GETTING ON BOARD

It’s a blessing and a curse: if want to retain my breakfast, I can’t read, draw, or look at anything that isn’t my immediate surroundings while I’m on a train. In general, I try to fly under the radar while traveling, and while I don’t particularly fancy drawing attention to myself in any major way, the digestive-upset way would pretty much be my worst nightmare. To boot (pun intended), these incredible French breakfasts are keepers: warm little pillows of pain au chocolat with hidden chocolate tucked inside, ultra-flaky croissants with a unique kaleidoscope pattern at the center of each one, spiraled puff pastry roulades topped with bright green pistachio bits, and a tiny, perfect petit café to complement them all. Each one is special and unique, every flake of croissant a souvenir of a moment of joy, and I certainly have every intention of keeping them all with me.

All this means that while I’m on a train, I’m not doing anything but listening to music and watching the scenery go by. And though it can feel limiting at first, it’s for this specific reason that trains are my absolute favorite way to travel. They always have been, from the time I first discovered them while studying abroad in Marseille in college. A dear friend of my parents has lived on an old houseboat on the Seine for decades, and one weekend, I took the train up to Paris to stay with him and see the city. On the train ride, I fell in love with the experience of watching the world go by. When I arrived at the houseboat, I fed a swan a piece of bread out the window, and even though I nearly lost a finger to its enthusiasm for the bread—which is how I learned that swans are every bit as mean as they are beautiful—it was an experience I will never forget. 

Back then, there were no smartphones; I think I probably had a clunky old iPod with me when I made that formative first real train trip in college, along with a mobile phone that could have been mistaken for a brick. But today, when I get on a train, I do so in an age where our devices rule our brains more than anyone could have ever imagined. A survey I recently read found that Americans pick up their phones every four minutes, which calculates out to an average of a whopping 344 times a day. Others estimate the total to be nearer to 60-100, but even that leaves us with few uninterrupted, device-free stretches of time.

Once, during the stretching portion of a workout, I heard a fitness instructor say that stretching your arms up above your head is particularly important for mobility because we almost never use our arms that way throughout the day. In an age where we’re constantly bombarded with notifications, this is how “train thinking” feels to me. Sometimes train rides are hours and hours long, which means hours and hours of just watching the world go by. When was the last time any of us did that? We’re always doing things. In any spare minute, we constantly feel the urge to be busy with something—anything at all to feel like the moment is occupied. But a ride on a train is a chance to unoccupy one long, delicious moment, and let yourself just be.

I’m here in Lyon, France for a month on my Alexa Rose Foundation-funded grant trip to conceptualize my next works, and I recently took the train to Annecy for a day trip. Nicknamed the “Venice of the Alps,” Annecy is an incredibly charming and ridiculously picturesque alpine town, with canals running through its center, a gorgeous, crystal-clear lake, and stunning mountain views. And, with two hours all to myself, my thoughts, and the passing scenery, the train ride to reach it was nothing short of magical. Outside the train, we passed small towns, lakes, pastures of sheep, and vivid green fields, every one of them like a postcard sent by springtime itself; and inside the train, a constantly changing variety of people got on and off at each stop, while tiny, well-dressed French children toddled up and down the aisles with their parents in tow. As a representative of the motion-sick among us, I couldn’t do anything but sit back and watch all of this unfold. But why would I want to? 

Since that day trip to Annecy, I’ve been trying to practice more train thinking in my everyday life as a solo traveler. I often bring a book with me when I dine out, feeling like it would be weird if I was just sitting there without doing something. But after my day on the train, I couldn’t help but think: who cares? When we see ourselves through others’ eyes, we imagine their thoughts having so much more weight than they actually do; though it’s both odd and freeing to realize it, most of the time, other people really don’t care what any of the rest of us are doing. I’ve started just watching the world go by as I sit on a streetside terrace anticipating another excellent French meal, and doing the same on park benches. It feels a little odd at first, but I never regret it, and I always leave feeling calmer, more observant, and happier. It also makes me a better traveler, as the things I see help piece after piece of the cultural puzzle click into place.

For all you fellow travelers out there, there’s a whole page devoted to train travel in Around the World and Back Again, plus tons of other pages for documenting what you see while traveling. I’m saving the train page in my copy for a truly epic train trip, and I can’t wait to fill it out! (Slowly. Carefully. With lots of breaks to stare at the horizon.) In the meantime, here’s my favorite train travel playlist. May it provide an excellent soundtrack for your next adventure, and all the daydreaming that will go with it.

Happy travels,

Kate