A Perfect Idea: Taking Amtrak To a National Park

Last fall, my wife and I had a very enjoyable trip to the Grand Canyon, and we got there by taking Amtrak’s Southwest Chief from Los Angeles. You connect for the Grand Canyon at Williams, Arizona, and the Chief gets there awfully early in the morning, but it all worked out beautifully. While waiting for the rental car agency to open, we had a rollicking breakfast at a local diner with some fellow passengers: a couple from Australia, a woman from Germany, and a young man from England who counselled us all at some length on the selections of tea that morning.

Visiting any of our national parks is a wonderful experience and it’s amazing how many can be reached by train.

Well, whaddaya know: Amtrak has had the same thought and they’ve just launched a new web site called “Parks in your Backyard” that makes it very each to locate national parks and monuments and then organize a train trip to get there.

Traveling to the Grand Canyon or many of the other national parks by train makes a lot of sense to me: you get to see some magnificent scenery there … and on the way there, too.