Best Scenic Train Rides by Continent: 20 Top Routes

A good train ride is the rare trip where the journey really is the point. Nobody has to drive, the windows are bigger than any car's, and the track goes places roads can't: up spiral viaducts, through tea country, across a desert the width of a country. This guide picks the most scenic train rides on every continent, including the overlooked regional trains that often beat the famous tourist ones for a tenth of the price, and for each one we tell you the stretch worth staying awake for. Antarctica, for the record, has no railway, so the continent count stops at six.

North America. The Rocky Mountaineer is the famous one, and it earns it: the two-day First Passage to the West runs Vancouver to Banff through the Fraser Canyon and Kicking Horse Pass with an overnight in Kamloops, all in daylight. If the fare is a stretch, Amtrak's California Zephyr covers the best scenery in the United States for the price of a coach seat: ride just the Denver to Glenwood Springs section, about six hours through the Moffat Tunnel, Gore Canyon, and Glenwood Canyon, and sit in the Sightseer Lounge. For steam, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad climbs the Animas River gorge on a ledge cut in 1882. It sells out all summer, so here's the quieter alternative: the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad between Chama, New Mexico and Antonito, Colorado is longer, higher (the 10,015-foot Cumbres Pass), runs through aspen that turn gold in late September, and rarely fills. Farther north, the White Pass & Yukon Route out of Skagway is the best three hours of any Alaska cruise, and the Alaska Railroad's Coastal Classic from Anchorage to Seward passes glaciers you can't reach by road (we cover it in our Alaska Railroad guide). Mexico's El Chepe through the Copper Canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon in places; get off at Divisadero, where the station sits right on the rim.

South America. Every route to Machu Picchu runs on the same track along the Urubamba River, so the question is only how much you want to pay for the glass. PeruRail's Vistadome has skylight windows and the Hiram Bingham is a 1920s-style Pullman with brunch and a pisco sour. Board at Ollantaytambo rather than Cusco; the stretch from there to Aguas Calientes is the scenic part anyway. In Argentina, the Tren a las Nubes out of Salta climbs to the La Polvorilla viaduct at 13,845 feet, a curving iron span over nothing, now run as a bus-and-train combination from San Antonio de los Cobres that keeps the ride short at an altitude where short is plenty. Brazil's Serra Verde Express from Curitiba down to Morretes is the sleeper pick: a four-hour descent through Atlantic rainforest on a 19th-century line with 13 tunnels and viaducts bolted to cliffs, ending in a colonial town where the thing to eat is barreado, a beef stew cooked overnight in clay. At the bottom of the continent, the Tren del Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia is a short steam run on a line built by prisoners; it's touristy, but it's also the southernmost railway on earth.

Europe. Switzerland's Bernina Express is the best scenic train ride in Europe and probably the world: from St. Moritz it climbs past the glaciers at Ospizio Bernina (7,391 feet), drops through 180-degree curves to the Italian-speaking Val Poschiavo, and finishes with the Brusio spiral viaduct before rolling into Tirano. Here's the thing most visitors don't know: the regular hourly regional trains on the Bernina line run the exact same track for a normal ticket, stop at every station, and have windows that open for photos. Use one to get off at Alp Grüm, a station with no road, where the family-run Albergo Ristorante Alp Grüm serves pizzoccheri on a terrace facing the Palü glacier. The Glacier Express from Zermatt to St. Moritz is eight hours over the Oberalp Pass and across the Landwasser Viaduct, and the same regional-train trick works on it. Norway's Flåm Railway drops 2,800 feet in 12 miles from Myrdal to the fjord and stops at the Kjosfossen waterfall; it's packed with cruise passengers in summer, so take the Rauma Line instead if you can. From Dombås to Åndalsnes it crosses the hand-hewn Kylling Bridge and slows beneath Trollveggen, the tallest vertical rock face in Europe, for a fraction of the crowd. In Scotland the Jacobite steam train runs Fort William to Mallaig over the Glenfinnan Viaduct, and for a quiet alternative the Centovalli Railway between Locarno and Domodossola threads a hundred valleys on a narrow-gauge line that most Swiss itineraries skip.

