
The Man in Seat Sixty-One - robin_reala
https://www.seat61.com/
======
FabHK
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.

[https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/seatsixtyone](https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/seatsixtyone)

~~~
montalbano
Also, he may recieve some support from booking referrals so I would try and
use the links from the seat61 website wherever possible.

edit: And to add, I love the site! I've used to plan many trips to and between
France, Spain, Estonia, Sweden and Denmark.

~~~
boulos
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...

------
on_and_off
>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.

~~~
ambicapter
From my recent experience TGV's are not that cheap any more.

~~~
stubish
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.

Also, book early for better train prices.

------
robin_reala
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.

~~~
deathwarmedover
See also: [https://www.fieggen.com/](https://www.fieggen.com/) which I use
every time I buy a new pair of shoes.

~~~
MarsAscendant
What do you use it for? I haven't noticed any information on shoe-wearing, but
I did notice a whole section on knot-tying.

~~~
deathwarmedover
I use it to re-lace my new shoes. I typically use one of these:

\-
[https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/overunderlacing.htm](https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/overunderlacing.htm)

\-
[https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/straighteuropeanlacing.htm](https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/straighteuropeanlacing.htm)

\-
[https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/quicktightlacing.htm](https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/quicktightlacing.htm)

~~~
Bendingo
The real MVP. This is why I come to hn

------
arcticbull
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!).

~~~
lostlogin
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.

~~~
arcticbull
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.

~~~
lostlogin
Don’t be sorry. Our nationalised then privatised, asset stripped then re-
nationalised system deserves ridicule.

------
watbe
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](https://www.seat61.com/mobile-version.htm)

His concise monthly European rail news is also great:
[https://www.seat61.com/news.htm](https://www.seat61.com/news.htm)

~~~
djcapelis
Whoa I had no idea about the monthly train updates for Europe. Going to have
to watch that page! Thanks!

------
keiferski
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.

------
virtualwhys
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 :)

~~~
puranjay
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).

~~~
virtualwhys
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.

~~~
puranjay
Just to give you an idea of Bihar - the state where Gaya is located - its per
capita income is $2,170 (PPP), while Delhi's is $18,000+ (PPP). It's absurdly
poor and all the old stereotypes about India still thrive there.

------
bscphil
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...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=www.seat61.com))
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.

------
djcapelis
This website is indispensable and the guy who runs it is such a train fan.
It’s amazing and he’s been enthusiastic to receive updates for the site
whenever I’ve gone far enough afield to fill in a number or piece of
information he hasn’t gotten a chance to track down yet, or grab a photo of a
station he hasn’t seen in a bit that’s changed, etc.

Whenever I go to a country I spend some time on seat61 looking up the local
train system. For a number of systems without websites, seat61 is the place
where you can find the information about what trains go where before you get
there and it’s just slowly (actually surprisingly quickly, all things
considered) populated as people find out various pieces from ticket agents on
site or physical boards posted at stations and email bits and pieces in.

------
zedpm
He's not kidding about the joy of traveling by rail. The train from London to
Edinburgh was by far the most pleasant travel experience I've had. The low
stress boarding, the spacious, comfortable seats, and lack of turbulence made
for a relaxing and peaceful trip. It's a shame the options for traveling by
rain in the US are so limited.

~~~
jkepler
> ... traveling by rain ...

I know it's a typo, but I've always thought that would be a cool form of
travel.

~~~
bacon_waffle
I've been back-burner-planning a long canoe trip, might just recycle this
concept if I wind up writing about it. Thanks!

------
gomox
If you are a cycling person, this is like the Sheldon Brown of trains.

Someone make a golden statue of this guy.

------
ludooo
As others have already said seat61.com is a rare gem on the internet. It’s an
invaluable resource when traveling by train in any country. The site has
helped me prepare for countless trips. Once I traveled more than 10,000 miles
through 8 countries from Saigon to Amsterdam and it would have been much more
difficult if it weren’t for the man in seat 61.

------
Lucadg
Love the site and used it often. Recently I realized train is my preferred
mean of transportation by far and I'm happy to be able to count on this site.
Also a strong reminder of what the internet could be.

