Trains in France: How to Travel Fast and Comfortably Without a Car

My parents never had a driver’s license, and I didn’t get mine until I was 25 (and I’ve hated driving ever since). Since I’ve been traveling around France since I was three years old (first with my parents, and later on my own), I’ve gotten to know France largely by train.

As you’ll see, there are quite a few advantages to traveling by train, and the point of this article is to give you everything you need to know about trains in France so you can get anywhere in this wonderful country quickly, easily and comfortably. But before we start, here’s a short video showing you the range of places a train can take you.

Trains in France: Three Advantages and Three Disadvantages

Before we dive in and talk about where to buy train tickets, the types of trains, and more, let’s start with a few words about the advantages and disadvantages of traveling by train, so you can decide whether it’s better for you to get around by train and public transportation, rent a car, or do both.

Advantages of traveling by train

Advantage 1: No driver’s license needed

Okay, this is probably the most obvious advantage. If you don’t have a driver’s license, or you simply hate driving, the train becomes your ultimate mode of transportation, since it can take you almost anywhere in France.

Advantage 2: Comfort

There’s no need to find parking, refuel, pick up the car, return the car, and stay focused on the road. All you need to do is buy a ticket, get on the train, and settle into your seat. In that sense, a train is even more comfortable than a plane, since the seats are roomier and, in most cases, there’s even Wi-Fi to help you pass the time pleasantly.

Advantage 3: Speed

This is a huge advantage over domestic flights. If you factor in the time it takes to get to the airport, go through security, wait for the plane, land, wait for your luggage, and then get to the city center, in a lot of cases you’ll find that the net travel time by train is shorter than by plane.

And the truth is that in many cases, the train will get you to your destination faster than a car, since it won’t get stuck in traffic and won’t have to drive on narrow roads where the speed limit is no more than 60 km/h.

Disadvantages of traveling by train

Disadvantage 1: Price

Train tickets in France aren’t cheap and can cost many tens of euros per direction (depending on the distance, class and season, of course). So if you’re a family traveling around France, it’s quite possible that a rental car plus gas will end up costing less than a family’s train tickets.

Disadvantage 2: Lack of flexibility with schedules

If you’re an independent type who loves your freedom and likes to be spontaneous, the train isn’t for you. When you travel by train, you’re committing to a pretty rigid schedule. Missed your train? You’ll probably have to wait another long hour, or even more, at the station (depending on the train, of course). And trust me, if it’s a small station in the middle of nowhere, that’s not a very pleasant experience.

Disadvantage 3: You can’t get everywhere (at least not easily)

In my opinion, this is the biggest disadvantage of the train, and it’s what makes me rent a car so often, even though I hate driving. Trains, and public transportation in general, are great for city trips. But if you want to explore the small villages and châteaux, you’ll often find that no train goes there (or maybe one or two a day). This also affects your choice of accommodations quite a bit, since some of the most charming places, like the château Manoir de la Chausée, are far from public transportation routes.

Where should you buy train or bus tickets?

My clear answer to this question is: buy online.

Just like with attractions, hotels, and of course flights, buying through the right websites lets you save quite a bit of money, and even more importantly, save time. That’s because not only do you avoid standing in line at the ticket counter, you don’t even need to validate your ticket (which saves you a lot of unpleasant run-ins with ticket inspectors. Thanks to Orna Liberman for that tip).

There are several recommended websites for booking train and bus tickets, and I’ve gathered them all in The Francophile’s Toolkit. Feel free to check it out, compare prices across sites (since sometimes there are big differences), and buy the ticket that works best for you.

Types of trains in France

While you’re searching for the train that works best for you, you’ll come across several types of trains, and to avoid confusion, I thought it would help to say a few words about each one.

TGV

TGV stands for Train à Grande Vitesse, or in English: high-speed train. These are super-fast trains (maybe second only to Japan’s) and they’ll get you to your destination quickly and comfortably. Here are a few examples:

• Paris, Reims: 45 minutes
• Paris, Dijon: 1 hour 35 minutes
• Paris, Lyon: 2 hours
• Paris, Bordeaux: 2 hours
• Paris, Strasbourg: 2 hours 25 minutes
• Paris, Avignon: 2 hours 40 minutes
• Paris, Marseille: 3 hours

TER

TER stands for Trains Express Régionaux, though in practice these aren’t always especially fast trains. These trains run within a specific region, and unlike the TGV, which only takes you to the big cities, the TER can also get you to small towns and villages.

