This post was written in February 2020, with a holiday planned to start on 29 February 2020. This was before the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic was fully understood.

Holiday incoming! I’ve always wanted to travel around Europe by rail, and on 29th February we set of for that adventure! Months of planning and saving, and the result is a trip from London to Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Venice, Turin, Paris and back to London.

I took some time to compare the time, money and CO2 emissions of our train journey vs the equivalent holiday via planes. And I’m thrilled that it’s better in every way:

Time: from airport check in to landing, trains take 9 hours longer. But include travel to / from airports and city centres (For London we tracked from our home) and that adds a whopping 13 hours across 8 flights. The trains journeys end in city centres, which means 0 extra travel hours. So we save 4 hours by train.

Money: all the train journeys were cheaper than the plane tickets, and because one of our trains is a sleeper train (Vienna to Venice) we needed one less hotel night. The difference? £203 per person.

CO2: this is the biggest savings, with a difference of 782kg. That’s the equivalent of charging almost 100,000 smartphones.

Have you ever gone on a train holiday? Would you consider it?

Image description: Katie wears a black wrap top with red spots, cut off jeans and white boots. She’s standing on a London street.

Top: Ganni secondhand via ebay 2019
Jeans: thrifted vintage Levis 2018
Shoes: Carvela secondhand via ebay 2019
Bracelet: gift from husband 2016

Much love, Katie xo