lexande

This depends a lot on where you're going, and especially whether you're staying within one country. In Japan, just going from Tokyo to Kyoto and back costs almost as much as a Japan rail pass, and a pass is certainly a better deal if you're going any further than that. In Germany, railpasses are valid on high-speed ICE trains which would ordinarily cost €100 or more unless you happen to be travelling on a route/day when discounted advance fares are available. That said, railpasses are particularly ill-suited for something like the original poster's five-country-crossing trip to Eastern Europe, but that doesn't mean you should dismiss them categorically.

The bus from the main Frankfurt airport to Frankfurt Hahn takes 90 minutes and costs €12, making this a pretty time-consuming and expensive (relative to the cost on an LCC flight) way to connect.

Carolinian

Note the words ''usually'' and ''most'' in my post. There are, indeed, exceptions that prove the rule. Another one was the old Europe East Rail Pass (which I heard was discontinued) but ONLY if you used it to travel extensively in Austria rather than in the other three countries it applied to, whose rail fares were dirt cheap to begin with.

relique

Great choice of cities- I just love Berlin, Prague is both awesome and cheap and same goes for Bucharest. I' m sure you' ll enjoy the atmosphere in all of them. Just wanted to put a good word in for Tallinn, capital of Estonia , as well, as I love living here The Old Town area is as enchanting as in Prague and the prices are rather cheap for foreigners (we' ll have the EUR soon as well, so it will change a bit). The city itself is very developed, I would even dare to say more than Berlin in some ways- the wireless internet is almost everywhere in the city' s public areas (and free of charge usually) and there are no problems with card payments (which I' ve had a few times in Berlin- a big store and you cannot pay with a card).
Helsinki, just a hour and a half hours by boat from Tallinn is also completely different, modern and very relaxed. I love going there for the weekend.
Riga is quite similar to Tallinn, especially the Old Town, but a bit more expensive.
So, when next time in Europe, consider these cities as well

Carolinian

Talinn is indeed a great city! Too bad about the euro, which raises prices substantially in every country it afflicts. but the EU didn't even give eastern European countries a choice (like the Swedes and Danes who voted it down in referenda, and the Brits who polls show will also do so in a landslide if a referendum is ever actually called).

technique

Talinn... Yes, I have heard great things about it... It seemed "out of the way" though, based on the cities we are planning... Do you think there is any feasable way to get to estonia to visit on our trip? We did extend it by an extra day, so we have 9 days...

johnoberg

Hi, I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I've been unable to find an answer in previous threads to my question. With that said...

I plan on backpacking Europe indefinitely, starting in May 2008. I plan on purchasing a one-way ticket from Detroit to ANY city in Europe. I am just looking for the cheapest possible ticket.

My question is... what is the cheapest city in Europe to fly into? I've heard London is, but I'd rather not deal with spending money on the Chunnel, which would defeat the purpose of getting the cheaper ticket. Although if London was a lot cheaper, I wouldn't mind. Mainland Europe is my preference, though. Also, what is the cheapest city in Germany to fly into?

Another note, I wouldn't mind driving down to Chicago to fly out from there. Do you think there are cheaper possibilities with that route?

Thanks in advance!

lexande

Have a look at the farecompare map at http://www.farecompare.com/maps/comp...tinations.html, which is good for getting an idea of where the lowest fares are likely to be (though it often shows fares not actually available; use it to find a route and then check prices on kayak or elsewhere). This suggests it might be cheap to fly to Madrid, though you'll have to try different dates and see how true that is. You'll probably find the cheapest option by trying different combinations in Kayak, though there are a few things it won't find.

London used to be very cheap to fly into, but the UK has increased airport taxes a lot recently so that's no longer as true. If you can drive to Toronto, flyglobespan.com sometimes have very cheap fares to the UK, though they are very inconsistently available (and prices for a given day rise and fall massively with no apparent logic). If you do go to London, there's no need to spend the £40+ on the Eurostar, as you can get a bus to the continent (it uses the ferry) for as little as £10 (see for example eurobusexpress.net).

Dublin is still often very cheap (particularly for oneway tickets) and you can connect there to Ryanair flights if the cost of ferries to the continent is too much. Regarding Germany, LTU and Condor sometimes have cheap oneways from Toronto to Dusseldorf or Frankfurt; Air India may have cheap oneways from ORD to Frankfurt.

Hope this helps.

EmailKid

Welcome to FlyerTalk johnoberg !

We have an open thread on the very same first page where your post appears, so I merged the topics. Please follow the discussion there. This will make it easier to do searches in the future and keep the board cleaner.

EmailKid
Budget Travel Moderator

inyourvillages

johno,

it's hard to say definitively. one issue is that flying into western europe and then traveling to eastern europe is likely to add significant expenses. the only possible exception would be to catch a really cheap flight within europe.

so i think you're going to want to try to get as close as possible right off the bat. since DTW is a NW hub, I'd start by looking at their flights and seeing what you can do. they often have sales and, for example, i flew to poland a few years ago for about the same price as it would have cost me to fly to amsterdam (connecting flight in AMS to WAW).

so the answer is, it depends. and it will likely change. just gotta dig until you find something you can deal with. but consider the usually signficiant cost of getting to eastern europe from the west.

inyourvillages

by the way, it may actuall be cheaper to buy a round-trip ticket to europe. one-way fares right now will probably be full-fare coach fares.

and cities i would look at would be budapest, bucharest, kiev, vienna, berlin, and prague. they all have flights on u.s. carriers from the u.s.

Drzava

Should be a good trip! Haven't been to Bucharest but Berlin, Prague and Budapest are all great cities!

lexande

Johnoberg didn't actually say he was going to Eastern Europe in particular, his thread has just been merged into this one for convenience. Going to Western Europe, there are a number of airlines offering competitive oneway fares, including Aer Lingus, Air India, Flyglobespan, and occasionally various legacy airlines matching them. Trying a few things on kayak it looks like ORD-FRA for about $312 oneway on Air India is the cheapest option for him at the moment, but May is a long way off and this could change.

im_blue

As the poster above said, the best deal right now appears to be ORD-FRA on Air India for $312 one-way. They have flights on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Other options would be ORD-LHR on Air India for $312 and ORD-DUB on AA for $347.

Palal

Germany is generally cheaper to fly into. From there take the train to the Czech Republic. Tickets are dirt cheap w/in CZ. You can almost get to Hungary for 25 Euros on their new Pendolinos... so far they only go to Bratislava and Vienna, both of which are close to Budapest. You'll have to fly to Russia, and you also need a visa.