Anyone ever take a train (AMTRAK) on vacation ?

[Duster]

Thinking about our next adventure and am giving serious thought to getting on a train at Fulton, Ky to Chicago then on to Reno. Then flying back into Nashville in a couple days. Looks like a 45 hour + train ride out of Chicago and will put us in the Rockies for one full day between Denver at near first light to Salt Lake near dark. I did it once years ago in the middle of winter when the train ran thru Vegas. Thinking the fall would be a great time with the colors out in full.

[pentail]

I have always wanted to take a train trip through the mountains out west and up into Canada. you are right in that fall would be an awesome time to do it. if you do, post up the results and how you liked it.

[quackrstackr]

My wife went with some friends before we met and enjoyed it.

One of my coworkers went with his wife and some other couples in the fall last year and had a blast.

[Rob]

I always wanted to catch the train at Fulton & go down thru Memphis to New Orleans.

[utkpres]

I went to Montana and back a couple years ago. I suggest you get a private coach so you can get away and sleep. Lot's of weird and undesireable people on the train between Cincy and Minn./St. Paul. I'll never take the train again unless I have a room.

[Tom Threetoes]

A long time ago Uncle Sam sent me on an all expense paid trip by train. All the way to Ft. Carson Colorado.

[westkybanded]

The only thing to remember about the City of New Orleans train (unless something has changed) is that it leaves Fulton at about 2:00 am. The station is also in the middle of nowhere, and a REAL scary place at night.

[trust me]

I amtraked up to D.C. and back last January with a school group. We had virtually the whole car to ourselves on the way up, WVA and VA were very scenic. When you get tired of gazing out the window, trains were made for sleeping. Rockabye baby.

The trip back to KY was a little more crowded, had a lot of folks making the D.C. to Chicago trip.

Amtrak is really just a Greyhound bus on rails, it isn't the cleanest place at the end of a trip, but you aren't crammed in cheek to jowl like on a commercial coach flight. You get to see some pretty places you won't see by flying. The cost is very attractive. Check your itinerary on the Amtrak website; layovers at some stations can be very long.

All in all, I recommend it.

[buckfever]

When I was just a boy, my parents took my brother and I on an Amtrak up to Chicago for the weekend. We left at 10 pm at night, and slept on the train's murphy beds. I was young, but I remember loving it.

When I was in college, I was in a program that was studying constitutional law at McGill University in Montreal. The Betty Ford Foundation picked up the check for a rail trip all the way across Canada. It ended in Vancouver, BC.

It was a great, great trip, and very relaxing. No mental fatigue from driving all day. The one drawback is that when you stop at different places, you either have to walk, use public transport, or rent a car in order to see the sites.

Different kind of vacation and does have some drawbacks, but like Trust Me, I'd say that all in all, it's worth it. At least once. :D

[utkpres]

I was going to say the same thing trust me did. It was about like a glorified Greyhound bus. I'd say that DC to Chicago trip had some of the same strange ones I had between Minn./St. Paul and Cincy. I had to wake out of slumber at 2 in the morning to tell a couple of "fellows" to shut their vulgar mouths around my daughter. Got the bad eye when they got off at Cincy.

[reivertom]

It can be good if it's not crowded, but it's a crap shoot and you could be stuck with a bunch of loudmouths talking loud on their cell phones or some nut job flapping his/her gums for 12 hours and running up and down the isles. The prices have gone up in the last year too.

[trust me]

Oh yeah; if traveling by train, take your own meals and drinks. Train food is the pits and horribly overpriced. Pack a duffel with all the food items you might need for your travel. My daughter and I took sandwiches galore, soft drinks, snacks, fruit.

One of the best parts of train travel is no gorilla baggage handlers getting their paws on your stuff, no x-ray machines, no snoops in your underwear, no confiscating your explosives and guns, nothing. Just haul your own luggage, throw it up in the overhead bin, and you're good to go.