What Was Your Most Convoluted Single Trip Itinerary?

[crescent2]

Tricia: Similar routes (SWC--on) have come up on Arrow for me if I enter LAX-ATL on the days the SL does not run. A good way to tour the country!

But then much more direct, logical routes don't show up for other city pairs.

 

[tricia]

I hear ya, crescent2. Wish Arrow would show Crescent to City of NOL to SW Chief for an Atlanta to Albuquerque trip. What it offers instead is Crescent northbound to DC, Cap Ltd to Chicago, then SW Chief to ABQ.

 

[pennyk]

Not exactly convoluted, but certainly a bucket list trip - in 2010:

ORL-WAS: SM,

WAS-CHI: Cardinal,

CHI-DEN: CZ,

overnight in Denver,

DEN-SAC: CZ,

SAC-SEA: CS,

2 nights in SEA,

SEA-WGL: EB,

Overnight in Glacier National Park,

WGL-CHI: EB,

CHI-WAS: CL,

WAS-ORL: SM

 

[Phil S]

Well, the OP doesn't mention Amtrak. So, for North America, Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary (CP), Edmonton (on the rail car), Prince Rupert (CN), ferry to Vancouver Island, BC Rail or whatever it was called to (I think) Victoria, then the ferry back to Seattle. Not convoluted -- just a big circle via some less traveled routes.

Non NA, probably (1975) Luxembourg/Paris/Lyon/Puigecerda/Barcelona/Menorca(ferry),Majorca (ferry). Then IIRC correctly there was a train across Majorca. Ferry to Alicante (?), train to Granada and Cordoba (in some order) then north to Madrid and some tiny crossing into France toward the west end of Pyranees, crossed by bus, backpacked back into Spain, escorted out of mountains by Guardia Nacional, hitchhiked to Zaragoza, then train somehow via Chamonix/Grundenwald and Copenhagen to Oslo, to some town north of Oslo where girlfriend's family was from (we actually found them), then train to Trondheim, ferries down the coast to AAlesund (?), train back to Oslo. Girlfriend left at that point -- she'd have enough trains for an entire lifetime. I continued as part of business travel to Uppsala then via trains and ferry to Helsinki then overnight train to Leningrad. Flew Leningrad/Erevan/Moscow. Then personal travel by sleeper Moscow/Kiev/Odessa/Bucharest/Vienna/Zurich. Then flew Zurich back to Seattle. Ah, the foolishness of youth with good salary and a simple lifestyle.

 

[ALC Rail Writer]

My longest single loop, no nights off the rails..

ALC to CHI, CL

CHI to STL, Lincoln Service

STL to KSC, MORR

KSC to LAX, SWC

LAX to PDX, CS

PDX to CHI, EB

CHI to ALC, CL

 

[Railroad Bill]

Back in 2009 we spent two weeks riding trains and enjoying the California countryside.

Drive to Cleveland---

CLE-CHI Capitol Ltd

CHI-LAX-- Texas Eagle & Sunset Ltd

LAX-Bakersfield on a bus.

Bakersfield-Merced-- San Joaquins

Merced to Yosemite on Yartz buses for two days

Merced to Sacramento--San Jaoquins

Sacramento to San Francisco- Coast Starlight & Bus over the bridge

San Francisco riding streetcars all over town.

San Francisco to Sacramento- bus and Capitol Corridor Train

Sacramento to Bakersfield- San Joaquins

Bakersfield to LAX- Amtrak bus

LAX to San Diego- Surfliners

San Diego riding trolleys all over town and bus to Coronado

San Diego to Fullerton Surfliner

Fullerton to Chicago Southwest Chief

Chicago to Cleveland Capitol Ltd.

Whew@! That was fun but we were tired after all that

 

[crescent2]

I hear ya, crescent2. Wish Arrow would show Crescent to City of NOL to SW Chief for an Atlanta to Albuquerque trip. What it offers instead is Crescent northbound to DC, Cap Ltd to Chicago, then SW Chief to ABQ.

You can usually force your preferred itinerary to come up by using the Multicity option, and listing a city that's on your desired routing, such as NOL.

 

[Nathanael]

Nothing fancy for me on Amtrak -- Syracuse, NY to Los Angeles via Denver (and that only because we were "picking people up" in Denver).

The only times I've done really convoluted routings have been when exploring subway and other urban rail systems, where an extremely convoluted routing usually only takes a couple of hours extra.

 

[tricia]

I hear ya, crescent2. Wish Arrow would show Crescent to City of NOL to SW Chief for an Atlanta to Albuquerque trip. What it offers instead is Crescent northbound to DC, Cap Ltd to Chicago, then SW Chief to ABQ.

You can usually force your preferred itinerary to come up by using the Multicity option, and listing a city that's on your desired routing, such as NOL.

Yep, but that won't make it legit for an AGR redemption.