If you’ve ever experienced separation anxiety when checking your bag on a long-haul flight, train travel can seem like a much better solution. There is no worse feeling than arriving at your destination and realizing your bag, holding everything you so carefully planned to wear and use during your trip, missed its connection or never made it onto the plane at all. (If this is truly your worst nightmare, you may want to steer clear of this New York airport with the worst lost luggage record.)
Technically, some train lines like the Amtrak in the U.S. do have weight limits for luggage, while others — like Eurostar in Europe — don’t. Either way, you can generally expect to roll right up to the platform without anyone asking you to weigh your bag first. Still, that does not mean you should go crazy with packing. Doing so can make train travel much more difficult than it needs to be. Whether you’re enjoying Europe’s most scenic train rides in Switzerland or crossing borders on an overnight sleeper train, there are a few things to keep in mind when packing your bags.
Why you shouldn’t overpack on long train rides
In addition to remembering to get up and stretch on a long-haul train ride, packing light is an essential tip for international train travel. You shouldn’t only think about the time during the ride, when your luggage will be sitting snugly in the luggage hold — you should imagine what comes before and after, too. Consider the fact that you’ll need to haul your luggage to the train station, which could mean navigating steep staircases to the train platform and lifting your heavy bags up the steps onto the train. If your luggage is heavier than you can lift, this will not be fun.
Once you arrive at your destination, you may need to roll your luggage across the cobblestones or up steep hills of whatever cozy historic city center you might be staying in. This is one of the reasons we recommend traveling with a large backpack on trains and airplanes, despite the risk of back and shoulder pain. Not only does it mean that you can move easily around city centers you’re not familiar with but a backpack also prevents you from packing more than you can physically carry. If you misstep while maneuvering your luggage around a tricky space, you risk derailing your trip with an injury. In the end, it’s just not worth it.
