The cost of my travel for the family holiday just went up by £270.

This is part 1 of the story about this year’s Lyons family holiday to Spain.

It was meant to happen in 2020. All booked & paid for. Then pandemic + uncertain quarantine arrangements meant holiday was postponed & then lost with no refund. First world problems as they say.

A lesson in changing your own behaviour but not dictating to others, while trying to change the system… Two families are flying to Spain. I’m going by train.

My train journey: home-London; London-Paris; Paris-Barcelona; night in youth hostel; Barcelona-Malaga; Malaga-Fuengirola. Then repeat in reverse.

Get an Interrail ticket I thought. Ah, a four-day pass should do the job, good – ticket bought. Use Interrail website to plan itinerary. Good. Book youth hostel stays in Barcelona for both ways, tick. Ah, now it seems I have to pay extra for seat reservations on trains. OK. Draws breath…

Book & pay for reservations straight away for Eurostar London-Paris-London. Done. Then to do Paris-Barcelona-Paris. Ah, website says you can’t make a reservation until 90 days or less before you travel. Hmmm. Puts reminder in calendar. Websites also say can’t book reservation for trains in Spain via Interrail, have to do at station in Spain. Glenn naively thinks this means can do on arrival in Barcelona (more on this later).

Reminder day in calendar arrives & I book & pay for Paris-Barcelona, but can’t yet do the return leg. Another reminder in calendar. Cue then yesterday’s rather stressful episode.

With 89 days until the return leg, go to reserve train seat from Barcelona to Paris. No can do – train is fully booked. Oh sh*t.

So I make a reservation for the next train to Paris – but this means I miss my Eurostar train that day to London. Thankfully, Eurostar for a small fee allow you to change your train. So I book the next train which goes the following morning. Now I have to book to stay somewhere overnight in Paris. A £70 hotel booking near Gare du Nord.

But I’m now travelling for five days & only have a four day Interrail pass. Discover you can try and claim a refund and instead pay for a five day pass. But let’s now get back to the train trips in Spain.

I end up on Trainline & discover that there is only one seat left for Barcelona to Malaga that I need for my holiday!! Imagine if I’d waited to get there to find this out. Sh*t. How am I meant to make reservations via my Interrail pass?? [Maybe I missed something here but I wasn’t for want of looking]. So I decide to pay for the whole return trip in Spain, to hell with the Interrail pass for that – at least I then manage to stay within my existing four days pass limit. When I first get to press pay for my tickets clearly someone else has snatched the last seat in the meantime. Final panic & I grab another train option, & for another £200 now have everything booked. Phew.

Tune in for part 2 in August when I attempt to make this trip.

#sustainabletransport