When I arrived at Copenhagen Central Station at 10 PM on a Saturday after 11 days of travel, I joined the minority of GBTA Europe attendees—just 11%—who opted to reach the conference by train. I started my trip from home in Bristol Temple Meads, took the train to London, Eurostar to Amsterdam, the train to Berlin and a final train to reach the conference. It was unconventional, but I saved a whopping 95% on emissions compared to flying. I also built in plenty of leisure time when the work was done. It was a rewarding experience both personally and professionally, but “easy”, it was not.
I ran into plenty of obstacles that made the trip more difficult, and I feel compelled to share them so that you know the pitfalls to avoid. These are my suggestions for doing your own sustainable multi-destination bleisure trip. If you’re prepared, the benefits far outweigh the barriers.
Be prepared to use multiple booking platforms
My beloved Trainline app can do much of the heavy lifting for planning a rail journey, but there were still gaps to fill for my trip to GBTA Europe. I ended up using Eurail to plan the route, Trainline to check whether it was possible to purchase all tickets in one platform, and individual rail providers to compare ticket prices. The most cost effective option for my trip was to book directly with the rail providers, so identifying the local booking portals is an important first step. Pro tip that I gained from this trip: if you are making several trips within Germany, just buy a German rail card to save on costs! Thank you, Google translate.
I should point out that my multi-week, multi-country trip was a bit of a stress test on the typical booking tools, there are plenty of trips that wouldn’t require so much effort. Still, if we are going to truly break down the barriers that prevent people from choosing rail when it’s available, it will start with seamless booking platforms like we have for flights. Until then, take it from me: get the booking platforms sorted before you plan the specifics of your destinations!
Embrace the chance to take things slow
So often in business travel, we fly almost directly into a hotel room for 2 nights, fly back home, and get straight back to work the next day. It’s exhausting! A train journey unfolds at a much more relaxed pace than a flight does, and you can lean into that. Stretching out your trips has obvious personal benefits—like soaking up the local culture, sunshine and an unholy amount of stroopwafels in Amsterdam—but you can also take advantage of unique work opportunities. For example, my work in sales is majorly benefitted by getting facetime with our clients. This trip motivated me to really concentrate on which of my clients and prospects called Amsterdam, Berlin, and Copenhagen home, and it strengthened my interactions with them.
Don’t make assumptions about cost (but you’d be right about this one)
One of the most common misconceptions in travel is that sustainability always comes at a premium. I must come clean and tell you that my train tickets for this trip cost much more than a flight, but there are plenty of examples to the contrary. Fortunately, my company has carbon budgets and sustainable travel policies in place to make sustainable travel easier to justify, but not every organization does.
Without internal carbon pricing or incentives, cost remains a deal-breaker for many businesses—but that is changing. Companies continue to embrace carbon budgets and sustainability goals, and the priorities are already shifting. Critically, as demand for more sustainable travel options grows, rail operators will be able to offer more competitive pricing.
Don’t panic if there are delays
One question dominated many of the conversations I had about my journey: What happens if your first train is delayed? With multiple single tickets that relied on the punctuality of each other, I didn’t have a clear answer (and that uncertainty worried people). On the actual trip, the longest delay I experienced was 15 minutes, so there was no cause for concern. However, you should still consider the risk of delays on a multi-leg trip.
In many cases, train operators will honor tickets for the next available train if delays occur, but clearer policies and communication from rail providers would go a long way in building faith in rail travel. Until the industry meets that demand, just remember that there is usually someone at the station to help you minimize the damage a delay can cause to your trip.
Plan for offline work
Trains are often touted as the most “productive” travel option: no airport queues, larger tables, charging facilities, no need to switch off your devices, no hunching over an Excel sheet just as the fasten seatbelt sign is turned back on—it’s a business traveler’s dream. This was largely the case throughout my trip, but the WIFI was not always up to the task. Over my 18 hours of train travel, I had just 4 hours of reliable internet, with performance varying drastically by country. I had a panic moment crossing into Denmark when a cascade of notifications started pouring in due to the 5G suddenly working perfectly!
Your productivity is likely to be much better on a train than a flight, just don't expect to be connected the whole time. My suggestion: make a list of offline tasks you can accomplish, and even if the WIFI is sporadically working, tell your colleagues ahead of time that you’ll be on the train and might be unreachable. Use the whole thing as an excuse to focus without the distraction of work chats or emails.
The future of train travel as a sustainable alternative
Once I made it to GBTA Europe and shared the details of my trip with the other attendees, there was a consensus that getting people to switch from air to rail isn’t just about changing habits; it’s about removing barriers. Business travelers are becoming more receptive to train travel, but the current inconveniences are enough to hold them back, even for simple trips. But demand brings change, and challenges don’t mean we should stop trying to use this highly sustainable alternative to flying!
So, for those of you inspired by my journey, here’s your challenge: plan at least one rail trip for an event where you would typically fly (and share the story with us on LinkedIn). Let’s show the industry that we’re ready for change—a future of business travel with more options on the rails. GBTA Europe 2025 is set for Hamburg next November, maybe we’ll run into each other at Hamburg HBF? All aboard!
