What is a tailor-made rail holiday?

A tailor-made rail holiday is exactly that – a bespoke holiday designed around your route, at your pace, to your budget and with your priorities covered.  Rather than picking from a pre-determined package, tailor made holidays can be built with specific hotels, trains, connections and routes with every detail built around your preferences.

With thousands of railway stations across Europe, we can build your journey to and from almost anywhere. Come to us with a clear plan of where you want to go, a wishlist of stops or just a rough idea, and we’ll happily design a package for you with all the elements included.

Lots of our guests start their holiday planning by browsing our collection of suggested itineraries, and they are the perfect place to start. Built on years of experience and feedback from travellers, we know they make great rail holidays. We know the connection times work, we have stayed at many of the hotels, we’ve navigated the stations and travelled the routes.

How to customise your rail holiday

Add extra nights

One of the most popular ways of tailoring our suggested holidays is to add extra nights. Choose to stay longer in connecting cities or add extra nights in the places you really want to explore along the way. You can always reduce the number of nights in other places if you want to keep to the same duration.

Some of our itineraries are fast-paced and focused on a flight-free alternative to get to your main destination. Itineraries such as Prague Without Flying, Budapest Without Flying and Berlin City Break by Rail fall into this category. They speed through with overnight stops, typically of one night, in major connection hubs easily lending themselves to additional nights and extra time to explore.

Others are designed as multi-stop itineraries with one or more nights in several places on the route, like Venice, Rome and Florence, Reims, Dijon and Strasbourg or Berlin, Dresden & Leipzig. It’s easy to add nights in your favourite places or reduce stays in destinations you want to.

Berlin by night

Add extra stops

You can also opt to add extra stops in other places on the way – another popular customisation of our suggested itineraries. Rather than spending an hour or two in a connecting city, add an overnight stop and depart later the next day, or the day after. Holidays with connections in Paris, Cologne, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Milan are good examples where an extra stop there can easily be added to your holiday itinerary.

Or, add in a different destination altogether on the same route, to break up longer rail journeys or to see other highlights in the region. Examples here include Rome via Switzerland where you could add stops in Milan, Basel, Strasbourg, Turin or Genoa. Or, the French Riviera – Nice and Cannes – where you could add on stops in  Lyon, St Tropez, Antibes or Monte Carlo. 

There are literally endless possibilities!  

Take a different route

Many of our holidays offer several alternative routes to the same destination. Consider which route is best for you, or plan a holiday with one route out and another on the return. A great example of this is travel through Switzerland. There are several options for travelling through the Alps, for example to Venice:

• The Simplon Route – follows the northern shore of Lake Geneva from Lausanne.  The route passes by Chateau de Chillon (top tip: Sit on the right hand side of the train if you’re travelling to Italy for the best views) and the UNESCO Heritage Lavaux Vineyards. The Simplon Tunnel, once the longest tunnel in the world, take you from the high Alps to the Ossola Valley in Italy.
• The Brenner route – hugs the northern Swiss border through Germany and Austria, via Munich and Nuremberg to Venice or Bologna via Innsbruck. Highlights include the Brenner Pass itself, Innsbruck – surrounded by mountains and views of the Dolomites.
• The Gotthard route – from Zurich to Milan. There are two options here depending if you want speed or scenery. The new base tunnel whips you through the Swiss Alps in just 20 minutes. Or, the Gotthard Panorama Express with panoramic coaches and a boat ride over Lake Lucerne – a slower journey with more changes and loops, but better scenery.

The Gotthard Panorama Express

Long distance rail holidays in Europe 

Travelling long distance in Europe by train opens up more route options, and brings train types into consideration too. Getting to far flung destinations can involve overnight trains which eat up the miles whilst you’re sleeping, a great option for dedicated flight-free travellers.

Holidays to Central European and Eastern European destinations can be routed to include many different destinations. Our Berlin, Krakow and Budapest holiday is one example. Add in Warsaw, Vienna or Prague, or opt to visit some of the smaller towns and cities instead. Or, go for it and journey from London – Istanbul Race Across the World style with stops in five countries along the way.

If you’re not keen on the idea of European overnight sleeper trains, you can tailor your holiday to include day time travel only. Or, if you want to experience an overnight journey, we can advise on the best type of cabin and recommend particular journeys. 

