It must have been the lack of motion that woke me up. I didn’t know why were were stopped—there was no other train traffic—and then I heard someone passing by in the corridor saying it was the Gobi Desert and we were going to be stopped here for about a half hour. Furthermore, we were…
Much of the time during my trip to Russia and China three years ago I was in a group with local guides. That was easy … comfortable. All you have to do is pay attention and listen for instructions and stick with the group. But I was traveling on my own for almost two…
If I’m traveling in North America, I usually handle all the reservations myself. But in the case of an extended European trip, I feel much more comfortable using a booking agency like Railbookers, a London-based company with an office in Los Angeles. I was referred to Railbookers by Mark Smith, the person behind what has…
In the summer of 2011, I spent just over a month on an extended rail journey that included London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Moscow, several cities in Siberia and Mongolia, Beijing and finally Shanghai. That itinerary included several high-speed trains. The first was the Eurostar between London and Brussels, where I connected with an intercity train…