‘In a modern world – as someone wrote – where traveling between destinations is viewed as a waste of time and resources, it’s hard to actually comprehend the beauty of some of the most spectacular rides on the planet. Far less comfortable, yet far more beautiful and interesting, the time spent between two destinations is equally captivating and offers many sights and sounds. While we are very much in a century where we have no time to stand and stare, there are still some awesome train rides across the globe where the trip itself turns into a destination’.

I couldn’t agree more with that, and I feel privileged and super lucky that, while doing my around the world trip back than in 2011, I’d had this amazing opportunity to take some of the greatest long-distance rail rides. The overnight train from Paris to Venice, the thirty-five-hours long one across Indian subcontinent from Mumbai to Kolkata, another one from Hong Kong to Shanghai, and then the California Zephyr from Emeryville on the suburbs of San Francisco to Chicago, and finally the Lake Shore Limited from Chicago to New York.

Our journey from Vancouver to Winnipeg was a reawakening of my affection for passenger trains.