Overland Poland to London

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Hi there, my boyfriend and I are travelling overland from Poland to London.  We'll start in Warsaw, then Krakow, then Vienna, then Zurich.  After Zurich we'll spend some time in Italy and France (Rome and Paris and some other cities yet to be decided) and then we'll take the EuroStar to London (which is already purchased).

Having read a few posts on this forum and others, it seems that we would be best to avoid buying rail passes.  What would be the cheapest ways to travel between the cities that I've listed? 

Ideally we'd prefer to buy tickets a few days or so in advance at the station, so that we can be spontaneous with our travel rather than booking and planning everything ahead of time.  Can you suggest which tickets we'd be best to buy in advance (and how far in advance) and which tickets we'll be OK leaving till the last minute.

Thanks. 

Since a big part of your trip will be through rather expensive Western European countries, then the regular fare tend to be rather high, so buying before departure(=paying regular fare) won't save you anything. But, nevertheless, let us see what can be done with your plan.

Warsaw-Krakow can be done cheaply by use of TLK trains (try to use non-stop TLK trains which go by direct route-takes <3 hours) instead of EIC (51 PLN vs. 110 PLN in regular fare tariff).

Krakow-Vienna: you might be lucky to get discounted tickets (start from 29 euro), but those you need to purchase at least 3 days in advance at the station. Regular fare is app. 60 euro, but there are ways to save with "break" of tickets and changes, so if you are interested - ask

Vienna-Zurich: better to buy ticket some time in advance from OEBB website - https://ticket.oebb.at/bin/frame_ticket.pl?ticket=jticket.pl?ABBFSEL=8100003&ANBFSEL=8503000&LANG=EN 
We just checked - even for tomorrow there are still some discounted tickets available, so you can be almost flexible here. Summer might be a little bit more busy, but you still have good chances to buy cheap tickets for the nearest dates.

Zurich-Italy: you can't take advantage of Click&Rail offer to Italy any more, so your only option is SmartPrice (http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/en/reiselust/europareisen/laender/italien/italien-angebote.htm). Regular fare is rather high, but you can save by taking the advantage from SBB Supersaver ticket from Zurich to the border (station Chiasso) - from 23 CHF (https://www.sbb.ch/mct/wi/shop/b2c/adw.do?sprache=en&artikelnummer=4004), after purchase domestic Italian ticket.

Italy to France: Regular fares are expensive, so try to "hunt" SmartPrice discounted tickets (from 30 euro)

Feel free to ask further questions.

That's great, thanks for all the info and links that you provided.  We'll have a close look and try and book the expensive ones with a bit of notice.

The other option we are considering, having read up a little now, is to see about buying a TCV ticket from Poland for the cities that we def want to go to - the one that's valid for 2 months.  It sounds like this is a hop-on, hop-off type situation and if we decided to visit some extra places along the way, we could just pay for side trips as we go.  How do you think this would compare?  Do we just go to the train station with a list of places we want to visit and get them to give us a quote there?

Really appreciate your advice.  It is a daunting and confusing exercise but very much looking forward to our holiday, once we have all this sorted.

Thanks again,
KP

And yes, please give us some other info on "break" of tickets and changes...we will be happy to save money wherever we can 

If you are interested in "hop-in/hop-off ticket" as you called regular tariff TCV ticket, then let us count:
Krakow-Bohumin-Breclav-Vienna-Salzburg-Innsbruck-Buchs-Zurich ticket will cost app. 135 euro. This ticket is rather easy and almost definitely cashiers in Krakow will not have any problems with issuing it, but "longer" ticket like Krakow-Vienna-Zurich-Italy would probably be puzzling to them, so it is better just to purchase second separate ticket Zurich-Milan (can be done already in Zurich) - no need to pay expensive international tariff for domestic Italian part, you just later buy Milan-Rome domestic Italian ticket. TCV ticket Zurich-Milan will cost app. 50 euro
For Rome-Paris route TCV ticket doesn't really make sense due to the huge distance, so it is easier and simpler to use domestic tickets if you plan to travel the route with multiple stops.
Resume: TCV tariff ticket is worth it only if you plan to travel with many stops in countries with high domestic tariff (like Austria, Switzerland, Germany). In your case, for the most parts of your journey you can get either discounted or relatively cheap ticket, so you need to think twice before going with TCV ticket option - count possible stopovers on the route, compare total fare with sum of discounted tickets etc.

Krakow-Vienna cheaper, but with changes: buy full regular fare ticket Krakow-Breclav (last Czech station before Austrian border), the fare is 26.6 euro, then go to https://eshop.cd.cz/international/search_cd-obb.aspx and purchase discounted ticket Brno-Vienna for 9 euro (do it at least 3 days in advance). All the trains coming from Brno to Vienna pass through Breclav, so you just board the train there (instead of riding from the Brno) and enjoy your cheap ride to Vienna. Take a look at timetable and make sure to plan the most comfortable connection between Krakow-Breclav and Breclav-Vienna trains. Total ticket Krakow-Breclav-Vienna=35.6 euro
Other option: get off the train in Breclav and simply buy full ticket Breclav-Vienna for the next train, costs app. 20 euro.
Regular full fare Krakow-Vienna is app. 60 euro, so with first option you save 25 euro, with second one - 15 euro. All these with minimal time loss. Remember to try to purchase discounted Krakow-Vienna ticket first, then you will not need all those tricks