787 Free InterRail Tickets for Young Hungarians

The European Commission announced on Wednesday that 35,762 young Europeans, including 787 Hungarians, will receive free European train tickets this spring under the European Union's DiscoverEU program.

According to the Brussels-based information, the winners of the latest DiscoverEU program, part of the EU's Erasmus+ program, will be able to travel across Europe from March 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026, alone or in groups of up to five people.

More than 135,000 applications were received in the call for applications - 2,955 from Hungary.

The press release issued in Brussels quoted Glenn Micallef, EU Commissioner for Intergenerational Equality, Youth, Culture and Sport, as saying that the DiscoverEU program is a life-changing experience. Not only do the participants get to see Europe, but the experiences they gain from their travels add to their personalities," the Commissioner said.

The selected young people can also use other means of transport, such as buses, ferries, etc., in addition to trains, to get to as many places as possible in the EU, and in exceptional cases, the pass can also be used for air travel.

In addition to the free travel card, participants will also receive a discount card with more than 40,000 offers for public transport, culture, accommodation, dining, sports and other services.

This call for applications was open to young people aged 18 born between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006. In addition to nationals of EU countries, young people from non-EU countries associated to Erasmus+, such as Northern Macedonia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Serbia or Turkey, were also eligible to apply.

This was the eleventh round of the DiscoverEU program. So far, more than one million young Europeans have taken advantage of the opportunity, with almost 30,000 young people from Hungary applying and just over 6,000 having already traveled with such train passes, based on the national quota.