These places still exist, but you need to look for them. Here in Japan, some remote islands, you can travel overnight boat. I love those. There might be a speed boat or plane, but I love boarding the boat in the evening, everyone feels like having a party, sleeping in a bed and arriving fresh in the morning. (If you are in Tokyo, the nearest is Oshima Island).
There is also slow rail travel, with pretty trains, sleeper car and restaurant. I think Europe has sleeper trains too. I am also interested to go to Europe once by the trans Siberian railway.
There are good overnight ferries from England to France, Ireland and the Netherlands. Cheap too.
We live in France and often spend the summer visiting family in the north of England. For a family of four, it works out about the same price to take the Rotterdam to Hull night ferry (outside cabin, meals and all) as it would to go through Calais and spend the night in a hotel instead.
And then it’s 2 hours of driving instead of 8 at the end.
Even when plans take us south, we’ll often take a night ferry from Portsmouth instead of the tunnel, just because it’s a better experience for roughly the same price.
You’d love Canada and the US. Nothing but slow travel on trains.
No one takes the train in the US because they don't go anywhere you need to go and aren't nice to be on.
They are also simply too expensive that's why no one takes them imo.
Why spend $2,500-$5,000 and your trip takes ~30+ hours when you can spend $650 and get there in a few hours via flying
> No one takes the train in the US
Extremely ignorant and classist statement; plenty of people take the train.
They mean comparatively noone takes long-distance (Amtrak), other than in the northeast, or at least east of KS/TX/OK. They're not talking about commuter rail, obviously lots of people take that.
But if you wanted to travel LA-NY by train that's 67-82hrs with a transfer in Chicago. Compared to 5.5hrs by plane (+ time getting to/from airport and boarding).
Flying a turboprop from Yakushima to Kagoshima on my way back to Tokyo was a highlight of my trip. Especially the domestic airport lounge with shoe-less tatami mat areas to hang out.
> I think Europe has sleeper trains too.
Europe has sleeping boats too: you can go from, say, south east of France to the Baelaric island (like Ibiza) in 12 hours overnight.
I remember as a child using a sleeper ferry to get between Jersey and the British mainland. Politically Jersey is ours (it's not technically part of the UK but it's a crown dependency), but geographically it's basically in France. Seems like these days there is no overnight option but the long slow ferry from up the coast does take like half a day to get there and you can book a room so you can get some sleep.
I've taken the ferry from southern Italy(bari) to Croatia and back multiple times. It's a great way to travel. There's a camaraderie on a boat you just don't get on an airplane. Also helps that I can bring my car with me!
The Baltic has a bunch of overnight ferry routes too. Most of them are not very luxurious, but its a nice way to get both travel and sleep done in one go.
I think you miss the point. Think of the movie Titanic, where people were on the boat for a very long time, as opposed to merely an overnight trip.
That is similar to how some of these boats look like, just more modern. Here is an example with pictures https://www.ferry-sunflower.co.jp/en/ (disclaimer, I never went that route, the ones I went with were less glamorous, more modern, but still nice) But yeah, it is mostly one night, because the distance is within Japan.