This year I have taken a few long train rides across Europe, such as Berlin to Amsterdam. I found that these need a bit more preparation than the typical short flights within Europe, so here’s a checklist along with some explanation:
Gear:
- Dress comfortably.
- Take noise cancelling headphones.
- Take multiple charging cables. Some companies just rolled out USB-A ports, so I would definitely take one both a USB-A and a USB-C cable for phones. For laptops, take a USB-C and an AC adapter. A cable bag can be a nice piece of kit to keep things organized.
- 4G / 5G connectivity can still be quite spotty. For productivity, having internet that works on-and-off is worse than not having internet all. Just download whatever you need for your in advance: Git repositories, PDF, videos, etc.
Food & drinks:
- Coffee. I always take coffee in a thermos, in the Albert Heijn Starbucks Cappuccino form, etc.
- Food. One gets hungry on a long journay and it helps pass the time.
- Lots of water. For an 8-hour journey, you may need as much as 3-4 liters of water. Sometimes the tap in the toilet was out of water, so I ended up using this water to wash my hand too…
And:
- Wet wipes. Not only are the toilet frequently out of soap, so also won’t go there before/after every single meal. So wet wipes are super helpful.
- Something to do offline: books, games, etc. Unless you want to rawdog the journey.
For logistics:
- Ideally, you should take the tickets as PDFs or printed. Yes, this can be a hassle but (shockingly) some railway apps have problems loading tickets when they don’t have a signal.