I recently returned from my first cross country trip via Amtrak. I have always enjoyed the physical sensation of being on a train, the sounds, the movement, it triggers a lot of the same feelings in me as being on a boat. I am a little bit on the ASD spectrum and have certain sensory preferences for motion. When I was a toddler, I used to ride on a rocking horse until I fell asleep, fell off, got back up, and started riding again. I also love swings and hammocks.

If that was all that the train had going for it, I would have been tempted to ride it forever but there was more. The food was quite good, the price was reasonable, the staff were friendly, the accommodations were comfortable compared to a bus or an airplane, the scenery was interesting, there were veggie food options, and the time on the train flew by. I absolutely will be taking more trains in the future. It’s the most civilized and low stress vacation travel I have ever experienced.

We were on the Empire Builder on the run from the midwest (starting in Saint Paul) to the Pacific northwest (we got off in Vancouver WA). This route passes through northwestern Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington and travels 1430 miles according to the interwebs. It takes approximately 38 hours to travel that distance. This sounds like a long time compared to a flight or even driving (if you drove straight through, you could do the drive in 28 hours or so, I know from experience) but since you are moving even when you are sleeping, it feels faster than doing the road trip version. After all, driving straight through for 28 hours isn’t something I would choose to do most of the time. Even then there are stops, including rest breaks, coffee pit stops, gas ups, and realistically I would do at least one overnight to break that kind of trip up these days.

A hypothetical road trip itinerary might look something like:

  1. Get on the road by 8:00 on Saturday morning
  2. Drive 12-16 hours (lunch and dinner stops or just eat car snacks or hit drive thrus)
  3. Rest area or motel room or some other stopover to sleep Saturday night
  4. Back on the road Sunday morning, cover remaining 12-16 hours of driving
  5. Arrive Sunday night at accommodations, exhausted, go to bed
  6. Wake up Monday morning, start vacation

The train journey home looked like this, for comparison:

  1. Board train in Vancouver early Friday evening, eat dinner on train and read books and look at scenery until it’s too dark
  2. Eventually go to bed
  3. Wake up Saturday morning, coffee and breakfast in the dining car, take a shower, etc.
  4. Watch Glacier National Park cruise by the window for a few hours, read some books, play some video games, relax
  5. Grab lunch in the dining car again, take little walks, get out of the train to stretch your legs at a stop or two
  6. Dinner in the room, movie on a laptop, lights out and off to bed
  7. Wake up Sunday morning, grab breakfast, arrive in Saint Paul

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love road trips. I’ve been taking them my entire adult life. I love driving. I’m a car person. But, truth be told, I arrived back in Saint Paul rested, well fed, relaxed, and was even able to spend some time on Sunday unpacking, clearing snow from the driveway, and then doing some further reading and relaxing to extend my vacation. Those extra hours on the train were mostly spent sleeping anyhow so the perceived time of the journey was less on the train even if the actual time was probably longer.

I am already investigating how to take the train the next time I need to head down to Arkansas and visit Nuclear Gopher South. This is my new favorite way to travel.