I studied abroad last spring, and I also liked to travel during the weekends. However, since your trip is a little shorter, time is very important. If you haven’t bought the eurorail pass yet, I would advise looking into easyjet or ryainair flights instead for travelling options. Eurorail seems like a good option, but it can actually be inflexible and expensive, because some passes only give you a certain amount of days to use the passes. Flights within Europe are very competitive, so the prices are very low—when I was in Italy, I was able to fly to Germany for about 60 euros round trip. Be prepared to pay about 10 euros to get from the airport to the center of the city, however—many of the airports are located on the outskirts of the town. However, using the train system within a country is a good idea, and can be very cheap—while we were in Germany, we were able to travel from Frankfurt to Munich for about 6 euros a person. However! The trip was 6 hours long—which isn’t convenient if you are on a short trip. Wherever you go, do some planning; learn the area, and the way to get around. Use hostels, because they are cheap and common in Europe. I know these tips seem very general, but it is best to start in generalities before moving to the specifics.

Hi karlinfitz! While I think jillnels makes some great points about cheap air travel in Europe, you do need to take that information with a grain of salt. Easyjet only flies from Vienna to London Luton airport, and ryanair doesn’t have any flights into or out of Austria at all. Air Berlin has some good options, but then again it’s not nearly as cheap as the other two. (I see you asked your question re:Austria, so I’m assuming that’s where you’ll be studying abroad). Also, the fares on those cheap carriers are still subject to availability and advance purchase restrictions. Buying a ticket on easyjet two month’s in advance can get you some great options—but a week in advance and it becomes just as expensive as any other airfare.

For airfare options when you’re in Austria, you can stop into one of our local branches:
http://branches.statravelgroup.com/framed.php?type=city&id=144

...That’s for Vienna—we also have branches in Graz, Innsbruck, Linz and Salzburg.

Now, for rail travel. Your class schedule sounds ideal—you can take night trains out of the country for long weekends, or start on Friday mornings. There are literally dozens of permutations for rail passes. There is a global pass, which allows you to travel within all 18 countries in the Eurail system*. Since you obviously won’t be traveling every day, your best best would probably be the Flexipass, which would allow you to choose the days you travel on. You can choose 10 or 15 days of non-consecutive travel, and assuming you are under the age of 26, these passes would be $508 or $667, respectively (prices subject to the fluctuations of the Euro!).

However, let’s say you just wanted to travel in countries nearby, like Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Assuming you wanted to travel every weekend, you could get a 10-day non-consecutive pass for just those three countries for $412, or eight days for $357.

Both of these options are very cheap, and I think given the fact that you have such long weekends, the flexibility of the pass (ie, “oh, this weekend I think I’ll go to Italy”) makes it a good option for your trip. Feel free to email me with any questions about the rail pass or about travel in Europe in general: cam@statravel.com.

Cheers!

*The 18 countries on the global pass are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

You can also get a Eurail East Pass, which will only include Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Austria.
You can get a 6 Non Consecutive Day Pass for $211.00. Thats enough time to take weeknd trips to Prague, Budapest and Bratislava. If you get a regular 5 country-pass for western european countries like UK_Franny said, you can still get a Prague Excursion Pass. That will be good from any Czech Border train station into Prague and back. This one is only $65.00!