~~~
Pica_soO
In the best case train is like being driven in a Limo on a free interstate

~~~
isostatic
The normal case is far better than that. Smoother, faster, you can’t get up
and stretch your legs, walk to a shop (or have the shop come to you in many
cases), plug in your laptop, no bouncing up and down, no car sickness when
you’re reading

~~~
hrnnnnnn
> no car sickness when you’re reading

It depends how sensitive you are. I get nauseous when reading even on
relatively smooth inter-city trains.

~~~
isostatic
Amazing, do you have issues on planes too?

------
Gormisdomai
I took the train from Cairo to Alexandria in Egypt a few months ago and this
site had information that even local Egyptians couldn't provide me. It blows
my mind how this guy not only provides so much information, but also regularly
updates it - even in countries where this information can be very uncertain.

------
red_admiral
Can we please have more sites like this on the internet.

~~~
hombre_fatal
It's trending the other way.

We're left depending on the few people who have the time/energy/money to
produce labors of love and charities like this. Beyond that, we're left with
centralized superplatforms.

~~~
baxtr
I have the same feeling. But, my guess it that it’s not that those sites don’t
exist. It’s more about finding these gems. Content-free sales pages have been
search engine optimized the last years. So the SERPs are full of commercial
shit. We need better exploration possibilities. That’s one of the reasons I
love HN.

~~~
koboll
To be fair, based on my searches, "Get from x to y by train"-type searches
tend to feature this site on the first page of results -- that's how I found
it originally. So something in the Google algorithm clearly values this type
of content-rich, no-frills site.

~~~
baxtr
You’re right, it’s not completely useless yet

------
setgree
Love this website!

The train from Bangkok to the Thai/Cambodian border was one of the most
wonderful trips I ever took. I watched movies until late at night at a mall
movie theater, slept a few hours in the station, and tok t 5:55 train,
watching rice paddies pass by for hours...

And there's no way I would have done it without
[https://www.seat61.com/Cambodia.htm#Siem%20Reap](https://www.seat61.com/Cambodia.htm#Siem%20Reap)

------
soneca
This site recently helped me a lot in a tourism travel to Europe.

The general info is googlable, but it helped my choose a seat that was facing
forward and positioned in the middle of a window. A very relevant information
for me and my wife wanting to observe the world while traveling. And an
information that we wouldn't be able to google.

I learned about it years ago here in HN I believe. It would be hard to find by
myself googling something like this too

------
navidfarhadi
This website is one of my favorite resources for traveling. I travel in Europe
quite often and I always visit this website when I need tips on how to get
from point A to point B. I just used it a few weeks ago to figure out how to
take the train from Krakow to Warsaw.

------
onorton
When I was young (until about 8 y/o) I lived in England and we would normally
travel to Northern Ireland (where the rest of my family lives) using the ferry
at Stranraer. I had some of my fondest memories on the trip there (even if it
was much slower than by plane). We then moved back to Northern Ireland.

Now I'm an adult and living in England I always have gone by plane (about 3
times a year). I'm definitely going to try travelling by train+ferry now as it
seems to cost about a third of what I would normally pay for a plane. Seems
much less stressful too.

~~~
jmkni
Once you are in Northern Ireland, the train from Belfast to (London)Derry is
one of the nicest I've been on. It's two hours and you will see some
incredible scenery. It's cheap as well (£19/return).

------
aezell
I regularly share this site with friends saying, "This is my favorite website
on the Internet."

------
buzzy_hacker
This site was indispensable for when I traveled throughout Europe. Most useful
was the detailed information about reaching Pompeii from Rome
[https://www.seat61.com/places-of-interest/day-trip-to-
pompei...](https://www.seat61.com/places-of-interest/day-trip-to-pompeii.htm)
It's easy in retrospect, but finding the Circumvesuviana train is tricky if
you don't know what you're doing

------
smackfu
Amazing resource. And such a depth of info... we wanted to go from London to
Vienna by train, and there is a page on that specifically, and three different
options for the journey depending on whether you want a sleeper or want to go
through Switzerland or want to go the fastest route. And then specific
instructions for booking each trip on the various country's railway websites,
and connection info for the train stations. Ridiculous.

------
posnet
I travel from Portugal to Singapore via trains and I wouldn't have survived
without this site.

~~~
fit2rule
Whoa, how do you get from Europe to Singapore by train?

