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There is actually a bus service that goes from Eindhoven airport to Amsterdam: http://www.airexpressbus.com/. Tickets are around €25, I think, one way. Amsterdam to The Hague is €13,20 on the train and The Hague to Eindhoven is a bit more (not sure how much, probably around €20) on the train.
So yeah, I don't think you'll be able to do it much cheaper, unless you hitch hike.
You could also try http://www.blablacar.com/, you can probably get a cheap ride there, between any of the cities.
You should try a car sharing website like Blablacar. http://www.blablacar.com/
You put in where you are and where you want to go and what day and it shows you users of the site who are driving that day with space in their car. The users decide what the want to charge and have reviews from other passengers.
For Andorroa today for example today there are spaces in cars from as cheap as 6 euro up to 18 euro.
I've used it as a driver and a passenger for a few trips to the south of France since it's really expensive to get there by bus / train.
I'm constantly winding them up on facebook (YOU'RE TAKING PASSENGERS FOR MONEY, IT INVALIDATES YOUR INSURANCE, LOLOLOL), but consider BlaBlaCar? It's a carpooling service and exactly what you want. Shouldn't cost you more than a tenner if you carpool with three other people.
Here's their facebook - https://www.facebook.com/blablacar.com - as their site is down for maintenance.
Trains are great, but slightly expensive. Busses are cheap but uncomfortable on the longer stretches. The cheapest option would be finding ride shares through blablacar. Or hitchhiking.
Unless you want to thumb a ride (walking or biking would be difficult even in the warmer months) you could rideshare. I've had success with BlaBlacar. You can get a ride for under 20 euros.
I used to regularly take a long distance train at weekends with my full-size touring bike.
It's a drag. You have to buy your ticket, then make a seperate cycle reservation. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to make it the day before you travel. It is really, really inconsistent.
Most long distance trains have space for three bikes. One is available on a first come, first served basis, and the other two can be booked. If there isn't a space for the bike, you aren't going to be allowed on the train, a pain if you have already paid for a ticket for you.
I wish there was a more satisfactory answer. What I would say is being really, really nice to the staff sometimes makes it possible.
Of course, if you have a folding bike, you can take it with no restrictions at all so long as it's folded. So that's another option.
Honestly? If you can possibly afford a couple of extra days, I'd ride rather than take the train. Lots of different ways to make that journey.
Failing that, how about a lift share? I haven't used any of these services, but they look interesting:
Try checking out blablacar for travel between cities. It's pretty cheap and probably safer than hitchhiking. For example, you could get a ride from Amsterdam to Utrecht for between 2-5 Euro.
You really narrow the location down... West coast of France is tiny. Why not walk from Paris. That, or give us a better location.
or scrounge around the extra €22 to catch a bus.
I flew from London to Newcastle on Flybe for about £40 a couple of years ago, and it gets you there in 45 minutes. I expect to pay £50-80 for a rail ticket depending on how soon I book.
You could check out Blablacar, which is carsharing and is usually cheap.
Standard price seems to be £20, and it's much quicker than the Megabus.
unfortunately, technological advancement is way faster than political action. What will happen? First, the taxi lobbies find some way to block Uber and similar companies, prohibiting specific parts of their service. (it's happening here in Italy, for example) A week later, new regulations will be circumvented by different systems which obtain the same results. (it's happening already, too) Six months later, taxi companies again try to lobby the enforcement of new regulation. The process cannot be faster, due to byzantine procedures of politics. If/when they are succesful, a week later new rules are circumvented by technology, AGAIN. Rinse and repeat. In the meanwhile, taxi companies go broke and disappear (simply by lacking of taxi drivers: old ones retire but are NOT replaced by young), and the public enjoy quality, spending less money. You do not believe me? No problem, services like this speak for themselves. http://www.blablacar.com/
Hi! This is a great idea and but BlaBlaCar is a long-distance ridesharing service, with the average journey offered on our site and app being over 150 miles long. So instead of taking a train/coach, you use BlaBlaCar and get right to the festival and pay much less! For example, if you happen to be going to Latitude next week, you can get there with BlaBlaCar! You can offer and find a ride here:
Offer a ride to Latitude: http://www.blablacar.com/offer-new-seats?mt=7&howto_title=7&howto_image=7&howto_text=7&to=Latitude%20Festival%20NR34%208AN
Find a ride to Latitude: http://www.blablacar.com/search?fn=&fc=&fcc=&tn=latitude+festival%2C+nr34+8an&tc=&tcc=
Hi there. We have a number of safeguards to ensure that you know quite a lot about the people you'll be travelling with! Members have social profiles, with community ratings by other BlaBlaCar members, a connection to their Facebook profile, picture and a quick description and a verified phone number, all with our member relations team monitoring the site 24/7. Also we have found that our passengers tend to chat for at least 15 minutes with their drivers on the phone when finalising plans for their trip :) This way you have a lot of contact with your co-traveller before you meet, so they feel much less like a stranger by the time you share a journey together!
