There’s excellent news in case you are younger and searching for a budget-friendly solution to discover Europe this summer time.
The EU is freely giving virtually 36,000 free rail passes to 18-year-olds below the DiscoverEU scheme.
Launched by Interrail and the EU, the scheme goals to provide younger Europeans the chance to find out about their neighbouring nations and cultures.
These eligible will be capable of discover Europe’s heritage and historical past whereas assembly individuals from throughout the continent.
All you should do is reply six questions.
DiscoverEU: Methods to apply for a free EU rail cross
To be in with an opportunity of profitable a free rail cross, candidates have to be born between 1 July 2006 and 30 June 2007.
The scheme is open to authorized residents of the 27 EU member states or Abroad Nations. Residents of third nations related to the Erasmus+ programme may apply. These embody Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia and Türkiye.
If that’s you, the subsequent stage is to move to the European Youth Portal to take an eligibility quiz.
You’ll have to reply 5 multiple-choice questions in regards to the EU and one extra query. These cowl common information in regards to the EU and its initiatives aimed toward younger individuals.
Additionally, you will be requested to provide extra details about your journey plans. This contains if you plan to journey, whether or not will probably be the primary time you’ve travelled alone with out your dad and mom, what you want to study from the expertise and the way you’ll finance your journey.
This info won’t have any affect on the choice course of.
The Fee will rank candidates primarily based on their EU quiz responses and can supply journey passes following their rating as much as the restrict of accessible tickets.
Purposes are open from 2 April to 16 April 2025.
You can’t apply if in case you have beforehand been given a DiscoverEU cross.
How will the free rail cross scheme work?
Those that show profitable will get a free rail cross to journey in Europe for as much as 30 days between 1 July 2025 and 30 September 2026.
On the software stage, you possibly can select to both journey alone or with a gaggle of as much as 5 buddies. For those who select to journey as a gaggle, you possibly can share your software code with your folks to permit their registration.
Solely the group chief has to reply the EU quiz questions; group members simply want to provide private knowledge to finish the applying and fulfil the age and residency standards.
The journey cross can be utilized in your residency nation just for one outbound and one inbound journey. It should embody journey to at the very least one different nation eligible below the scheme.
The general journey can final from at some point as much as a most of 1 month, together with as much as seven journey days.
Contributors will typically be eligible for a cross price as much as €283.26 in second or financial system class. The quantity could also be raised for candidates travelling from distant or abroad areas.
In some circumstances, coach and ferry passes will probably be included too. To make sure younger individuals residing in distant areas or on islands aren’t excluded, flights might also be awarded in distinctive circumstances. Choice will all the time be given to essentially the most sustainable choice.
For those who’re one of many fortunate awardees, additionally, you will be given a European Youth Card (EYCA) legitimate for one yr. This grants reductions for cultural visits and actions, studying, nature, sports activities, native transportation, lodging, meals and extra throughout the EU.
How will candidates for the free rail cross be chosen?
Candidates will probably be chosen as much as the out there finances and ranked following the correctness of their replies.
There’s a quota of journey passes set for every nation. If a rustic has fewer purposes than the quota, the remaining passes will probably be distributed to nations with the next variety of purposes.
If there are too many eligible candidates, a ‘first come, first served’ precept will apply – that means earlier purposes may very well be favoured as a final resort.
Particular help is out there for contributors with disabilities or well being situations.
Profitable candidates will probably be notified by e mail after the choice interval has resulted in Might.
They’ll then be linked with an EU contractor who will care for the journey bookings and funds.
Passes bought immediately by the chosen candidates won’t be reimbursed.
Is something anticipated in return for the free rail passes?
Once you apply for a free cross, you might be invited to develop into a ‘DiscoverEU Ambassador’. This implies you might be inspired to report again in your journey experiences by social media or college and group shows.
The scheme’s app will permit you to create a customized map of your itinerary with statistics on the variety of trains taken, variety of nations visited and CO2 financial savings, which will be shared on social media.
Younger travellers can even have to report again in a web-based survey after participating within the scheme.
On its completion, travellers will obtain a certificates of participation highlighting competencies and expertise gained from their journey expertise.