European Sleeper train

Combining Rail Travel with other transport options

Many of our suggested itineraries are focused purely on train travel, but there are many where you can add other overland transport options, or even add in a flight if you’d prefer.

Rail and sea

Scandiavia is a great example of where you can opt to travel by sea for some of the way. Services like Hurtigruten cruises and Colorline ferries give a different perspective on the landscape and bring in other destinations best reached by sea than train. Itineraries like the Grand Tour of Scandinavia and Hurtigruten Coastal Express offer opportunities to do just that. Or, go south to the Mediterranean with rail and ferry combinations to Sicily, Malta, Greece or Majorca.

Rail and road

Some areas in Europe are not particularly well served by rail. Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro fall into that category. Whilst you can get to major destinations by rail, we recommend buses, car hire, private transfers or excursions to enable you to see more. You can always opt to hire a car and discover a particular region, stopping at small off the beaten track villages and parks. Regions like the Black Forest, Tuscany and Provence are perfect for a rail-drive combination.

Rail and air

Many of our epic journeys and longer routes take some time – think Turkey, Morocco, the Baltics and the Balkans. For some of these holidays, we suggest flying one way unless you have a long time to spend away.

But you can start anywhere and end anywhere if you’re willing to add in a flight. We work with major airlines and low-cost carriers and will take care of your flights as part of your package. Fancy a tour of Italy by rail? We can fly you to Milan or Turin to start, and out of Naples or Palermo to finish.

A Hurtigruten Cruise ship

Fully customised bespoke rail holidays

We like a challenge! And, we can get you further than you think. Whilst we don’t always get asked, sometimes a request will come in for a holiday that’s totally different. We will advise on the route and itinerary, help with connections and timings and select good quality hotels – our team regularly tests these. Sometimes, the holidays we’re asked to put together even end up on our website – our Hanseatic Cities: Cologne to Gdansk holiday is one example of an itinerary we’ve added based on customer feedback.

We have organised European trips further afield into Albania and Georgia, and world wide in South Africa and North America. Just let us know what you plan to do, and we’ll let you know if it’s something we can help with.

Why use a rail holiday specialist like Tailor Made Rail? 

Travelling by train is a wonderful experience, but it can be lengthy and complex to organise without detailed knowledge of the different rail operators and ticket types. It’s difficult to know how long it takes to change stations or even platforms, hard to find tried and tested quality hotels close to the train station, confusing to know what route is the best to a particular place. We take all the hassle away, providing personal rail itinerary planning and advice from one of our expert Travel Designers at every stage to departure and beyond.  Over 60% of holidays booked with us are bespoke!

Booking with us means you have support throughout your trip should things change due to unforeseen circumstances like strikes or cancellations. We are just a phone call away and will reroute you if necessary, book new seat reservations and amend your accommodation. Our 4.8* Trustpilot rating and proportion of repeat customers shows the level of satisfaction and trust they have with our tailor-made holidays.

Start planning your Tailor-Made Rail Holiday

Whether you want to customise one of our suggested holiday or create a completely bespoke rail holiday, our team of Travel Designers are ready with first hand experience and advice. You can enquire online, on the phone or via a face-to-face video call – book here.

Eurostar train

FAQs – Tailor-made Rail Holidays

What is a tailor-made rail holiday?

• A holiday featuring trains, destinations and hotels bespoke to you rather than an off-the-shelf package

Is it cheaper than booking trains and hotels separately?

• There is no definitive answer to this. Cost depends on where you want to go, when, how many people are travelling, which hotels you choose and how far in advance you wish to travel. 

Will booking a tailor-made rail holiday save time?

• Yes. It can be complex navigating different rail operating companies’ websites, working out connections, choosing hotels in the right location. Using a specialist company can save a lot of time

How flexible are rail holiday itineraries?

• There are literally thousands of destination combinations, making rail travel one of the most flexible ways to travel

Can I travel to Europe without flying?

• As long as you are starting your holiday in Europe, yes you can easily travel around Europe by train, bus and ferry

Are rail holidays sustainable?

• Yes – data shows that rail travel emits significantly less carbon than the equivalent flights. For Eurostar, taking a train to Paris emits up to 96% less than flying.