Agree with all commenters here what a fantastic site this is - up-to-date (by and large), information dense, no nonsense.
Has helped me travel from Bali to Jakarta, through Thailand, Namibia, and with the TransSib.
A labour of love. So I wondered how one can support the guy, and was amazed that the only thing he asks for is donations to UNICEF in his name, see link below. Kudos kudos kudos.
Seems to be the main source (as you’d imagine). From About:
> Is the site a hobby or a business?
> Seat61.com is a personal website, started as a hobby. It's grown and grown, and became my full time occupation in September 2007. However, I'm not a company or a travel agency, just an individual with knowledge that others might find useful. All the information on the site is provided free of charge to users, to help people make journeys by train or ship instead of flying, affordably, comfortably and safely. The site generates income through affiliate schemes, and this supports the site, helps fund my travel habit (...er, I mean research, of course) and buys me the occasional bottle of my favourite Chateau Musar...
Used this site for various European adventures that were significantly more fulfilling and stress free vs not having this resource. Donated £30 to the cause. Thank you to the Man in Seat Sixty-One!
This site has been a life saver on so many trips through places like India and Africa, where the information available through official channels is often difficult to find out understand.
>Paris to Nice in 5h37 from €25: See the Paris to Nice page...
The impressive TGV Duplex trains from Paris to Nice take just 5h36 centre to centre with fares from €25. A flight takes 4 disjointed and stressful hours of train, airport, flight, airport & bus, as well as pumping up to 10 times the CO2 emissions into the upper atmosphere. As an experience, there's no comparison...
Absolutely right. The site also forgets to mention that crossing France by train is also often even faster than doing it by plane.
Sure, the actual high speed travel part is faster on a plane but :
- train stations are usually inside the city so you don't need to add 30-60 minutes to your travel just to go to them, not to mention the same amount of time after landing.
- you can arrive at the train station 5-10 minutes before the train leaves.
- once the train stops, you can just disembark in a couple of minutes. You don't have to wait for a bridge to be deployed and everybody in front of you to get up.
On top of that, you have way more space in a TGV than any plane, a nice view of the country and even wifi.
I lived and worked in the South coast of France for a couple of years while my family lives in the North of the country.
Each time I had to visit, I just took a train. It was a way better experience.
Living in Berlin & my wife's family being in Vienna, I'm really disappointed by the canceling of the sleeper train service between the cities - you used to be able get on at the evening on one end, get a good night's sleep in the (comfortable!) bunkbeds & wake up in the early morning in your destination.
I've tried doing the same trip via bus and it was a nightmare, mostly due to me not being able to sleep on bus seats but also bumpier ride & I can't as comfortably read on a bus as on a train.
Additionally there is no high speed connection directly between Vienna and Berlin (it would have went through the Czech Republic which is probably the reason?), if you want that you have to go via Munich which negates a lot of the speed benefit vs taking the direct but lower speed route via Prague.
All around frustrating situation considering these 2 large cities are not all that far apart geographically.
They are certainly more expensive than the discount airlines, but it comes close when you add up the costs of getting too and from the airport. I easily justify the extra euros for the half day saved by not hanging around in airports and security queues.
I did not want to call it out but yeah it seemed cheap to me too.
I just did a quick research and 35 euros was the minimum I could find for Nice -> Paris on a third party website.
I love this site: it’s such a nice reminder of the information-rich sites of the early 2000s, and it’s been extremely useful in planning journeys over the years.
Same. Probably one of the best sites in this category. No fluff, not filled with a dozen ads, simple navigation, and 90% of the time, really accurate information
This guy posts some really unique information -- I used his site back in 2012 when I first visited Myanmar after the end of sanctions. His site had a full train timetable, cabin descriptions and a guide for buying tickets (accurate, none the less) when there was basically zero other information out there. Took the train from Yangon to Mandalay, and it was definitely an experience! Also, more recently, the Norther Explorer train from Wellington to Auckland.
I've also researched all sorts different train rides, like the journey from Shenzhen to Urumqi and the trans-siberian, neither of which I've gotten to (yet!).
I like that New Zeland trains feature in the same category as ones in Myanmar. Over here in New Zealand we have gone to quite a lot of effort to make a system this bad.
hah! Sorry if it came across that way, obviously those are two very different categories of train -- they do fall under equally scenic IMO but that's where the similarities end.
You probably didn't notice, but he went through and updated each page to work on mobile devices. It's amazing how much effort and love he puts into this site: https://www.seat61.com/mobile-version.htm
I've been a huge fan of this site for years now. It reminds me of the early internet - personal, full of useful information, and not constantly trying to growth hack, A/B test, optimize and redesign every single part of a website.
This site really helped me get oriented to the India rail system (or at least as much as is possible without experiencing it first hand).
