There’s something so chic, so glamorous that only a train can pull off. While the airlines keep testing our patience with last-minute gate changes and lost baggage, trains just get sturdier, slower, and better with time. And unlike faster modes of transport, the best rail journeys don’t just move you from one place to another. They thread you through landscapes that highways can’t reach–the Peruvian highlands, the Canadian Rockies–and show you a vantage point that only exists at ground level, at this speed, from this window.
For the 39th annual Readers’ Choice Awards–which capture the travel experiences our readers love best, from hotels to cruises, islands and luggage–we asked all of you to rank the best of the best rail journeys out there. Yes, there are the big ticket, bucket list journeys we all know and aspire to book for ourselves one day. But this year, there were a surprising number of newcomers, including some no-frills public transit you can hop on for the price of a decent lunch–no reservations, no fanfare, just a ticket and a seat by the window. Here’s how you, the readers, ranked them: These are the best train trips in the world.
