19 December 2023

Taking the train to Spain, but don't want to pay through the nose?

At first glance, this can look like a pretty pricey journey, especially if you're travelling in peak seasons.

(We've just heard from someone who paid £800 for a return journey, UK to Valencia. Yikes! 😱)

But with a few easy tricks, you should be able to do it MUCH cheaper than that, even at short notice.

You should never need to pay more than about £320 for this journey — and you can do it for as little as £152 return.

Method 1 - book ahead and/or be flexible with timings

If you have the luxury of knowing your travel dates well in advance, and/or have some flexibility with timings, you can travel from England to Barcelona for as little as £152 return.

For example, I've just returned from a Birmingham - Barcelona -Birmingham round trip.

Here's what I actually paid  (but as you'll see below you, it can work out a bit cheaper than this).

Outbound

• Birmingham New Street to London Euston: £14 (advance)

• Walk / cycle from Euston to St Pancras: 10 minutes, free

• Eurostar, London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord: £93 return

• Cycle from Gare du Nord to Paris Austerlitz: 30 minutes, free (or take the metro for around €2)

• Overnight train from Paris Austerlitz to Latour de Carol: €39 (including a sleeping berth in a couchette)

• RENFE train from Latour de Carol to Sant Quirze de Besora: €6.10

• Onwards RENFE train to Barcelona / any station within Barcelona "suburban zone" (that's about a 50km radius around Barcelona): €10 for unlimited travel within three months, refunded (!) at the end of the quarter, so effectively FREE.*

* These "free" Barcelona regional tickets are available until the end of 2023, at least. It's not yet clear whether they'll be continued into 2024.
UPDATE 12 January 2024: It's now confirmed that this scheme will be continued throughout 2024 👍.

Return

• Barcelona to Sant Quirze de Besora: free* (see above)

• RENFE train from Sant Quirze de Besora to Latour de Carol: €6.10

• Overnight train from Latour de Carol to Paris Austerlitz: €37 (including a sleeping berth in a couchette)

• Cycle from Paris Austerlitz to Gare du Nord: 30 minutes, free (or take the metro for around €2)

• Eurostar, Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras (return ticket, cost already accounted for in the outbound leg)

• Walk / cycle from St Pancras to Euston: 10 minutes, free

• London Euston to Birmingham New Street: £14.80 (advance)

Adding it all up: total cost for the Book Ahead / Be Flexible Method

Total cost Birmingham - Barcelona - Birmingham: £198

If I'd only been travelling to/from London, rather than Birmingham, the total would have been only £169, and you'd probably do it even cheaper because you'd have more flexibility on Eurostar timings if you didn't need to make the Birmingham-London connection.

And, if you're lucky, you can do it for even less than this. 

The cheapest Eurostar London-Paris-London returns are only £78, and the cheapest couchettes to Latour de Carol start at €37, or just €19 in a comfortable (though not horizontal) seat. 

So I reckon the absolute lowest price on this route would be:

• £181 return (Birmingham - Barcelona - Birmingham)

• or £152 return (London - Barcelona - Birmingham).

Method 2 - Interrail!

If you're going at short notice, in peak season, or you have less flexibility with timings, buying tickets on this route at full price can indeed be quite expensive.

In this situation, use the Interrail method — and you should never end up paying more than about £314.

When you think of Interrail, and you might think of gap-year students making long backpacking trips around Europe.

But an Interrail pass can also be the key to unlocking flexible, reasonably-priced train travel even for point-to-point European journeys.

How it works

• Buy a "four days in one month" Interrail pass: €258 (or €194 if you're lucky enough to be under 28).

• Buy an Interrail-special Eurostar reservation: €30, plus €2 booking fee.
  This is a fixed price and will be available on most, though not quite all, Eurostar trains to Paris, even if booking at short notice.

• Buy an Interrail-passholder reservation for the night train to Latour de Carol: €21.60 for a fully-horizontal couchette, €10 for a comfortable but non-horizontal seat.

• Bonus 1: your connecting trains in the UK (even if you're coming from Penzance, or Aberdeen) are included at no extra cost, so long as you travel onwards to/from Paris the same day. (Don't stay overnight in London, in other words).