Got a first class ticket from Kolkata to Gaya (why not, was cheap and it was my first time in India). The attendants were very kind, unusually so, and it was only after getting off the train that it finally clicked why one attendant kept saying with a loving smile, "gips, gips" -- he wanted a tip like I'd given one of the other attendants! (who was able to speak basic English and asked for a tip)
It was a nice journey, though the Gaya train station at 4AM, nothing prepares you for that, weaving through 500 homeless people sleeping on the ground; emerging from the mass of humanity to inhale the thick, dusty, diesel saturated air, on the way to Bodh Gaya, the Bodhi Tree, the birthplace of Buddha's awakening -- welcome to India :)
The strange part is that I'm Indian and I would never think of traveling to Gaya because of where it's located (the state of Bihar has a poor reputation).
Gaya train station was far and away the most intense experience I had in the 2 months I spent traveling through the north. Well, breaking my hip falling off a scooter trying to avoid a massive black bull cow running at me in Rishikesh was the most intense experience of my existence to-date, but the Gaya station was seriously hard core on the normal traveler's experience level.
On the return from Bodh Gaya the midnight train to Varanasi was delayed...by 5 hours. Being the only foreigner I was concerned for my safety, but then realized the safest place was down on the ground with everyone else, and definitely not wandering outside the station.
Bodh Gaya is actually pretty nice. It's almost like an oasis of tranquility in the middle of Bihar's chaos. But still, there's no way I'm ever going to Bihar again!
Just in case the admins visit this page, it's worth pointing out that the SSL Labs rating for this site is F for at least 3 different vulnerabilities (https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.seat61.co...) and in fact I can't access it at all without changing my browser's settings because it doesn't support TLS 1.1 or above. TLS 1.1 was released in 2006 - might want to get on that.
Readit News
Has helped me travel from Bali to Jakarta, through Thailand, Namibia, and with the TransSib.
A labour of love. So I wondered how one can support the guy, and was amazed that the only thing he asks for is donations to UNICEF in his name, see link below. Kudos kudos kudos.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/seatsixtyone
edit: And to add, I love the site! I've used to plan many trips to and between France, Spain, Estonia, Sweden and Denmark.
> Is the site a hobby or a business?
> Seat61.com is a personal website, started as a hobby. It's grown and grown, and became my full time occupation in September 2007. However, I'm not a company or a travel agency, just an individual with knowledge that others might find useful. All the information on the site is provided free of charge to users, to help people make journeys by train or ship instead of flying, affordably, comfortably and safely. The site generates income through affiliate schemes, and this supports the site, helps fund my travel habit (...er, I mean research, of course) and buys me the occasional bottle of my favourite Chateau Musar...
(Not sure what to think of that... doesn't strike me as huge. Maybe front page HN is not as "viral" as I thought?)
Dead Comment
Absolutely right. The site also forgets to mention that crossing France by train is also often even faster than doing it by plane.
Sure, the actual high speed travel part is faster on a plane but :
- train stations are usually inside the city so you don't need to add 30-60 minutes to your travel just to go to them, not to mention the same amount of time after landing. - you can arrive at the train station 5-10 minutes before the train leaves. - once the train stops, you can just disembark in a couple of minutes. You don't have to wait for a bridge to be deployed and everybody in front of you to get up.
On top of that, you have way more space in a TGV than any plane, a nice view of the country and even wifi.
I lived and worked in the South coast of France for a couple of years while my family lives in the North of the country.
Each time I had to visit, I just took a train. It was a way better experience.
I've tried doing the same trip via bus and it was a nightmare, mostly due to me not being able to sleep on bus seats but also bumpier ride & I can't as comfortably read on a bus as on a train.
Additionally there is no high speed connection directly between Vienna and Berlin (it would have went through the Czech Republic which is probably the reason?), if you want that you have to go via Munich which negates a lot of the speed benefit vs taking the direct but lower speed route via Prague.
All around frustrating situation considering these 2 large cities are not all that far apart geographically.
Also, book early for better train prices.
Makes me wonder what I am doing as a corporate cog in the wheel.
I've also researched all sorts different train rides, like the journey from Shenzhen to Urumqi and the trans-siberian, neither of which I've gotten to (yet!).
His concise monthly European rail news is also great: https://www.seat61.com/news.htm
Got a first class ticket from Kolkata to Gaya (why not, was cheap and it was my first time in India). The attendants were very kind, unusually so, and it was only after getting off the train that it finally clicked why one attendant kept saying with a loving smile, "gips, gips" -- he wanted a tip like I'd given one of the other attendants! (who was able to speak basic English and asked for a tip)
It was a nice journey, though the Gaya train station at 4AM, nothing prepares you for that, weaving through 500 homeless people sleeping on the ground; emerging from the mass of humanity to inhale the thick, dusty, diesel saturated air, on the way to Bodh Gaya, the Bodhi Tree, the birthplace of Buddha's awakening -- welcome to India :)
For rail fanning /trainspotting in India, there is a fantastic community at irfca.org.
On the return from Bodh Gaya the midnight train to Varanasi was delayed...by 5 hours. Being the only foreigner I was concerned for my safety, but then realized the safest place was down on the ground with everyone else, and definitely not wandering outside the station.