Best regards, Laura from BlaBlaCar. For more information you can check out our FAQ about Trust and Safety: http://www.blablacar.com/trust-safety-insurance
For Valencia I don't know, but I go to Italy quite often. For Rome (and probably other european cities), the fares from Geneva are much more interesting. (easyjet)
For the northern cities (Milano, Torino) Eurolines and other bus companies (idbus according to dClauzel) are the best deal. I think you can find cheap busses to Spain too, if you don't mind long trips. Also http://www.blablacar.com (covoiturage/carpooling).
I prefer the trains because the stations are right in the middle of town. Airports are usually 30+ minutes from town, you have to be there early, etc. I consider most "flight" days to be wasted days. If the train ride is only 3 or 4 hours, you can take the train and still have most of the day to do things.
A good option to consider is http://www.blablacar.com/ You just catch a ride with someone and chip in for gas.
Play around with Rome2rio. If you only take a small bag as carry-on luggage you can use the no-frills flights which can be cheaper and faster than the train and are a better option if you only want to hit a few cities. If you have your heart set on train travel look into the interrail/eurail global pass though I've heard mixed things but that depends on whether you are winging it or if you have a planned itinerary. Even cheaper would be car pooling with something like blablacar though obviously this would take far longer.
Couchsurfing will cut down on costs though hostels will mean you can meet fellow travellers and a nice medium is something like Airbnb.
/r/travel can help for more general advice and if you are going alone /r/solotravel is great. Have fun.
I don't know if you're in the UK but over here we have blablacar which is exactly what you're talking about. Not exactly huge at the moment but it's good if you live in one of the big cities
For transit, also check blablacar and e-podroznik.
What I can also recommend in Lower Silesia is Bolesławiec, for its extensive pottery and beautiful city centre.
You already got a lot of things in Lower Silesia so going in the direction of Kraków will open up for a sheer number of new sites. Opole, Góry Sw. Anny, endless number of Silesian castles, Wisła, Katowice, Kato-Nikiszowiec, Bytom, Oświęcim (Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp), Zywiec, Bielsko-Biała - just to give an overview. Kraków is always worth a visit, but if you want to see more of Upper Silesia, take some more days off from work.
that is a great Idea, keep at it! the rendering in the beginning still really slows it down, at least on a less powerful machine like a netbook. To advance the thing for europe you should get in touch with these guys: http://www.blablacar.com This is probably the biggest ridesharing site in europe, if you could tie this together with other sites into a global network that would be amazing.
I don't know what you're after, but 3 nights in Florence may more more than enough. I won't tell you to skip Florence because it's obviously something to see, but my favourite city in Italy, with the best vibe and still a great "in your face" architecture is Bologna. I find it more pleasant to walk around Bologna than Florence, and it is much less crowded with tourists.
It's on your way to Austria anyway, you'll go through Bologna so why not hop off the train there?
Anyway, your itinerary is ambitious! I know it's good to have things planned, I tend to do that too, but try to organise something that's at the same time planned and flexible. If you meet locals or other travellers (and you will!) it's always nice to be able to adapt and not feel prisoner of your planning.
