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Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?

España
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91 posts
Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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I mean as a tourist and not only doing the Vienna-Salzburg trip but visiting different small towns, villages, starting points for trekking and other places such the ice cave and so.

I start believe that nobody does so...

If, by any chance, someone did a whole trip on that basis or partly did so please do tell me your experience (and tricks) or send me a link for reading something about that.

Cheers.

Vienna, Austria
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for Vienna, Austria, Innsbruck
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1. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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Austria possess a very wide railway network that is complemented by a bus network that usually feeds to the rail network but also offers direct connections to/between important places. That means that you can reach almost all places in Austria using public transport. If you access the ÖBB itinerary planer (which integrates all modes of transportation in Austria) you can sort out how to get to your destination:

http://fahrplan.oebb.at/bin/query.exe/e

It is also recommendable to download GOOGLE Earth which is a very helpful tool when it comes to travel preparations and geographical issues. GOOGLE Earth also displays bus stops and the respective route numbers. Rail lines can easily be identified by thin black lines.

Edited: 13 years ago
España
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91 posts
2. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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Well, Mikey_Vienna, thanks; I do know the site but I'm asking for real experience as tourists.

After all my research all I see is people travelling from/to Viena to/from Salzburg or from/to there to/from Munich...

We all know that despite the beauty of these touristic places there is a lot more to see in Austria.

So far I have found NOBODY doing their travelling on public services!!

I keep waiting... and hoping.

Oxford, UK
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3. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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Which forums are you looking at? There are tons of threads about people travelling round the Salzkammergut by public transport - people are always asking about the transport links from Salzburg to Wolfgangsee, Bad Ischl and Hallstatt. Likewise I've seen discussions about travel in Salzburgerland for Zell am See, Werfen and the like, and the Tirol. by train and bus. I myself have done quite a lot of travelling in Austria away from the main centres, and always by public transport - Tirol, Salzkammergut, Upper Austria, Styria - it definitely can be done. To me, the excellent public transport network makes Austria particularly attractive as a holiday destination because I can get to spectacular scenic places without a car.

A good place to start for researching regional transport networks is http://www.postbus.at - it gives the same info as the http://www.oebb.at site, but it lists the websites for each region's transport network where you can get ticket price information etc. since bus ticket prices are not usually given on OEBB. I find the Austrian transport websites exceptionally informative for travel planning, so long as you have some basic German - I can find out how to get to a place in Austria much easier than I can in England!

Brisbane, Australia
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4. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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Hi BAJOZ- like Roley I am not sure which Forums you have looked into either but there are heaps of questions and excellent answers here to many tourists (not locals) wanting to travel around public transport.

Look at my trip report- I did not go hiking around but went to enough smaller places off the Salzburg-Vienna path to know that it is VERY possible. The only non public transport trip I had was one in which someone very kindly gave me a lift between 2 small towns as he often travels this himself. I used Intercity and regional local trains as well as busued over this 12 day trip.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g190410-i146-k2500092-12_Days_in_Austria_Trip_Report-Austria.html

The OBB site you have been given a link to I found very useful. Once you are there the staff at bus and train stations are also very helpful in planning your journeys just to make certain that what you have found on the internet really does work. I managed to use both the OBB site and get advice from staff and I have no more than 6 words of German in my vocabulary.

The Austrian public transport is EXCELLENT. From how I see it - It is set up to help locals get around the whole county from big places to small places- this is a BONUS for tourists. It allows you to do exactly the same thing.

My suggestion. Post a few examples of where exactly you are wanting to travel and hopefully one of those very knowlegable locals will come back and give you specific advice- or give it a try on the OBB site. I managed to get it to give me many alternatives to plan my trip before I left home .

Edited: 13 years ago
Barnsley, United...
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5. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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Hi, Excellent bus and rail service. The railway is 1st class and is basically in the shape of a figure of "8" covering the whole of Austria making it very easy to get around.

Great buses , the Austrians are good at making things happen on time.

The ice cave is at Werfen and is well worth a visit along with the castle there.

Denton, United...
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6. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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We have trevelled around Austria by train on a family holiday. A copy of the Thomas Cook european rail timetable was a big help, it lists all the trains and times and can let you see how realistic your plans are. We found some of the trains of the main routes a bit slow but they got us everywhere we wanted to go!

Cocoa Beach, Florida
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7. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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We are headed there for the 6th time in November and have never rented a car, always relying on the excellent public transport.

We have based in Salzburg and visited a number of areas in the Salzkammergut from there on day trips as well as Berchtesgaden and Munich.

The link for trains and buses has been posted...not sure what else you need as they are excellent resources.

Skutskar, Sweden
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8. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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What kind of question is this?

In my motorcycling days (ca 1984-2000) I crisscrossed Austria many ( ca 10) times.

From Bregenz in the west to Burgenland in the east. I will drop you some favourites:

Steyr, great little town south of Linz. There were a biker meeting there.

Heiligenblut, cute village high up in the alps.

Wörthersee west of Klagenfurt

Go to any village in the alps, the less famous the better!

Austin
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12 reviews
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9. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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I have travelled across Austria by public transport twice, once with friends and once with a hubby and three year-old daughter. I used http://www.oebb.at/ to get an idea of fares and timetables to plan accordingly.

On one trip we were able to visit the Wachau region although we missed our connection at St. Pollen and got stuck with a bunch of singing drunks on the bus to Krems. (If they could have sung in tune it would have helped.) On another we poked around the salt mines and the mountains; I don't remember exactly which little towns, but gosh, we ended up on the trains that stop at every village that consists of two or more houses. Absolutely picturesque in the late winter.

Sorry, no links, just great memories.

España
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91 posts
10. Re: Has anyone EVER travelled around Austria by train or bus?
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Thank you all for your time.

What I meant by asking for some experience as tourists was your opinion on public transport in your trips around Austria (no matter if you are locals or not as long as you did a good deal of travelling using only this way and not only on your way to the office, for instance).

It is not just that I want to know how to get somewhere but how to use public transport in the cheapest possible way... and wether is it a very good way of organising a trip or not: not only because you can reach a place but because you can do it without being ripped off.

I have no doudts on Austrian punctuality and engeneering skills... that's not the point for me but... geographical laws and... price.

Two examples to make myself understood:

Check Republich has a relatively very cheap public system… so for me it was just brilliant for a trip around the country.

The Swiss Pass was great too because if you do a lot of travelling you save a lot of money and you forguet about tickets… and you can move everywhere combining trains, buses and boats: brilliant.

However, the hilly landscape meant that despite the number of trains, the puntuality and the tecnology deployed… your range of scope is limited if you don't change your base.

As for Austria the research is being very difficult:

At the beginning I read that there was not an Austrian Pass like in Switzerland, then I found that there is something similar only for regional trains, no buses.

Then it seems that there are some places that don't have the chance of being reached using these trains because they only have the trains that are out of the pass (the quick ones, so to say).

Now, I know as well that there REALLY is a pass very like the Swiss Pass in Tirol (I don´t know yet if somewhere else too or not) combining both train and buses.

http://www.vvt.at/dataarchive/data4/tariffolder2010web2.pdf

For 53€ I can use both buses, trams anf trains in Tirol… for a whole week.

Am I right?

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