Now that spring is beginning and the corona rules are apparently being relaxed, it is a pleasure to start planning trips.

How is it more environmentally friendly to travel far away than by train?

This is usually cheaper than you think, and yet it is worth looking for ways to save even when traveling by train.

One of them is not to book tickets abroad with Deutsche Bahn, but with the railway company in the destination country.

That's not complicated.

Manfred Koehler

Head of department of the Rhein-Main editorial team of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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When traveling by train to Austria, it is always worth visiting the website of the Austrian Federal Railways, which

can be found at

oebb.at.

The search engine is a little more complicated than that of Deutsche Bahn, but you can save money on that.

For example, if you decide to leave Frankfurt Central Station at 8.22 a.m. on April 11th for the beautiful Gmunden am Traunsee, you paid 67.90 euros for a second-class ticket with Deutsche Bahn without a Bahncard.

Comparison is easy

The same ticket was available from the Austrian Federal Railways for EUR 46.90.

The difference on the return trip is even clearer: On April 18, that is Easter Monday, the train at 12:36 p.m. from Gmunden costs 89.90 euros on Deutsche Bahn, while Austrians only pay 46.90 euros.

This is not a law, for connections to Vienna around Easter time, the Austrian Federal Railways were more expensive.

But the five minutes it takes to pull up a second home page could be helpful -- even if the savings are just enough for a brown or extended one with a view of the Austrian mountains.

The situation is similar for France.

The state railways there, which operate under the abbreviation SNCF, have a German-language website (the website

sncf.connect.com

is helpful ), so that the comparison is also easy.

On April 14, Maundy Thursday, a trip with the ICE at 6.56 a.m. from Frankfurt to Paris in second class on Deutsche Bahn has cost 79.90 euros in the past few days, on the SNCF only 65 euros.

For the return journey on Easter Monday, the TGV at 9.04 a.m. from Paris Est would cost 119.90 euros for Deutsche Bahn and 70 euros for SNCF.

In this case, too, there are counter-examples in which the French charge more than the Germans, but the same applies here: It is definitely worth comparing.