budget travelers? Tell us in our comments section.

The post Should you fly or take the train around Europe? It depends… appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Air travel in Europe has taken a hard knock these past days. Media reports of all Europe being utterly paralyzed have a dash of hyperbole. Less than one percent of intra-European international journeys rely on air travel, and European bus companies, ferry and rail operators have jumped at the chance to remind the traveling public that they have seats to spare.

Rediscovering the train

True, there have been some pinch points where train capacity was stretched—for example, Eurostar services through the Channel Tunnel to London were very full. That said, all those who wanted to book were able to secure places, and even when the prospects for air travel were at their worst (last Saturday and Sunday), we noted that travelers prepared to book three days in advance could still secure rail tickets from Cologne to London for €59.

Reopening the skies

Chances are that today over half of all scheduled flights in Europe will operate. This will be the first time in a week that the flight success rate has topped the 50 percent threshold. On the three most dismal days for travelers—April 17, 18 and 19—less than a third of all scheduled flights operated.

Small is beautiful

Media attention focused on the chaos at major hub airports where travelers waited in vain for flights. Few folk noticed the little airlines that often managed to operate from minor airports while big jets were grounded. For example, Widerøe used its fleet of Dash-8 turboprops to offer flights to two dozen remote airports in Norway.

The Faroese factor

The Faroe Islands were less fortunate. That evil cloud hung directly overhead. The sole weekly ship to continental Europe left last Thursday as normal—before the full extent of flight disruption was really evident. Since then the islands have been effectively cut off from the wider world.

Now Europe’s skies are opening up again, and the Faroes are being reconnected, ironically just as the Smyril Line ship is due back in the islands for that weekly voyage to Denmark.

Rethinking travel options

For remote island communities, flights are a lifeline. But for much of Europe they are a luxury—at least for short hops across the continent of less than 1,000 miles. Many Europeans are now rethinking their travel choices for the future. There may yet be a silver lining in volcanic clouds.

The post The Sky is the Limit: Rethinking travel in Europe, post-volcano appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Whether you’re traveling by boat, train, or rail, the eager anticipation at arriving to a new destination in Europe often makes us miss the best bit of the entire journey—the moment of arrival.

Arriving by boat

Some of Europe’s finest arrivals are by sea. There may be no great drama in arriving in Iceland on the Smyril Line ship Norröna from Denmark. Instead, there is the sheer beauty of the lonely eastern fjords and the knowledge that this is how the first settlers arrived on the island over a thousand years ago.

And Venice is really at her best arriving on a summer morning after a long ferry journey up the Adriatic. Last time we took the Minoan Lines ferry from Corfu, it crept into Venice at about eight in the morning, the giant ship dwarfing the buildings on the famous Venetian skyline. Never did San Marco look so good.

Approaching London by train

Arrivals by train offer their own peculiar theater. London has not just one but two of the very best in Europe. The last half hour of Eurostar’s run into London from the Channel Tunnel is rich in dramatic aesthetics.

The railway skirts Kentish hop fields, dives under the North Downs, crosses the Medway on a spectacular viaduct, before a tantalizing series of tunnels bring the railway back above ground for a graceful, seemingly endless, curve into London’s St Pancras station – now handsomely restored to reclaim its status as easily the most elegant of London’s railroad termini.

Speeding into Paddington

If there is a rival to the  Eurostar run into London, it is the fifteen-minute hop on the Heathrow Express from London’s principal airport into Paddington station.

The run out of Heathrow is unremarkable, and gives no hint of what is to come. But free of the airport tunnel, the 12 mile journey on Brunel’s Great Western route into Paddington is a fabulous feast for the senses. The train storms past Victorian water towers and canals. There are art deco factories, a magnificent Sikh temple, eerie wastelands, and the back gardens of endless terraces of small houses. All of English life is laid bare for the traveler arriving in London.

True, the Heathrow Express costs a little more than the tube, but it is worth the premium fare. Few other such short journeys by train are so richly entertaining. And speed brings its own benefits. Last time we used Heathrow Express, we were enjoying a beer in our hotel room at Lancaster Gate less than half an hour after boarding the train at Heathrow.

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