A very budget solution that's getting popular: BlaBlaCar. It's a car sharing system, people sign up to say they're driving from A to B at a given time, and you can hop on their car for cheaper than a train ride. Cheap bus rides exist, but sometimes with shitty departure/arrival times and they're only cheap if you book in advance. With this system you can find cheap deals at the last minute (right now there's a guy offering Rome-Florence for 13€, which is almost half the price of the cheapest train, and faster).
Thanks that's a really nice helping hand of you! Since I didn't know the existence of 16-25 rail cards
I totally forgot about http://www.blablacar.com/ found some persons who can bring us as cheap as £11 a person but still the megatrain offers are very nice and I think my girlfriend would choose for that option :-)
Public transport is definitely more convenient for international travel. Buses are usually cheaper than trains, but I'm not sure if there are any operating within or out of France. You may also want to consider Bla Bla Car to share a ride with someone going to your destination. If you'll be taking the train, book your tickets early.
Belgium could be a nice choice. You could see Ghent as well as Bruges for a day each while in Belgium, and continue towards Antwerp or perhaps Netherlands to see another one or two cities in a different country. The trains around there are very frequent and convenient.
Switzerland is mostly visited for its countryside (which truly is breathtaking), so I wouldn't stay more than two days in Zurich if you'll be going that way. It's also shockingly expensive, so plan accordingly. You could perhaps try the French-speaking part of Switzerland to further practice your language skills.
TL;DR Go towards Belgium and Netherlands if you want to see cities and urban life, Switzerland for the scenery and nature.
Slightly different experience from Budapest to Lviv. It took me about 18 hours by train and cost around $30 total. Bought tickets at the station immediately before departure.
And here's what is relevant to OP - international trains are often more expensive than going to the border, crossing by foot, and getting back on a train. In the case of Budapest - Lviv I was literally getting on the same train again - I sat there for two hours as they switched the tracks. On the final 7 or so hours to Lviv I had a sleeper, conveniently all to myself for about $9.
Always check out the bus option, too. Sometimes it will be a lot more convenient. For example I went from Lviv - Warsaw. Option 1: Train to border, cross border by foot, train to Warsaw (there are no direct trains). Travel time: ???. Option 2: Bus direct to Warsaw, $25 or so, 10 hours later I'm in Warsaw.
Also check out http://www.blablacar.com
Don't use the rail. Buses are cheaper, also http://www.blablacar.com/ and similar sites work great. I assume you want to go for the full ninety days? If that is the case then you could do this trip on four/five thousand. Assuming you fly from a major airport in the U.S, spend more of your time in places like Italy, Spain and less time in places like Switzerland/ Netherlands, use couch surfing AND avoid things like alcohol and fun. Given your age I would assume your probably going to drop more cash on drinks, festivals and other fun stuff. So now you can add about two thousand to the expense.
you can try BlaBlaCar, a car sharing service. You wont be able to travel 6 person at the same time but you could at least try to find your way to Lisbon and from there some local transport to the festival. http://www.blablacar.com/
Don't forget about http://www.blablacar.com/ for transportation. Looking at my comment history, people will think I work for them, I swear I don't.
Blablacar seems pretty popular in Europe. Lots of people are driving places and you can catch rides with them for gas money. I'm catching a ride from Belgium to Madrid for 70 Euro next week. The cheapest buses cost more than double that.
Trains are the best way to get around these countries, but you have to find special offers. Check if you can get country passes like these ones at a train station or travel agency: http://www.eurail.com/eurail-passes/one-country-pass Busses are not a good choice in France, but car ride sharing works very well. Besides http://www.blablacar.com/ there is also http://www.carpooling.com/
High speed rail tends to be priced like airline fare. There are some cheap seats, but they have to be bought in advance. Try and look for something at least 3 days in advance. If trains are too expensive, you can try buses as an alternative. There is also blah blah car http://www.blablacar.com/ Its a cheap ride sharing program, so if you can time your itinerary with the locals, you might be able to travel for cheap. Can you be more specific - cities etc?