So far we haven’t ventured to book train tickets from anywhere than our train agency in the city (CFR Arad). I knew I was paying a small premium (about 1.2 euros per ticket for internal fares) and that connecting international tickets always cost more but we liked the security of booking through an agent (being a travel agent myself, I *know* there are certain things which are better bought through them).

But that was until we needed internal tickets in Hungary. And sure as heck I wasn’t going to pay a premium for that. So, I started by checking out mav.hu. Found the trains I needed (Budapest-Eger-Budapest), wrote them down along with the website price.

On our second day in Budapest, we were “sort of close” to Keleti (we were in Heroes Square and for us Keleti would be within walking distance) and decided to go and get those tickets for the next day departure.

Alex asked the lady for a return ticket (x 2 adults) on the trains we needed. We got this:

And froze. We couldn’t see the trains , the return date or figure out if the ticket was a return one.

At the hostel we kept looking at it and figured out the validity (starting the next day we needed to travel), the routing (Budapest – Eger) and that we could get on any “fast” (gyors) train on the route. Actually make that any “gyors” direct train on the route. The price also matched what we found on the website.

The next day, at check out, I ask the guy at the reception and he was nice to help and look up the word which all three of us figured it would be “return”. Several clicks later, we were relieved. And even more so after the ticket was checked in the train and all was good.

Some tips when buying internal tickets in Hungary:

• I am pretty sure that lady working the counter didn’t speak anything else than Hungarian; so either have someone write down for you what to ask or come with a piece of paper and write on it what you need
• you won’t have a seat on the ticket; you can stay anywhere in the second class (tourist)
• you can use any train within the period of validity as long as it’s the same category (“gyors” for us)
• most of these internal trains do not show up on bahn.de
• you can also buy the tickets from mav.hu and the website is nicely translated to English
• ask the ones working at the reception of your hotel/ hostel for help if needed