More and more travelers are choosing trains to reach their destinations, especially in Europe where distances often are perfectly suitable for rail and road travel. As everyone who has booked a cross border train trip in Europe knows, it tends to require time, and willingness to research country specific train schedules. Now, a service called Byway aims at making it is easy to book an entire tour in Europe simply by clicking destinations on a map.
There are two ways to plan a train journey at the Byway service: making use of default itineraries, or using a map for clicking your way across the continent. On the map you can choose your home town, which also allows to change your trip starting point to something else than London.
It is quite impressive how the Byway Map produces a full itinerary with train tickets and hotel reservations for you. The service finds the required train routes, stations where changing trains is needed, and knows where a travelers needs to rest a night in a hotel. Another impressive thing with Byway is that I didn’t encounter the term AI not even once when I explored the features and functions of the service. Please keep it that way (regardless if it is used or not).
Byway is based in London, providing a British view on travel on the European continent. The default starting point for trips is London, and the currency is GBP. The currency can be changed to USD, but that is it – no more options. Travelers who have already toured Europe may want to find more destination options to choose from, but it is still early days for the Byway service, so we expect it to gradually enhance its features and options.
As a concept, the Byway Map service is an excellent start for providing travelers an easy and fast tool to plan and book a train trip in Europe. Some travelers may be happy with the way the current version of the service decides where the traveler will stay and for how long, whereas many other travelers will want much more control to decide where and when they spend the valuable days of their journey.
More news on traveling in Europe by train here.
