TRAIN TRAVEL tips

Train travel in the United States may not be as common or practical as in other parts of the world, but that does not mean it’s nonexistent — far from it. There are high-speed trains operating on the coast of Florida; there are Amtrak trains that will take you through some of the nation’s most beautiful national parks; there is a train in Colorado that runs at the bottom of a 1,200-foot-deep gorge and one that goes through California’s most celebrated wine region; and there are trains in Alaska that will take you for the ride of a lifetime through the most spectacular scenery — in glass-ceiling cars, no less!

For Americans traveling abroad, few countries are easier to navigate than Germany. Though not technically an English-speaking nation, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone working in tourism who doesn’t speak English. The country has plenty of amazing places to visit, the cities are clean, and travel within the country is blissfully easy. Much of this is thanks to the system of German trains known as Deutsche Bahn: Germany national railway that connects visitors to pretty much anywhere in the country from anywhere else in the country.

From 11,362 feet, summertime in Switzerland’s Jungfrau region looks like a half-colornized photograph. Peering down from the viewing platform at Jungfraujoch, the mountain saddle that connects the Jungfrau and Mönch peaks in the Bernese Oberlands, you can trace the jagged, piny line where the limestone-and-ice mountains melt into the fertile green valleys below.