SNFC issues and not enough carriages: Amsterdam to Barcelona sleeper train delayed

Travelling across Europe by both plane and train is set to get easier thanks to a new partnership between Eurostar and a global airline alliance.

In October 2022, I took a two-week backpacking trip through Europe, where I slept in shared train cabins and budget Airbnbs.

Summer vacations to Europe don’t have to mean sea and sand. Fresh water is equally as appealing, and the continent’s most beautiful lake regions are simply stunning year-round. Lake Como’s crystal clear water, dramatic scenery, picturesque villages, and five-star hotels — not to mention A-list celebrity visitors — have contributed to the region’s reputation for being the most romantic (and luxurious) lake in Europe. And while this is very true, Como is breathtaking, across the continent are other bodies of water that deserve attention. From the shores of Lough Corrib in Ireland, where you can stay in an ancient castle, to the limpid turquoise water of Lake Päijänne in Finland, where you can sleep overnight in a floating hotel made entirely of glass, these are the best lakes in Europe for a luxury vacation.

There are two types of train trip: The long, slow, and often luxurious train journey that takes you through beautiful scenery that you book specifically to spend time on the rails; and the speedy, no-nonsense, cheap train ride you take to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. In the first category, you’ll find grand trips like Australia’s The Ghan, South Africa’s Blue Train, and Britain’s Caledonian Sleeper. In the second, there are trips from London to Brussels in just two hours, from Rome to Venice in four hours, and from Miami to Orlando in three hours. And if you’re a train traveler who belongs to the second category and likes getting places fast without flying, there are plenty of trains in this world that do just that at speeds previously unimaginable on land, including the fastest train in the world and its closest competitors.

Istanbul is undeniably the most well-know part of Türkiye, but it’s far from being the only one worth visiting. If you’re keen to explore the country further but want to keep your carbon footprint down, you can opt to travel by train. The rail network in Türkiye is relatively extensive, with high-speed trains linking Istanbul to Ankara, Konya, and Sivas, local trains, long-distance routes, sleeper trains, and even touristic trains covering large swathes of the country. The Mesopotamia Express, a sleeper train that travels 653 miles across Anatolia is Türkiye’s latest touristic, long-distance sleeper rail offering.

Amsterdam, like many other European cities, is facing an overtourism problem. The numbers don’t lie. In the year 2000, the Dutch capital broke a record when it welcomed over 4 million visitors. In 2019, the city’s enthusiasm for unbridled tourism had curbed: 10.2 million visitors came to Amsterdam, which has a population of about 820,000, that year and spent 21.8 million nights in the city.

Train travel has been growing in popularity for the past couple of years and there’s no sign showing that this trend is going to stop any time soon. According to Eurail, the big boss of train travel in Europe, “more than 1,237,000 Interrail and Eurail Passes were sold in 2023, a 25 percent growth from 2022.” To satisfy the ever-growing demand for rail travel, new train operators are popping up and offering new exciting routes, especially crowd-pleasing overnight routes. That’s the case of rail operator European Sleeper which launched in May 2023.

Singapore has risen to the top of a ranking of the world’s strongest passports, knocking Spain off the top spot.

Waiheke Island, off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, is known to attract a wealthy crowd.

What is not allowed in a plane carry-on can sometimes be unclear for many travelers—especially in light of the recent back-and-forth on the 100ml liquid limit in the UK and EU.

Sep 17, 2024 • 5 min read

A new high-speed train is set to link Barcelona and Malaga in under six hours.