Back in July, I posted on our positive and money-saving experience of booking tickets online before our trip. I figure I’d post a follow up on our success with using the online tickets, as well as our experience on riding RENFE’s trains. We bought tickets for 3 individual journeys online to connect Barcelona, Sevilla, Granada, and Madrid.
Our original plan was to collect paper copies of our tickets from the self service machines at each train station. Our desire was to get “real” tickets that my wife could use to scrapbook, but we brought along paper copies from our printer at home as backup (which work just as well, as far as the conductor is concerned). It’s good we brought along the printouts, because the self service machines at the Barcelona train station did not have a clear option to change languages and certainly no option to print tickets from an advanced purchase (although this is supposedly available). With little time before our departure, we decided to forego the “real” tickets and head straight to the train. Continue reading
Traveling within Europe via air can be very affordable, often even cheaper than train travel. On our recent trip to Spain and Portugal, we travelled between Lisbon and Barcelona on Vueling Airlines, Spain’s leading discount air carrier. Our basic fare was much cheaper on Vueling than other carriers, at €18 per person. Like all European discount carriers, the actual price we paid was significantly higher due to extra fees. After €4 per person to book our seats ahead of time, €12 per suitcase (x2), a €10 credit card fee and €44 in taxes, we ended-up paying €61 per person for the flight. Although it’s always difficult to stomach unadvertised fees, our total cost for the flight was far less than other options, and very affordable in comparison to flights of similar lengths in the United States.
Sightseeing in Europe can get expensive very quickly. We try and figure-out where we want to go before leaving for our trip and research potential ways to save money. Before our most recent trip, we discovered the Lisboa Card, offered by the 
In our past two trips to Europe, we have taken two different approaches to train travel in Europe: buying a Eurail pass or buying tickets in person once arriving in the country. For our upcoming trip to Spain, we are taking a new approach by booking the tickets directly from the train operator (RENFE in Spain). I wanted to share our experience, because we are realizing considerable savings, in addition to the added convenience of having digital copies of our tickets that can be printed before we even depart the United States, allowing us to directly board the train before departure.