Trains as the backbone of low-carbon movement
In 2025, from May to July, I traveled across Europe with a three-month Interrail pass. It was about choosing trains as the backbone of my movement, and letting distance, time, and transition become part of the journey.
After walking the Camino, my relationship with movement had already changed. I no longer wanted to “arrive” abruptly. I wanted to enter places gently. Trains offered exactly that.
Unlike flying, where space collapses into departure gates and arrival halls, train travel stretches geography back into something human scaled. Cities don’t disappear all at once. Suburbs thin out. Factories become fields. Fields turn into forests. Sometimes forests rise into mountains.
You don’t just arrive somewhere.
You watch one place slowly become another.
Daytime train journeys became my favorite classroom. Sitting by the window, I learned how light changes across hours and regions, morning softness over farmland, harsh noon sun on platforms, clouds gathering near borders, rain streaking across the glass somewhere between countries.
Weather mattered again. Temperature mattered. Time mattered.
Interrail made this rhythm possible. With one pass, I crossed borders without severing continuity. Different languages, different rail systems, but always the same ritual: finding my platform, reading the board, stepping onto the train.
Stations became thresholds rather than stress points. Some were grand and echoing with iron and glass. Others were quiet, almost empty, with only a bench and a sign. Each one held a pause, a moment to breathe between places.
On platforms and inside carriages, I encountered people I would never meet in the air. Commuters heading home. Elderly couples with grocery bags. Backpackers half asleep. Families sharing snacks. Solo travelers staring out the window, just like me.
We didn’t always talk, but we shared time and space. Travel felt communal again.
Choosing trains was also a conscious environmental decision. Rail travel produces far lower carbon emissions than flying, especially within Europe. But beyond numbers, sustainability became something I could feel.
Less rushing.
Less disconnection.
More presence.
The journey itself was no longer something to endure. It became part of living.
What surprised me most was how trains changed my sense of arrival. By the time I stepped off, my body had already adjusted. My mind had slowed down. There was no jet lag between where I was and where I had been.
I arrived whole.
Traveling Europe by Interrail taught me that sustainable travel is not only about lowering emissions. It’s about aligning movement with the nervous system, with attention, with care.
Trains didn’t just connect cities.
They taught me how to arrive, slowly, gently, and with intention.
This article is part of my Sustainable Travel Series, exploring how movement, culture, and low-carbon choices reshape the way we travel in Europe.
