Cross-border travel planning has long meant juggling multiple tabs, timetables, and booking sites just to answer a simple question: is there a direct train or bus, and is it worth taking over a flight? A Swiss software firm is now tackling that friction head-on with a quartet of free tools, each designed to resolve a single travel query with clarity and speed.
Goldcote Ltd today unveiled four free travel websites, each focused on answering one specific question well. PickTheTrain and PickTheBus confirm whether a direct train or bus operates between two cities in different countries, PickTheHotel recommends a single hotel with a rationale, and PickTheTravel combines all of these to build a complete itinerary from a single sentence.
PickTheBus verifies whether a single bus, with no transfers, runs between two cities in different countries, along with its schedule and a door-to-door comparison against train and plane options. The service covers 1,280 cities in 38 countries, 12,054 city pairs, and roughly 3,000 international buses daily from 16 operators including FlixBus, BlaBlaCar Bus, RegioJet, National Express, Bus Éireann, Translink, and Greyhound. Overnight routes are also featured, such as Twiliner, the Zurich-based sleeper bus service.
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Four Swiss-built sites answer one travel question each: is there a direct train or bus across the border, where to stay, and how to plan the whole trip.
PickTheTrain addresses whether a direct cross-border train exists between two cities, how frequently it runs, its speed, and whether it beats flying door to door. The database spans high-speed, intercity, and night trains across 320 cities in 30 countries and 2,526 city pairs, mainly in Europe, with additional coverage for routes across US state lines, into Canada, and in parts of Asia. It also lists 1,203 cross-border sleeper routes in Europe with times and running nights, plus 25 famous rail journeys including the Glacier Express, the Orient Express, and the Trans-Siberian, detailing whether and when each operates. At Swiss stations, city pages even display the planned platform.
PickTheHotel takes a different approach from typical booking portals: instead of a long list, it recommends the single best hotel in a city based on the traveller’s preferences—whether that means the finest, best value, a budget stay, or a family stay—and explains the reasoning. The picks weigh reviews, value, a genuinely central location, and whether family rooms truly fit, and hotels cannot pay to be selected. The service covers 335 cities in 80 countries, can locate a hotel near a landmark or the traveller’s current location, and shows only hotels actually available for the chosen dates with a live refundable price. PickTheHotel is also accessible as an app inside ChatGPT.
PickTheTravel lets users type a trip in one sentence, such as “Paris to Zurich 10 to 12 Nov,” and returns nonstop flights, a hotel with a live price, direct trains and buses, and a door-to-door comparison of train versus plane. It understands holiday regions, so “Zurich to Lapland” returns flights to Lapland’s closest airports. Travellers can save a trip and receive reminders and a note if a timetable changes.
Each of the four sites sends travellers to the airline, rail operator, or bus company’s own website, or to the hotel booking. All use official published timetables and data from the operators, refreshed every week, and offer connections for AI assistants so they can use the same answers.
Planning a trip across a border still means checking several websites. Each of our sites answers one question clearly, and PickTheTravel puts the answers together.”— Sylvain Gordon-Horwood, Founder, Goldcote LtdZüRICH, SWITZERLAND, November 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — For travellers in Switzerland, the sites cover cross-border connections from Swiss cities by train and coach, including night trains, the Glacier Express, and coach routes such as Geneva to Lyon and Zurich to Munich and Milan.
“Planning a trip across a border still means checking several websites to find out something simple: is there a direct train or bus, and is it better than flying?” said Sylvain Gordon-Horwood, founder of Goldcote Ltd. “Each of our sites answers one of those questions clearly, and PickTheTravel puts the answers together.”
The sites are available now at https://pickthetrain.com, https://pickthebus.com, https://pickthehotel.com and https://pickthetravel.com.
About Goldcote Ltd
Goldcote Ltd develops software and websites, including the travel sites PickTheTrain, PickTheBus, PickTheHotel and PickTheTravel, and the MoltenRock family of Mac apps. More information: https://goldcote.com & https://moltenrock.com
FlixBus, BlaBlaCar Bus, RegioJet, National Express, Bus Éireann, Translink, Greyhound, Twiliner, Glacier Express, Orient Express and ChatGPT are trademarks of their respective owners. PickTheTrain, PickTheBus, PickTheHotel and PickTheTravel are not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
Sylvain Gordon-Horwood
Goldcote Ltd
contact@goldcote.com
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Four free travel websites for Europe, and one sentence plans the whole trip.
Why it matters: By consolidating timetable data across borders and operators into single-purpose tools, these sites could reduce the time and guesswork involved in sustainable travel planning. If adopted widely, they may encourage more travellers to consider rail and bus alternatives over short-haul flights, supporting broader efforts to cut transport emissions.
