At 57, I’m Interrailing on a budget – I’ve been to 16 countries so far

When Davey Mills lost his job last winter, he planned an impromptu sabbatical. He would use his newfound freedom to recreate his 1990s experience of travelling around Europe, flight-free. The first time he went Interrailing, aged 20-something, Mills stuck to a tight budget. Now 57, he could add a little luxury. “I bought a first-class ticket in the sale. It cost me €900 (£770) for 92 days,” he says. “It’s a lot of money to fork out in one go, but, for what you can do with it, it’s great value.” The pass allowed him to travel on as many trains as he wished, for three months straight. In his student era, Mills purchased his Interrail pass from a travel agent in Liverpool, this time it was a quick online transaction – that was the first thing that had changed. Back in the early 1990s, he had travelled without the conveniences of Wi-Fi and smartphones. He relied on guidebooks and physical maps and rang around hotels to find a bed for the night. “I spent quite a considerable amount of time on public payphones,” he recalls. This time, it was easier to crowdsource advice. There is a thriving online community of Interrailers who don’t fit the young, student stereotype. For instance, Mills is in a Facebook group called “Interrailing for the older crowd” that has more than 60,000 members. Shorts People in the group share recommendations on where to go while Interrailing (a scheme that covers 33 countries and includes travel on most trains, and some ferries, in Europe). They also swap tips on navigating different types of Interrail passes, booking trains, and budgeting. Youth passes are still the most popular for Interrail, but the organisation has seen growth in interest for adult and senior passes. Meanwhile, in research published this year by Aito, the specialist travel association, over a third of the people surveyed (most of whom were over 50) found rail travel “very appealing”. Mills has now extended his Interrailing adventure over nine months. He’s spent €2,300 (£1,969) on three passes – two first class, and one second class – all of which were bought during sales. On top of this, his travel costs include food, accommodation and any additional seat reservation or sleeper train fees. “I try to set my budget at about €1,000 (£855) a month, but I’ve failed to stick to that every month so far,” he says. Mills is British, but lives in France. His wife has a job that requires her to be close to home, while his daughter has moved elsewhere for university. He says his family are “ok with the situation” in which he travels almost on a whim. He has returned home frequently while Interrailing. Mills lives in France, close to Basel in Switzerland, which is well-connected by rail (Photo: Getty) “I don’t like to have a rigid plan,” he says. “From where I live, it’s quite convenient because I’m only around an hour by train from Zurich and near Basel. From those two cities, you can get overnight trains to Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Dresden, Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb and Grasse. “So that’s a great starting point. I usually get one of those trains, arrive somewhere the next day, and then just decide from there what I’ll do next. I don’t really plan for more than two or three days in advance.” A couple of months ago, for example, he travelled from Basel to Zurich to Budapest. “From Budapest, I booked an overnight train to Romania. Romanian trains are very antiquated, but they’re excellent value. It cost me something like €15 [£13] to reserve a bed on a sleeper train, and I didn’t have to share with anybody.” Due to the frequency of trains in Western Europe, Mills has generally been able to get by without planning far ahead. Travelling in countries with a less comprehensive or familiar rail network can be trickier. “If you make the wrong move, you can end up somewhere with no hotel and no train until the next day – that scares me a little,” he says. A few moments have gone awry during Mills’s travels. “In some of the more rural places in Eastern Europe, it’s hard to know if you’re at a station. I got off a train at one point [when it had stopped] in Slovakia, thinking it was a station, when it wasn’t. I was probably about three miles from where I needed to be. I ended up walking to the station where I should have got off.” Having a smartphone with access to online maps may have proved useful in that situation, but Mills has also seen the downside of relying on technology. His phone broke during a visit to Budapest and he couldn’t access his Interrail pass, email account or online banking. “Everything stopped for a few days as I bought a new phone. On the [Interrailing for the older crowd] Facebook group, a lot of people take a spare phone, just in case.” Mills also found it tricky when he was stuck sleeping in a seat on an overnight train because beds had sold out. “If you’re youngish, maybe that’s ok,” he says. “But it’s quite exhausting travelling. You don’t necessarily recover quickly if you spend the night in a seat on a sleeper train and get turfed off at 6am the next morning”. The fatigue hasn’t stopped Mills, however. In the last nine months, his rail trips have taken him to 16 countries. The longest journey he has taken was around 16 hours overnight from Salzburg in Austria to Malmo in Sweden, a train on which most other passengers were skiers. “I never get tired of going to certain places,” he says. Berlin and Budapest are among his favourite cities and he enjoys experiencing them as if he were a resident. “I did all the touristy stuff in Budapest, now I’m more into doing everyday things. I might go to a football game, a concert or get a haircut.” Budapest is among Mills’s favourite city breaks (Photo: Sergey Alimov/Getty) Eastern Europe is Mills’s latest interest. “Those eastern cities are cheaper.” Staying in hostels is also helping him to cut costs. “They’re no longer called ‘youth’ hostels, and they’re generally part of a chain. I’ve found the quality very good. Mostly, the other occupants have been fine. Families and older people use them, as well as young people.” He’s not encountered many young Interrailers on trains. “I tend to see non-Interrailers. But it’s not difficult to strike up conversation when you’re travelling. The obvious questions are ‘where are you from?’ and ‘where are you going?’” Mills likes to book couchettes on sleeper trains, rather than sleepers, as the compartments are more sociable. Couchettes are padded bunks with around six spaces per compartment, while sleeper compartments tend to come with one, two or three beds that have proper matresses. Solo travel can be lonely, but Mills is rarely more than 36 hours from home and can return there for company. “I’m a bit of an outlier, I’ve met people who have done three months of Interrailing, but I’ve never met anyone else who has done nine months. But I don’t regret it,” he says. Mills’s latest stop is Rotterdam, where he’s savouring the dregs of summer.