Have you ever tried to buy a train ticket from Europe to Hanoi?
I did it - from Vienna.
The train journey to Vietnam was the best experience of my life. After finishing school, my girlfriend at the time and I wanted to see something of the world, and I always thought you had to fly if you wanted to go far. I was very active in climate protection groups and thought to myself, this has to be possible differently than just by plane. Then I researched and found out that you can travel by train from Vienna to Hanoi via Eastern Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan, and China.
The train connections were available, but the booking was a months-long ordeal. We needed people in each country to buy tickets for us and leave them for us. In many countries, you can’t apply for a visa without confirmation that you had a travel ticket. I researched for three months to find travel agencies and intermediaries in each country. In the end, it worked out. The train journey to Vietnam took 16 days with overnight stays and tourist activities. Price-wise, the train journey was about as expensive as a flight. I then spent several months in Southeast Asia and traveled back (this time on a different route via Siberia and Ukraine).
Although I had imagined the journey to be very difficult, I was surprised, because the time on the train was the most varied and interesting time of my life. I realized that traveling by train is much more than just the most climate-friendly way to travel.
You experience a variety of cities, people, cultures, languages, landscapes, art, animals, food, etc, because the journey is the destination, or at least part of it.
Traveling by train covers all the needs of travelling: foreign landscapes, relaxation time, cool experiences, and finally... time to read a book. Additionally, the soul gets to come along and you support local businesses through local value creation.
After the journey, I told many people that we had traveled by train and had experienced so much. I was then the train expert and was confronted with all sorts of questions. I realized that even within Europe, traveling by train is complicated to book. What is the best route, what are the cheapest tickets? These were the guiding questions. The answer to that is Traivelling: We find the most sensible route automatically and offer an Interrail price comparison with real-time comparison.
– Elias Bohun
CEO at Traivelling
