Road trips and airline flights get you to where you want to go, but they can be a hassle. Train travel is an entirely different experience. You can relax and admire the scenery, read a book, savor a meal, sip a drink, get up, and walk around.
Such is the fashion on the Alaska Railroad, which takes you from coastal fjords to interior hinterland.
Among the sublime sights we saw during our six-day ride in July were forests of birch and spruce that fell away to mazes of shallow lakes and sloughs where bull moose browsed. Canyon-laced uplands, untrammeled tundra flats, and corrugated crests stretched beyond imagination. Grizzlies, wolves, caribou, and Native hunters still roam this immense, glaciated wilderness, as they have for time immemorial.