• Bonus 2: your connecting trains in Spain (for example, Latour de Carol to/from Barcelona, but also if you're going further, say to Valencia or even Madrid or Seville or anywhere else in Spain) are also included.

  • Local trains in Spain are completely free using this method

  • If you're taking a long-distance or "medium-distance" train in Spain you will need to pay a few Euros for a reservation fee.

Adding it all up: total cost for the Interrail Method

Total cost, from anywhere in the UK to Barcelona (or anywhere in Spain) and back again:

• Over-28, couchette: £314

• Over-28, seat: £294

• Under-28, couchette: £259

• Under-28, seat: £239

So, using the Interrail method, you can travel from anywhere in the UK to Barcelona and back again, pretty much any time, even at short notice, for under £320 — including a comfortable couchette berth for the overnight train to/from Paris.

If you're budget-conscious, you should try Method 1 first, because it might be cheaper (as little as £169 London-Barcelona-London), but the Interrail Method has four big advantages:

1. It's usually available even at short notice.

2. It includes travel from/to any station in the UK at no extra cost, and travel to/from any station in Spain too, either free (local trains) or for a small additional reservation fee (medium- and long-distance trains).

3. It's relatively flexible: if things go wrong and you miss a connection, using your Interail pass you can generally re-route and/or re-schedule either at no cost or at low cost.

4. You could take a free trip to the Alps! See Bonus Pro Tip below...

Bonus Pro Tip 🙂

Here's a (completely legit) "hack" you can use to get an extra day of FREE rail travel anywhere in Europe at almost no extra cost.

• Buy a "four days in one month" Interrail pass as detailed above.

• Day 1: travel from anywhere in the UK to London; catch the Eurostar to Paris, and board the overnight sleeper to Latour de Carol in the evening.

• Day 2: wake up in Latour de Carol. But for your train to Barcelona, don't use your Interrail pass. Instead, buy a ticket for a local train to Barcelona — see Method 1 above; it should cost you around €6.10.

• Spend however long you want in Barcelona or wherever you need to be (up to 28 days).

• Now, here's the trick: so far, you've only used one of your four Interrail days — so you've got three left. You're going to need two of them to make the return journey to London. But that means you've got one spare! Go ahead, max out, go wherever your imagination takes you. Planning this extra day, and integrating it into your return journey, is beyond the scope of this article, but with a little research you'll figure it out.
  (Hint: trains journeys in Switzerland can be spectacular — but they're expensive. Except, with your Interrail pass, they're FREE! With a bit of planning, you can take trip on the famous Glacier Express as part of your journey home — at no extra cost.)

Saving so much money that you want a little luxury?

If by using one of the methods above you've saved so much money compared to the "headline price" that you want to splash out on a little luxury, consider upgrading to first class — especially if you're using the Interrail method.

For surprisingly little extra cost, your first-class upgrade will give you:

• First class on your connecting train(s) in the UK (which might include a hot meal served at your seat, if you're lucky)

• "Standard Premier" on the Eurostar, with more comfortable seats and a light meal served at your seat

• A four-person couchette compartment, much roomier than the standard-class six-berth compartments

• And (if you're using the "Bonus Pro Tip" above to get a "free" trip to the Alps... swanky first class seats on the Glacier Express (or any other train in Switzerland, for that matter).

Or... you could stick to standard class and make a donation to FlightFreeUK instead 🙂.

PS: don't forget the "Mediterranean Alternative" route, from Paris to Cerbère

The route described above, through the Pyrenees from Paris to Latour de Carol to Barcelona, is spectacular and wonderful.

But there's another route, equally spectacular and wonderful, which works in pretty much exactly the same way, and for the same price: the Mediterranean route from Paris to Barcelona via Cerbère/Portbou.

Going this way, you get great coastal views, distant views of the Pyrenees, and FLAMINGOS!

Think about taking the Latour de Carol train in one direction, and the Cerbère route in the other. You won't regret it.

Just bear in mind that the Latour de Carol train to/from Paris runs every day, whereas the Cerbère<>Paris train runs only a few times a week.