🗺️ Scenic Journeys Activities

Day trip to Versailles from Paris, France. RER C train from Paris takes 40 minutes and costs €7.20 return. Palace entry is €20 but the gardens are free (€9 on fountain show days). Go on a Tuesday or Wednesday when the Palace closes and the gardens are even quieter. Buy tickets online to skip the queue.

Glacier Express, Switzerland. Called the slowest express train in the world for a reason — it takes nearly 8 hours to cover a route you could drive faster, entirely on purpose, crossing 291 bridges and 91 tunnels through the Alps. It's genuinely not cheap, around $160 for the seat reservation on top of a rail pass, and it's still the single most famous scenic train ride on Earth.

Star Ferry, Hong Kong. Crossing Victoria Harbour has cost next to nothing since 1888, and National Geographic has named it one of the great boat journeys on Earth despite the ride lasting barely ten minutes. Under $1 each way — the skyline view is doing all the work here, not the boat itself.

Route 66, USA. Officially decommissioned as a numbered highway in 1985, but most of it is still drivable in pieces through eight states, past diners and neon signs that have outlived the road's official status. No toll, no entry fee — the cost is just fuel and however many nights of motels you commit to along the way.