Women Who Travel Podcast: The Romance and Reality of Sleeper Trains

28.09.2023 - 13:43 / cntraveler.com

You can listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify each week. Follow this link if you're listening on Apple News.

Glamorous, exciting, and often nostalgic—when at its best (and let’s be clear, no two journeys are made equal) seeing the world by train can be all of those things and more, especially if you’re on a sleeper train. After all, what could be more exciting than going to sleep in one country and waking up in another? Lale chats with Monisha Rajesh—friend of the podcast and author of books like Around the World in 80 Trains and Epic Train Journeys—about her recent travels by sleeper, and we hear from a listener who took an epic solo train journey across Canada.

All products featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Lale Arikoglu: Hi. I'm Lale Arikoglu and this is Women Who Travel. We love talking about train travel on this podcast. Glamorous, exciting, relaxing, and often nostalgic when at its best and, let's be clear, no two journeys are made equal. Seeing the world by train can be all of those things and more, especially if you're on a sleeper train. After all, what could be more exciting than going to sleep in one country and waking up in another?

Monisha Rajesh: Every single time. It doesn't matter how long it's been in between my travels. I really feel it every time I get onboard and I see something new outta the window or discover something fun about trains that I've never known before.

LA Today's guest is a friend of the podcast, Monisha Rajesh, who spoke to us almost a year ago about train journeys across India. She's written several books, including Around the World in 80 Trains and Epic Train Journeys, and she's currently well into the research for her next book on sleeper trains. She has lots of practical advice about how to make the most of the experience.

Monisha Rajesh: I've just come back from Norway where I did the sleeper train during the midnight sun. It's the [laughs] strangest feeling 'cause your Circadian rhythms are completely thrown out of whack. You're staring out of the window watching the sun not quite go down, but it's sort of orange-y red and then the sky gets these indigo-sort of shards and then it just doesn't ever go dark. And within an hour, the sun starts to sort of take off again from behind the cloud and it just, it's, it's so odd to see. And at 3:00 in the morning you can see people on the edge of the fjords waste deep fishing out of boats and hiking and you see a lot of this from the train window. And again, I have that feeling of, this is why I do this, because I wouldn't see this if I was flying.

This summer I went to Scandinavia