Rails Without Borders: Unlocking Europe's Charm with Wise Business

If you've ever dreamt of exploring Europe by train, you're not alone. For many, the idea of hopping on a train and travelling through picturesque countries like Italy or France is on their bucket list. But planning your dream trip can be daunting, especially when you want to visit multiple destinations. That's where Interrail Planner comes in.

Interrail Planner aims to make it easier for people to map out their journey, understand ticket requirements, and book their accommodation, so that they can have the best and most seamless travelling experience possible. We spoke to one of the co-founders, Jack MacHugh, about how they've made train travel across Europe more accessible and enjoyable, and how Wise Business has helped them to send and receive multi-currency payments quickly, transparently and affordably.

The Birth of Interrail Planner

The story of Interrail Planner began in 2013 when Jack and his friend (also Jack) tried to plan a summer interrail trip with a group of friends at their university. He recalls the chaos of coordinating the trip: ''We all had our laptops out on the kitchen table, one had Google Maps out, one had train timetables up, one had hostel booking sites up and another had a spreadsheet up to keep track of it all. Trying to keep track of everything was a bit of a nightmare.''

''There wasn't anything that existed, nothing that really paid specific attention to a multi-destination train trip.''

After spending hours looking around for a tool that would help make the process easier, they realised that none existed. "So we decided to build something ourselves," Jack says.

Three years later, in 2016, Interrail Planner was officially launched. The website offers features that help plan your route, estimate travel times between destinations, help you book accommodation along the way, and track your budget at the same time. There’s also space for notes so no information gets lost. This significantly streamlines the planning process so that by the time you set off, you have everything in one place to keep you organised and on time.

Over the years as Interrail Planner has grown, they have also added more options for an increasingly international clientele: "After the success of Interrail Planner, there are different rail passes around the world you can use. So we then added the Eurail Planner, which is the same sort of ticket as the Interrail pass, but available to non-Europeans to travel around Europe."

Their latest expansion has been a premium offering with additional features such as the overall trip cost estimate, pass tracking, and viewing top rated hostels for each city directly in the planner. Besides Interrail Planner, they have also launched Japan Rail Planner which allows you to plan a trip on Japan's Rail system using the Japan Rail Pass, the first time Interrail Planner has offered travel support outside of Europe.

The Wise Choice for Business

Interrail Planner helps people travel across borders seamlessly - so they needed a way to make money move across borders with as much ease: "We moved to Wise quite a while ago from a traditional UK bank that didn't allow multi-currency holding, charged quite a lot for international payments, and was overall not ideal for our small business'', Jack says.

''It's just a really good app, offering quick payments. We make lots of international payments and it's great to have this kind of visibility of holding in different currencies.''

Explaining the different streams of income, Jack says there are two ways they get paid directly into the Wise Business account. First is being paid in the US Dollars, Euros or British Pounds from their affiliate partners. The second is allowing their premium customers to pay for their services in their local currency.

Wise business

''It's just a very transparent service. You know exactly how much something is going to cost you if it's going to cost you anything at all. Our web developers, Crionis, are based in Croatia and also bank with Wise so we can pay them in their preferred currency without any fees.''

But it’s not just sending and receiving money that makes Wise Business such a good fit for Interrail Planner. With Wise, Jack and Jack have also been able to spend with ease on business trips using their Wise debit cards. They especially enjoy the simplicity of paying in the right currency and quickly tracking expenses: ''The app allows you to quickly take a photo of the receipt, upload it to the app, storing it digitally so there’s no need to keep the paper copy,'' Jack says.

Last but not least, Jack explains that Wise Interest is a great choice for maximising the money they hold in balances: "We use the feature to earn return* across GBP, Euro and USD. So we've been using them, I think, for the past year. We've earned a good amount in that time already if you convert it all together''.

The Future of Interrail Planner

Interrail Planner has grown significantly over the past 7 years. Looking ahead, Jack considers the possibility of expanding to countries like South Korea or China, emphasising the importance of a suitable rail pass system in larger countries in particular. But for now, they're focused on serving their existing users and continually improving their platform.

By choosing Wise Business, Jack and Jack have been able to manage their money across multiple currencies seamlessly, and enjoy fast, transparent and cost-efficient transfers that allow them to run a global business with ease. Wise Business is proud to help them in their mission to make European rail travel accessible, enjoyable and hassle-free.

*Our interest-earning fund is offered through Wise Assets. Capital at risk. Growth not guaranteed.