Your guide to riding the rails across Southeast Asia

Riding the rails onboard a Southeast Asian train ranks as one of life’s most iconic and memorable travel experiences. Whether you’re travelling for 36 hours along the length of Vietnam on the Reunification Express, watching the world drift by on an overnight sleeper train in Thailand, gliding through Indonesia on the region’s only high-speed railway line, or exploring the rainforests via Malaysia’s Jungle Railway, a train ride in Southeast Asia is unlike any other journey in the world.

We’re huge rail enthusiasts and have been using Southeast Asia’s railways for well over twenty years, first as young(ish) backpackers and, more recently, as parents of young children. We’ve gone from first class luxury sleeper carriages to third-class wooden benches, sat down to three course meals one evening and then shared a single pot of noodles the next. But along the way, we’ve picked up tips and tricks on how to book trains, which tickets to buy (and how long in advance), navigating stations, what to expect onboard, where to sleep, what to pack and how to pass the time on long overnight journeys.

We hope this site will help you prepare and enjoy your own journey on Southeast Asia’s famous railway network. All aboard!

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