~~~
dageshi
Russia -> Mongolia -> China -> Vietnam -> Cambodia (he might have cheated here
and gone by bus, Cambodia does have trains but they're not really available
for passengers anymore I don't think) -> Thailand -> Malaysia -> Singapore

~~~
sleepyhead
Cambodia has trains now. Started a few years ago, from Phnom Penh to
Sihanoukville. There is also a new train line to the Thai border that I think
opened recently but it doesn’t connect to the Thai railway.

~~~
dageshi
There was always a line from Phnom Penh to Battambang but it was only a single
line and I think there were only a couple trains a week on it. Early 2000's
you could bribe your way onto it (or even on top of it...) but from what I
recall it was extremely slow.

Interestingly since it was only used infrequently the locals knew when the big
trains were coming and would basically build their own mini motorised
platforms to zip up and down the line. Two sets of wheels on axles, a bamboo
"raft" that sat on top of them with a hole towards the back where a motor ran
a chain down to the back axle.

I rode on one circa 2008, because it was a single line, if you met someone
coming the other way you basically had to disassemble the entire thing (which
probably took less than a minute) and then re-assemble once they'd passed.

~~~
sleepyhead
Yes Battambang is along the Poipet (Thai Border) line. Never tried the bamboo
trains but from what I understand it was a very limited area where it was
operating.

It's still slow. And not completely safe; multiple cases of some dude sleeping
on the tracks and the train went over them also there was a derailing. But I
guess compared to the crazy regional highway traffic it still is safer. Also a
great way to see the countryside.

------
rcarmo
Doesn't include Portugal, apparently.

Edit: it does ([https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-
Lisb...](https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-
Lisbon.htm#Lisbon_to_Porto)), just that the country's not listed where I
expected it to be.

I vastly prefer taking the train from Lisbon to Porto for business, since I
can work and prepare during the trip, with the following caveats:

\- Mobile data coverage along that particular line is spottier than a cheetah,
with more gaps than a croc's denture and slower than snails. On-board Wi-Fi is
even worse.

\- For some reason CP (the Portuguese train company) refuses to service the
power outlets on 1st/2nd class cars, which means it's a toss-up as to whether
you'll have enough battery to work on the train.

This has been going on for years, but I still prefer taking the train to a
cramped (and noisy) flight.

~~~
kiwijamo
Interestingly I found mobile coverage to be excellent within France (Orange),
Belgium (T-Mobile IIRC), Netherlands (T-Mobile), Germany (Telekom) and Czech
Republic (T-Mobile) during my trip through these countries last October. As I
had a EE UK SIM I seemed to roam on Telekom owned networks. Even rural areas
seemed to have reasonable service. I also previously (a few years back)
travelled through France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and
Turkey with excellent coverage across all roaming on mostly Vodafone
owned/affiliated networks (with the exception of a mountain pass for which the
lack of coverage is understandable!).

But then again I found looking out the window and/or chatting to my travel
companion far more entertaining than using my mobile phone!

~~~
rcarmo
This route is notoriously bad, and almost legendarily so. I worked at Vodafone
eleven years, and the challenges of providing decent mobile data to a train
that cuts through a bunch of dips I radio coverage are... hard.

However, the train company bought hideously expensive 3G equipment to install
on some cars that they never bothered to maintain. If they did and upgraded
them, the on-board WiFi would be better than having the phone try to talk to a
base station through the train car.

Regardless, mobile connectivity in Portugal is, by and large, pretty good,
although ai can’t wait until I can stop using MEO and go back to Vodafone to
get stable voice calls on urban streets (their dropped call ratio is through
the roof, and me and my colleagues have trouble with voice calls every day).

------
black-tea
I used this site and the book to plan a rail trip around Europe when I was
about 25 (young enough to get the discounted rail card). It was great fun and
I used so much of the useful information on the site every day.

------
Angostura
Used this several years ago to take the family to Italy via sleeper service
from the UK.

Perfect.

Sad that many of these international sleepers have recently shut down.

~~~
Freak_NL
Doubly painful, now that people are once again more open to the use of a
sleeper train to avoid flying (for environmental reasons, or just not having
to deal with airports).

ÖBB took over Deutsche Bahn's sleepers, which coincided with the retiring of
the last sleeper train from/to the Netherlands (bugger me). But their service
does seem to be working pretty well.

