This site shows you all the destinations within 5 hours by train

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This is the kind of brilliant initiative that we like at Destination(s) Europe. At a time when air travel, especially for short distances, is blacklisted, there is a site that may help you reduce your carbon footprint. Is it really responsible to go by air, at the cost of burning tons of kerosene, when the rail can take us to our destination with an almost comparable travel time? Whatever your opinion, after reading this article, you will no longer be able to say that you do not know of a more eco-friendly alternative.

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Indeed, the Chronotrain.eu site allows you to see all the destinations available within 5 hours by train from a station of your choice in Europe. An orange colour gradient indicates those within one, two, three, and four hours. It works for many countries in the European Union, as well as for Norway, the United Kingdom and even Ukraine. However, at the time of writing these lines, the Baltic countries and the Western Balkans are missing from the list.

The lines are not visible but you will realize, for example, that it is possible to go to Pau from Paris by train in less than five hours. But Pau is served by Air France and Transavia from the capital and it’s still faster by plane, you might say. Are you sure?

Example: Paris-Pau, by train or plane?

Let’s say you live in the centre of Paris. It will take you a good hour’s drive (or RER B) to reach Roissy Charles-de-Gaulles airport. Then a good hour and a half, at least, to check in your luggage, go through security, and finally board. Add to that the 1h30 of flight then 30 additional minutes to collect your luggage and leave Pau Pyrénées Airport. Finally, it will take 30 further minutes to reach the city centre via bus line 10… Do the math. This results in at least five hours, and involves a multitude of not very pleasant sequences.

While travelling by train, you can sit comfortably in the TGV which either makes the journey direct in 4h15 or, with a connection in Dax, 5h30. Admit that the journey will be more pleasant and, above all, more eco-friendly!

You will therefore still have to look a little for the best route, but you now know which destinations it is possible to visit within five hours from your home by train.