Travel Tips - Train Help for France

 

Part of our included services for tour clients booking trips with us is a variety of travel documents that we send prior to travel. This includes a lot of information relevant to each cycling or multisport tour such as sites in the particular region, and the points of interest. We include suggested dining spots, and any specialties of a region. We also help our customers book trains, added hotel stays, car rentals, and any other ground service in France. Below are some general travel tips we believe useful for any one traveling to France. MORE Travel Info is available on this link too.

If you would like to hear and learn some simple French Language Phrases that are useful for travelres, then visit our French Online pages!

Train Tickets:

We suggest that people either buy in advance or in country! What other choice is there? The way to think about it is like this:

If you have a very popular route on the TGV; we recommend advance purchases. Usually TGV tickets with specific seats cannot be purchased more than 60 days in advance. A TGV ticket is almost pointless without the actual seat. They are 2 different things! A ticket between Paris and Avignon, for example, might be valid on any train in a certain time frame, but doesn't entitle you to a seat on any train. You have to also buy a seat reservation. We recommend advance tickets with seats for the city pairs:

Paris-Avignon/Aix/Marseille
Paris-Bordeaux/Tours/St Pierre des Corps
Paris Lyon

Rail Passes: usually a good deal when you travel on the TGV at least 3 times, but often still a good deal if you even use it only 2 times. See the France Rail Pass at Rail Europe. A new pass/ticket option being offered by Rail Europe is the Anywhere Anytime France program of E-tickets. This also looks to be a very useful option, depending your travel plans.

Buying in country, or if you are very confident, then buy online direct from SNCF, the French national railroad: www.voyages-sncf.com They have English language available, but you may have to go through the French language only site to make certain purchases. If a rail pass isn't the best deal for you , then perhaps you can get a 'PREMS' deal on SNCF directly.

Other tickets: TER and regional trains for 1 way or simple/short round trips. We believe it is almost always best to buy them through SNCF, usually by walking into any station or at a kiosk when in France. Unless you travel with a rail pass, then your pass is good on these trains too. But, we don't recommend buying point to point tickets on regional trains through Rail Europe. Shipping fees and even seat assignments add up to too much. NOTE: Regional trains do not require seat reservations, so don't pay for them. Just sit in any open seat in your ticket class of service.

First of Second Class?

Look at the prices! Sometimes there is little difference. On the train, there are no added privileges like larger seats or massages , etc in 1st class. What you usually have is a wagon that tends to be a bit quieter with business travelers or adults without children.