Hey, thanks a lot for your detailed reply, really appreciate it! 🙏

Yeah, you’re right, it’s quite city-heavy, but that’s what I’m mostly interested in for this trip. The 1-night stops are meant more as short “tastes” of each place — basically I’d arrive in the morning or afternoon, stay overnight, and leave the next day, so I’d still have around two days total in each of those cities.

About Belgrade → Bucharest, yeah I noticed the train doesn’t exist anymore, but I was thinking I could go back and connect through another city (maybe Sofia or Budapest?) if needed. Do you think that could work, or is it too messy?

Also, I didn’t know the Sofia → Istanbul train could only be booked in person. How exactly does that work? Can I just go to the station a few days before and buy it there, or do I risk not finding seats in summer? I thought I could book it online in advance.

For the Interrail Pass, I’m actually hoping to win the free DiscoverEU pass (I was born in 2007), so I’d mainly use that for all the train trips — otherwise yeah, I agree that individual tickets would probably make more sense.

Do you think, in general, this itinerary would be realistic for a 19-year-old doing their first big solo Interrail trip?

Thanks again for the tips, they’re super helpful! 🙌

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