Greetings from sunny Croatia! Today we are en route from Zagreb to Split on the Dalmatian Coast. We are going to spend a few nights on the islands and chill out on the beaches. Nice!

We have taken a lot of different transport options on this trip so far. Today we tossed up between taking a fifty minute flight or a five and a half hour trip on the new high-speed train linking Zagreb to the cost. We decided on the train because half of the fun is in the journey and this way we get to enjoy the mind-boggling beauty of this gorgeous country. (That and the plane was going to be a teeny tiny propeller number, and there isn’t enough alcohol in the world to get me on one of those.)

In this part of the world the train system is good, if sometimes slow. When we get to Bosnia & Hercegovina and Serbia who knows what we will find as the rail networks are still finding their feet following the 1990s conflict. Sometimes we have found it better to travel by coach and mini-bus rather than train, and certainly cheaper – but its important to remember that ‘cheap’ isn’t necessarily ‘better’. Here are some tips for traveling on the cheap.

Multi-country Eurail tickets

Eurail passes exist as single and multi-country tickets. I have traveled on a multi-country ticket in the past, and while it is convenient to purchase your ticket in advance and not have to bother about budgeting for travel day-to-day, it can be limiting if you find yourself in countries that have less than stellar rail networks. And if you need to take a coach or ferry, you will then be paying double for your travel. Also make sure you buy the ticket that best suits your plans; most passes are for a certain number of days travel within a set time-frame (eg, 14 days travel in 2 months), or you can choose unlimited travel within a set time-frame – but you would need to be traveling frequently in order to get your money’s worth from the latter. If you intend to spend a few days in each place you’ll be better off with the former.

Buying tickets as you go

We are buying tickets as we go, which means we need to budget for travel as we go, but also gives more flexibility. A few days ago it would have taken about 7 hours and 3 train changes to travel by train for the journey we were taking; in the end we got a bus and it was a three hour direct trip. The other benefit of buying as you go is that you can travel much more cheaply by train, as it’s often cheaper to buy in the ticket office the day before you travel than it is to buy in advance through a website like www.db.de.

Speak to the locals

Remember that locals will have a better idea of the most convenient way to travel, and that things may have changed since your Lonely Planet (or other guide book of choice) was printed. We found a private mini-bus company through the hotel staff that took hours (and a lot of headaches) off a trip we were taking one day. Check out the websites of the hotels you are staying in for up-to-date ‘how to get here’ info, and also check out the forums on tripadvisor.co.uk for helpful information from others.