I missed an opportunity to travel from Milan to Paris by Thello's sleeper
train due to the railway strikes in France this year, unfortunately.

I really wish the EU or collaborating national governments would invest more
in sleeper train services by taxing flights. It's much more sustainable, and
the real kicker is this: yes, a train takes longer, but in a sleeper train you
just wake up with a complimentary breakfast early in the morning in the middle
of a city hundreds of kilometres from where you started.

~~~
briandear
> I really wish the EU or collaborating national governments would invest more
> in sleeper train services by taxing flights.

Why? If sleepers are so desirable, then the market should support them.

~~~
graeme
Because flights have co2 externalities that trains don't to the same extent.
This is econ 101.

~~~
Freak_NL
Flights are also subsidized at the moment by not taxing fuel at all. Also, the
market doesn't care too much about the environment, hence governments.

------
madcaptenor
I found this site very useful in planning a couple of multi-city trips in
Europe (flying from the US) a few years ago. (A useful tip I learned from this
site: in Norway, for a long trip, buy the first-class ticket; it's about $12
extra but that paid for itself in free hot cocoa.) It's also useful for
getting a quick overview of the train system in a country and therefore
figuring out which multi-city trips are feasible.

My only complaint is that for most of Europe there's a lot of "how to get
there from London", which is fine if you're coming from London or elsewhere in
the UK, but I'm flying in from the USA. But this complaint is a bit American-
centric.

I wish you hadn't posted it, though, I'm not going to get any work done this
afternoon.

------
creichenbach
I wonder how/where the author gets connection time information. Each country,
and sometimes each public transport company, seems to have their own system,
sometimes hard to access digitally.

I've been building a mobile app for quick and convenient public transport
departure lookup in Switzerland[0], which is doable because there's a free,
well-documented public API[1]. Since it's fairly popular, I thought about
extending it to other countries, but as mentioned above, the API landscape
looks super heterogenous and spotty.

[0]:
[http://billhillapps.com/billhill/quickov.html](http://billhillapps.com/billhill/quickov.html)
[1]: [http://transport.opendata.ch/](http://transport.opendata.ch/)

~~~
smackfu
I'm sure he also benefits a lot from feedback. Someone goes to book a route he
suggests, and the connection now doesn't work, they are going to tell him, and
he can update his page on it.

------
adav
There’s a really interesting section on Motorrail trains. You can take your
car on a sleeper train!

------
FridgeSeal
This site is legitimately fantastic!

I used it to plan a trip around Europe and the information about how to travel
between given stations, where to buy tickets, what to buy (even what side to
sit on to get the best view!) made my trip significantly less stressful to
plan.

------
kome
That's the internet I love. Way to go Man in Seat 61!

Marketers: I hate your stupid, empty landing page.

------
lostgame
Poor guy's server is receiving the HN 'hug-o-death'.

------
benterris
Such a massive amount of custom information is quite impressive. I wonder how
a single man can maintain all of it up to date, as it seems to be mostly
written by hand.

~~~
falsedan
You get a lot of time to fill when you travel by train

------
djhworld
I was just starting to read this page
[https://www.seat61.com/Canada.htm#Canadian](https://www.seat61.com/Canada.htm#Canadian)
and was thinking, this is a nice resource.

Then it kept going, and going, and going with a wonderful set of
recommendations, images, descriptions, a nicely edited video etc

What a great website!

------
Plasmoid2000ad
I used this site to Inter-rail around Europe back in 2009, and ever since
anytime I get to mainland Europe I try to fly back from another city, and
catch the interesting trains and sights.

So impressed that it's been kept not just running, but up-to-date and so well
written (enjoyable to read)

------
ansible
And now I want to take a train ride to Morocco...

~~~
Symbiote
And then within Morocco.

The existence of a functioning rail network is a big draw for me when I'm
planning a backpacking trip. I'm much less likely to be ripped off for the
ticket, there will be some sort of timetable, and little risk of being taken
to someone's brother's shop in case I want to buy a carpet. Most importantly,
it's usually at least an order of magnitude safer.

------
jcul
This site has been invaluable to me in the past, especially when I was
traveling by train through India and China.

------
growlist
I wonder how hard it would be to put this all on a map interface?

------
ngcc_hk
Wow great site. Rad for 1 hour ...

------
known
Very comprehensive. Thank you.

