Taking taxis everywhere drains a budget fast. What to check in a new city.
Most cities offer a transit card or combined pass available to visitors. It costs less than buying tickets each time and lets you travel without needing the language. More cities now accept foreign contactless cards straight at the gate, so checking whether yours works before departure saves trouble.
How fares are calculated changes the shape of a day. Distance-based fares make far-flung plans expensive, while an unlimited day pass favours hopping on and off repeatedly. In zone-based cities the fare jumps the moment you cross a boundary, so which zone your accommodation sits in drives the whole transport budget.
In many cities buying the ticket is not the end. You must validate it before boarding by stamping it in a machine or tapping a reader, and without that a ticket you paid for counts as fare evasion. This is most common in cities without barriers, and the penalty can be dozens of times the fare.
First and last services differ widely between cities, and many run different timetables at weekends. When planning an evening out, confirm how you will get back first. Some cities run all-night lines, but even there they may operate only at weekends.
Downloading the area in a map application before departure lets you navigate without a connection. Live arrival data needs a signal, but route and stop locations alone solve most problems. In cities where station names appear only in the local script, saving your destination name in advance helps.
Each button runs this keyword on that search engine