My husband and I didn’t want to just rot on a beach for our honeymoon. Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a time and a place for that, but we’ve done plenty of it over the years. We wanted to try something new. So one night after some particularly headache-inducing wedding planning, followed by a bottle of wine, we thought it would be a superb idea to go interrailing.
So, as soon as we got married, we embarked on a 10-day adventure across Europe. It was chaotic, beautiful, delicious, eye-opening, and even a bit terrifying. But we’re not here to talk about the most amazing places we visited or the tastiest bites I tried. No, we’re here to discuss the things that I genuinely couldn’t have lived without while I was interrailing. So let’s get started.
My Interrailing Essentials
A Reliable Backpack
This one’s probably at the top of most lists, and that’s because when you’re interrailing, your backpack becomes your home. It carries absolutely everything that you need, from your clothes to food and drink, and (if you’re like me) to your Nicopods. So if you’re planning your trip, don’t just buy the first backpack that pops up on Google.
Make sure you get your hands on one that has at least 50 litres of storage, just so you definitely have enough room for everything that you need for the trip. I doubt you would ever need much more – it’s all about finding the right balance between something that can carry what you need and something too big that’s awkward to carry and weighs you down.
The design itself is obviously subjective, but bear in mind that a well- designed backpack should distribute weight evenly, which matters a little when you’re wading through crowded tourist honeypots in unfamiliar cities. Intuitively-designed compartments should make organisation a bit easier, and should save you digging through all of your stuff if you’re trying to find a charger or some tickets.
A Portable Charger
If I were being completely honest here, a phone would be the most important thing that I couldn’t live without on an interrailing trip. It has the route plan, the train tickets, the info for the hotel bookings, as well as being my camera. But we all probably have a phone, and we all know that it’s essentially something you can’t live without in the modern world anyway.
So that’s why the portable charger was so important. Long travel days drain your phone battery quicker than you think. We were constantly looking at train times, maps, and taking photos, so it all naturally took a toll on the old battery life.
Plus, we couldn’t guarantee that every train would have a charger. No two trains were the same, so I understand how a lot of people could panic at the thought of their phone dying as they crossed their fingers and stepped tentatively on the next train. A portable phone charger completely eliminates any stress or anxiety that you could end up feeling because your phone’s on its last legs.
A Dependable Pair of Shoes
Since interrailing involves a lot of walking around, usually through bustling train stations and busy cities, but also occasionally along countryside paths, having a good pair of sturdy, reliable shoes is an absolute must.
No, not your swankiest, whitest pair of brand-new trainers. Something dependable that you don’t mind scuffing, or getting a bit muddy here and there. A lot of it definitely comes down to personal taste, but I wore a pair of trail running shoes for almost our entire trip, and there was never a moment when I doubted them. They were as perfectly comfy during a 6-hour train ride as they were on a walking trail beside Lake Bled.
A Flexible Mindset
This one’s a bit cheeky, but it also represents my biggest mistake on our interrailing trip. Before we left, we’d pre-booked all of our hotels, every single train, and had a bucket list of every must-see site in the cities that we visited.
About a third of the way in, we both realised that this was a mistake. Rather than a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, our trip felt more like a once-in-a-lifetime box-ticking exercise. Darting from pre-destined site to pre-destined site for a photoshoot just wasn’t as fun as talking to locals or fellow travellers, asking about the city and culture, and genuinely discovering new places as a result.
This also applies to booking and catching every single train. At some point in your interrailing journey, you’ll inevitably miss one of your trains. Ours was in Prague due a delay, and honestly, it felt apocalyptic at the time. The whole trip was ruined. Our lives were over.
Obviously, that wasn’t really the case. In fact, it opened our eyes to just how little it really mattered that we caught every single train. We just had to wait another 40 minutes and catch another train. Over the course of the rest of the trip, we missed a couple more trains and both times, we were only delayed by an hour or so overall.
If you’re going interrailing for the first time, you’re probably really as apprehensive as you are excited, and that’s totally normal. Hopefully, if you can take a few things from this article on board, you will feel a bit more confident going into your adventure.
Darcy Fowler has dedicated a lot of time to travelling around countries in Europe and Asia. She is determined to provide interesting and insightful content with the hope of inspiring others to broaden their horizons. Darcy has a big ambition to establish herself in the world of home travel blogging.