Asia. Sri Lanka's Kandy to Ella train is the most beautiful cheap ride on the planet: seven hours through tea estates for a few dollars in second class, ending with the Nine Arch Bridge just before Ella. Reserved seats sell out weeks ahead, but the unreserved carriages always have standing room in the open doorways, which is where the best photos come from anyway. If you only want the highlights, board at Nanu Oya instead and ride the final three hours. India's narrow-gauge Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is a UNESCO site that loops around itself at the Batasia Loop and crests at Ghum, the highest station in India at 7,407 feet; the two-hour steam joyride from Darjeeling to Ghum is the practical way to ride it. Japan's Tadami Line is the local-knowledge pick: an 84-mile rural line from Aizu-Wakamatsu to Koide in Niigata, fully reopened in 2022 after a decade of flood repairs, and famous among Japanese photographers for the view of a two-car train crossing the first Tadami River bridge. The viewpoint is a short climb behind the Mishima roadside station; the line runs only a handful of trains a day, so check the timetable first. For the big one, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway from Xining to Lhasa crosses the Tanggula Pass at 16,640 feet, the highest rail line in the world, with oxygen piped to every seat.

Africa. Rovos Rail is the continent's great luxury train: three days from Pretoria to Cape Town in rebuilt wood-paneled carriages, with a stop at the Kimberley diamond mine and a final morning through the Hex River Valley vineyards. The cheaper route to similar scenery is Kenya's Madaraka Express, the modern Nairobi to Mombasa train, which runs for an hour or more through Tsavo National Park on raised track; elephants and giraffes are a common sight from an economy seat that costs about ten dollars. Take the morning departure so you cross the park in daylight. The TAZARA from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia is the adventure option: two nights, a crossing of the Nyerere National Park, and a schedule that is more of a suggestion. Go first class and bring your own food.

Oceania. New Zealand's TranzAlpine crosses the South Island from Christchurch to Greymouth in under five hours, climbing the Waimakariri gorge to Arthur's Pass, then diving through the Otira tunnel to the rainforest side; the open-air viewing car is the whole reason to go. Ride it one way and drive back, or stop at Arthur's Pass for a night of hiking. In Dunedin, Dunedin Railways runs the Taieri Gorge train from the country's grandest station into a canyon with no road access, with a fraction of the TranzAlpine's crowd. Australia has the Kuranda Scenic Railway out of Cairns, 23 miles with 15 tunnels and 55 bridges through the Barron Gorge rainforest, with a stop at the Barron Falls lookout; take the train up and the Skyrail cable car down. Melbourne's Puffing Billy is a century-old steam train where kids sit on the window sills with their legs dangling over the Dandenong Ranges, and the three-day Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin crosses the entire continent north to south, with off-train stops at Alice Springs and Katherine Gorge.

How to plan it. Scenic trains fall into two kinds, and it pays to know which one you're booking. Tourist trains like the Rocky Mountaineer, Glacier Express, and Ghan sell an experience: fixed dates, reserved seats, meals, and prices that can run into the thousands. Scheduled regional trains like the Bernina Regio, Kandy to Ella, the Madaraka Express, and the California Zephyr run the same scenery as public transport, cost a tiny fraction, and let you get off where you like. Where both exist on the same track, ride the regional one at least once.

Book tourist trains three to six months out for summer and fall foliage, and reserved seats on the Sri Lankan and Swiss trains as soon as the booking window opens, about 30 days ahead for Sri Lanka. Morning departures have the best light and the clearest mountain views. Pack a lens cloth, because every scenic window on earth is smeared. And if the schedule makes you choose, pick the shorter ride in good weather over the longer one in cloud; the Bernina Express in fog is just a train.