Plan your dream European rail trip for summer 2013 and you could win a FREE InterRail pass!

Plan your dream European rail trip for summer 2013 and you could win a FREE InterRail pass!

It wasn't easy but we had to pick a winner..So congratulations to Hugo Veloso!!

We had so many excellent emails from you guys and thank you all for entering.

So without further a do, here is Hugo's winning entry!

"I've been travelling Europe since I was 12 with my parents, and in 2011 I started travelling with friends.

So here we go,

I wouldn't call myself a experienced InterRailer, because I only did an InterRail once.

Me and more three friends did an InterRail with a 22 day pass, two years ago, and it was one of the best experiences I've ever had, we met lots of people every day, saw a lot of beautiful places and did a lot of new things.

Our Route was: Sevilla, Barcelona, Montpellier, Nice, Milan, Salzburg, Munich, Prague, Povrly, Wiemar, Amsterdam. After 7 days in Amsterdam we came back to Lisbon in a lowcost airplane.

I enjoyed all the places I have been, and despite having no regrets about going to the places I went I admit I would not return to Nice because it is really expensive, and it's not as fun as the other places. I feel like we were really lucky to have a great time there. I almost felt bad about inviting two German girls, we met on the Train, to stay in Nice with us when I saw the prices and the emptiness of the streets but we ended up having a fun night, but the next night was amazing! Like the first night, the streets were empty and after looking around for half an hour, we asked some guy called Chris Cross where were the bars, he took us to a live music bar, when we arrived everyone started chanting his name, after a drink he got up on stage and started singing with his band to more than 300 people!

Povrly and Wiemar are places that we decided to wild camp in the forest near them. In Wiemar we realised the place was not as wild as we thought when an old guy in a bike stopped near us opened some beers for us and one for him, and drank with us while we were cooking breakfast in our campfire, just seeing the view and communicating with gestures. It was the most unexpected thing to happen when you are wild camping.

I can't really recommend a route, because everyone has personal preferences, I can say that Montpellier and Salzburg are the cities that most surprised me, because I wasn't expecting them to offer so much, and I would recommend anyone to, at least consider, checking them out,

In Montpellier the people are really friendly we stayed in the house of some people that we met while trying to find a place to sleep. We ended up staying in their house for 3 days. We were all musicians so we played a lot, exchanged music, they were really great hosts. When we saw the city we were shocked! The city is really beautiful and full of life, and it has a lot of attractions, anyone can visit it.

Salzburg seems like a quiet, and calm family town, and it is by day! There are a lot of attractions, museums and parks in this small town. At night it wasn't quiet at all! And I can really say it was one of the craziest and biggest nights of my life, me and a friend even appeared on a Austrian website with some locals. There are pubs and discos all along the riverside.

Enough about the past!

Now for the Future, me and a friend were already planning on doing something big this Summer, and we wanted to do another InterRail, but this time we need to be on a tight budget and make it the most fun as possible. We are saving up for a Global Pass of 10 days of 22 days. We started thinking about planning two weeks ago, and our result was this:

My Route for this Summer would start in Dublin, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Wildcamp somewhere in Czech Republic, Wien, Ljubjana, and then an lowcost flight to Lisbon, or try to wing it back to Portugal in 1 or 2 travel days.

But if I had another 10 days or 5 travelling days, I would use this ticket from Dublin to Berlin and reduce some days out of my already planned route and go from Berlin to Ljubjana passing on some of the Eastern European Countries, this is something I always wanted to do:

After Wien, I would go to Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia, Montenegro (I would like to Wildcamp here), Mostar, Zadar, Zagreb, and finally Ljubjana where I will get a flight back to Portugal.

This Summer, we expect our trip to be intense, challenging, and specially fun and wild.

Our plan is doing an InterRail, couchsurfing in cities, wildcamping in others, Busking in the Streets (I am bassist that plays guitar and my friend Melodica).

We also want to try doing crazy stuff with our hosts, like bungee jumping and gliding sliding, all that stuff that we never done, but always wanted to do.

So the reason we are planning the trip this early is because we want to find at least one host that can do these things with us.

We are also going to try to film our trip and we are still planning what and how we are going to do it, and bring some small filming equipment that we already own, and can carry on our backpacks.

After our first InterRail we felt a bit bad, that the only way to re-live some of the things we did, was through our memory and some photos. We decided shortly after our first InterRail that we were going to film our next one.

The destinations we chose offer lots of different things, and we are always up to facing challenges and new things, so I am sure it will be a trip of a life time.

I hope my plans sound as good to you as they sound to me.

Thank you for reading."

Quite an inspiring and awesome entry don't you think? We are very excited at working with Hugo this summer and offering you all an insight into why InterRailling is the way forward!

Should you wish to book an InterRail Pass then please click here for further details or you can contact us and speak to one of our advisors.