Family interrail trip

I am in the early stages of planning a month long interrail trip for next August.

Have you rejected the idea of doing this by car rather than rail? It seems to me if you want to have about five stays of about 5-7 nights each, and for those places to be outside major cities, then a car would be the ideal way to travel.

You would have much more flexibility in farm-stays, plus you could take off to the beach, the lake, or the mountains, whenever it gets too hot (and it will). Anyway - the convenience of a car would sway me.

We really enjoyed Northern Italy - from Cinque Terre across to Venice, including Lake Como, Lake Garda, Bologna, Verona, and of course Bolzano for the Dolomites.

As above, car rental probably makes more sense. Better for getting around in the countryside and also more flexibility. Easier to break up long journeys for the kids too.

Hi,

Thanks for replying. We would like to avoid long car journeys as our youngest tends to get very travel sick with any car trips of over half an hour! We are hoping she will be ok with train travel so this is our preference if we can plan a route that is doable for the kind of holiday we like.

Fair enough ... we certainly enjoyed Cinque Terre, Lucca, Lake Como, Siena, San Gimignano, Bolzano, Verona, Venice, Bologna, Florence, and Rome without a car at all. I can recommend all those places.

Train travel is excellent, as are buses when really necessary. Trains don't get you "the last mile" though - to farm-stays or non-city accommodation.

The Amalfi Coast is more tricky, but you could base yourself in say Sorrento, and visit Amalfi and Capri etc from there. Sardinia I can't comment on.

Do you mean August 2017 - if so you're leaving it very late to find accommodation. There was reference in one of yestetday's questions to lakees Trasimeno and Bolsena - the latter is some distance from a train line, and would almost certainly mean a taxi from Orvieto. Trasimeno is almost on the slow train line between Rome and Florence - about 100 minutes from both. Otherwise try places like Levanto, Sestri Levante etc to be near but not in Cinque Terre - just a couple of suggestions to get you started, but if this is for 2 months time you may have to go where you can get in.

Sounds a bit risky assuming they will be OK on trains. At least with a car if they get sick you can stop for a while. As said above its possible to get around without a car. However, you will need to supplement train travel with buses and taxis.

Yes ... I was unsure about "next August" too. And I can second Levanto as a pleasant and family-friendly beach town.

There are so many safe non-drowsy meds for travel sickness that there is no reason to not use them. You'll miss so much without a car.

thanks, we are thinking ahead for summer 2018 so no rush to sort accommodation. Just starting to think about it early as I get very excited by holidays!