Thalys

This is a high-speed train that connects France to its neighbors Germany and the Netherlands.

Important: these trains pass through several major French cities, but you can’t use them for trips within France itself, only to neighboring countries.

Eurostar

As far as I’m concerned, this train has exactly one function: to bring Francophiles lucky enough to be in London straight to Paris at the highest possible speed. If you’ve decided to make the trip the other way around, feel free to unfriend me 🙂

RER

These are the Paris suburban trains that can take you to all kinds of attractions around Île-de-France (Disneyland Paris, the Palace of Versailles, and more). I wrote about the RER in my article on getting around Paris, so I won’t go into more detail here.

Paris train stations and where you can go from them

Since many of you will start your trip in Paris and head out from there to explore the magical regions of France, I thought it would be worth saying a few words about each of the main train stations in Paris, so you’ll know which trains leave from where.

Gare du Nord

This is the oldest train station in Paris, serving the northern part of France. Here are a few of the places you can reach from it:

• Charles de Gaulle Airport
• Château de Chantilly
• The city of Lille
• Brussels
• Cities in Germany and the Netherlands
• London

And by the way, if you’re already there and have a few hours to explore Paris, let me recommend the walking route Stepping out of the Gare du Nord: a walk through the 10th and 9th arrondissements.

Gare de l’Est

This station is just a short distance from Gare du Nord (both are in the 10th arrondissement). From here you can reach the following places:

• Strasbourg
• Provins, a medieval town not far from Paris.
• Nancy
• Metz
• Various cities in Germany

Gare de Montparnasse

This is the train station that takes travelers from Paris to western France. Among other places, you can reach the following through it:

• Chartres
• Blois and other cities in the Loire Valley.
• Nantes
• Rennes
• Saint-Malo
• Bordeaux

And by the way, if you’re in the area, feel free to take the walking route following in the footsteps of Montparnasse’s bohemian past.

Gare de Lyon

Trains to southern France leave from this station, and you can use it to reach the following places:

• Lyon
• Avignon
• Dijon
• Milan

Gare d’Austerlitz

This is a very old, but relatively small, train station. From here you can get to the Loire Valley, to cities like Orléans, but also to Nice, Toulon and Limoges.

Gare St. Lazare

This train station is located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, and from it you can reach Normandy, to cities such as Évreux and Le Havre.

COVID guidelines for train travel

Unfortunately, since 2020 there’s been another invisible and unwelcome travel companion on train trips: COVID-19. To deal with the pandemic, the French government has put in place a series of guidelines and restrictions that affect, among other things, public transportation. Since these guidelines keep changing, I’ve gathered them all in one place, so before you decide whether or not to take the train, it’s a good idea to check out the article COVID guidelines in France to see what’s changed.

Tips for traveling by train

Before we wrap up this article, let me give you a few important tips about trains in France.

Book your tickets as far in advance as possible

The further in advance you book your tickets, the lower the prices will be. Either way, I highly recommend not booking at the station, both because the price will usually be higher and because of how much time it takes.

Don’t forget to validate your ticket

You’ll find validation machines on the train platforms. If you bought your ticket at the counter, don’t board the train before validating your ticket. If the ticket inspector sees that your ticket hasn’t been validated, you could get fined, and that would be a shame. As I mentioned, this rule doesn’t apply if you bought your ticket online through one of the sites I recommended.

First class costs less than you think

I always figured that, just like with planes, a first-class train ticket would cost a fortune. But one time, when I booked tickets online, I discovered that it’s not as bad as all that, and sometimes the upgrade only costs a relatively small amount extra. If that’s the case, I highly recommend buying a first-class ticket, since it gives you more space and a lot more comfort, which makes long trips much more pleasant.

Even if you’ve decided to rent a car, it’s a good idea to take the train too

For example, let’s say you’ve decided to explore Paris and Brittany. If you pick up the car in Paris and return it in Brittany, you’ll have to drive quite a few hours on fairly boring roads and burn a lot of gas. On the other hand, if you take the train from Paris to Nantes and rent the car there, and return it there too, you’ll save both money and quite a bit of time.

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