In summer I decided to go to France for a week, and I wanted to visit several cities at once.
In France it's very convenient to use trains, however, tickets are very expensive - sometimes 50 euros one way.
What can we, ordinary Czech students for whom every crown counts, do?
Pay attention to the discount systems Interrail and Eurail.
These are multi-day tickets for any trains, in a specific European country or several at once.
So, for example, I bought a ticket allowing me to travel around France without restrictions for 4 days within 30 calendar days.
To make it clearer - such tickets are good for those who don't know 100% in advance which day they'll be traveling or don't know in which direction their soul will want to go.
For example, in France I traveled for 4 days for 200 euros, 14 trips. It turned out quite expensive, if I had planned dates in advance, bought tickets for individual trains, it would have been about the same, however I didn't want to be tied to a train - what if I get tired 2 hours earlier and want to go home?
That's exactly what happened to me - somewhere on the third day of exploring France I rubbed my feet and took 2 days off, I wouldn't have known about this in advance :)
Interestingly, most often these tickets are bought by Americans who want to see all of Europe at once and in comfort.
Interrail tickets can be bought by residents of Europe and several other countries (RF included), and Eurail - for the rest, it's slightly more expensive.
Another rule - you can't buy a pass in your own country (i.e. I couldn't buy Interrail for the Czech Republic).
Next I want to visit Italy - for just 190 euros I can travel without restrictions for a whole 6 days. I'll need to carve out a couple weeks of vacation :)
A minus may be that for some express trains you can't board without a seat reservation, i.e. for each reservation you'll need to pay about 10 more euros (but often it works out to use regular trains too).
Another thing - as seen in the photo above, you need to thoroughly record where and what you traveled on - that's exactly how controllers check you. If you boarded a train and didn't write it in, they can issue a fine too.
Is it profitable overall? Only if you plan to travel a lot. 1 ticket one way is easier and cheaper to buy in advance.
In short, if you're like me a fan of cramming the uncrammable, love visiting 20 cities in 10 days - this is for you, definitely take a look :)