Why travel by train

Though the 19 hours on the train was long, it helped me relax and ease into the vacation mindset. I arrived at my destination relaxed and calm. The train ride allowed me to approach the trip differently. Although the air on planes is circulated and filtered, making it harder for viruses to spread , I still felt safer on the Amtrak train than on a plane.

Most Amtrak train stations are outside, so I was able to wait outdoors instead of waiting in line at an airport and increasing my chances of exposure to the virus. While the CDC does not recommend long-distance train travel because of how long passengers may be within six feet of one another, I was able to book a roomette, so I was sectioned off from the majority of people on the trip, something I couldn't do on a plane.

Additionally, if someone was coughing near me on the train, I would have more freedom to get up and move away from that person, putting my mind at ease. On a plane, I would be trapped next to the person for the entire flight.

Sometimes people with a history of stroke, respiratory diseases, or who are in the later weeks of pregnancy are advised not to fly by their doctors. Train travel can be the perfect safe alternative for those people. When it comes to carbon emissions and harmful greenhouse gases, planes almost always emit more than trains — usually by a lot. For example, a train between London and Madrid would produce 95 pounds of carbon dioxide, while a plane between the two cities would emit pounds, according to the BBC.

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A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Frank Olito. I took a hour Amtrak train from New York to Chicago and realized there are benefits to train travel.

I didn't have to wait in security lines or squeeze into a small seat. Train travel is also better for the environment. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. There were no long lines like those you see at airports. They opened up about their love for the rails, what ignited it and what keeps them coming back for more. Jim Loomis lives in Hawaii, so the first 3, miles of any trip has to be by air.

My love for trains really began when I was a kid growing up in Connecticut. At the time, my grandparents lived in Ft. Myers, Florida, so every couple of years my family would book a train trip and travel all the way down the East Coast from New York to Florida. I loved it, and as a kid, I found it to be the greatest adventure. But when I went to find literature on North American train travel, there was nothing—and I realized this was a big space I could tap into.

To me, there is no better way to see the vastness of the United States. The ride climbs up 9, feet in Denver and passes through the Moffat Tunnel before following the Colorado River for a couple hundred miles. From there, it goes through several gorges as it makes its way to Salt Lake City. Then it climbs over the Sierras—where you can look down and see the Donner Pass—and chugs on through to Sacramento.

Get to know some other people on the train—learn about their lives, and what brought them to the rails. That, to me, is the most interesting part of long distance train traveling.

Madison Butler lives in Minneapolis and is a communications manager with the non-profit Rail Passenger Association. My biggest train trip has definitely been my favorite. In , right before the pandemic, I traveled to 25 cities in 50 days through an internship with the Rail Passenger Association.

As a teenager, I took a train ride from Chicago to New York and to Canada and saw the potential of what rail infrastructure could look like in smaller communities such as the town I grew up in. As I got older, the high cost of flying and hassle of moving through TSA at the airport definitely pushed me to explore train travel a bit more. Not to mention, driving—and going on road trips—was a big part of my childhood, and I found rail travel to be much more invigorating and convenient.

When you travel by train, you get to travel from city center to city center. By contrast, rail travel claims a measly 1. Ready to take a trip by train? G Adventures can get you on board. Check out our full roster of Rail tours around the world here. From the cliffside villages of Cinque Terre to the aromatic zest of lemons on the Amalfi coast, we make our case through pictures. It largely depends on what you most want to see and do on tour in the land of fire and ice.

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