Condé Nast Traveler has released the rail results of its 39th annual Readers' Choice Awards, and the 2026 list of the world's best train journeys comes with a twist: alongside the famous, save-up-for-years luxury routes, this year's rankings feature a surprising batch of newcomers — including ordinary public trains you can board for roughly the price of a good lunch, no reservation or special occasion required.
The awards, which poll the magazine's readers annually on everything from hotels and cruises to islands and luggage, asked travellers to rank the rail journeys they love most. The results celebrate what makes train travel different from everything else: not just getting there, but the ground-level view you simply can't get any other way. The piece points to landscapes that roads never touch — the Peruvian highlands and the Canadian Rockies among them — as the kind of terrain where rail genuinely outclasses flying or driving.
There's a pleasing honesty to the framing, too. While airlines grapple with gate changes and lost bags, trains, the argument goes, only get better with age. Slower, sturdier, and reliably scenic, they turn the transfer itself into the highlight of the trip.
What should travellers take from the 2026 list? Two things. First, the bucket-list dream rides — the multi-day, white-linen journeys most of us have bookmarked for 'someday' — still dominate reader affections, and they reward early planning, since the marquee cabins sell out far in advance. Second, don't overlook the everyday trains that made the cut. Some of the highest-rated rail experiences in the world cost next to nothing, run on regular public timetables, and need nothing more than a ticket and a window seat. That's arguably the most useful takeaway in the whole ranking: a world-class train trip doesn't have to be a once-in-a-lifetime splurge.
If a great rail journey is on your list for 2026, it's worth reading the full ranked gallery to see which lines readers crowned this year — and which budget-friendly newcomers squeezed in beside them. Condé Nast Traveler notes the gallery has been updated with fresh information since it was first published, so details on routes and bookings are current.
The full ranking appears in the 2026 Readers' Choice Awards gallery from Condé Nast Traveler.
