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Comment by canpan | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

Spain, Shetland, Channel Islands too. Sadly the old overnights to Denmark and Norway no longer run.

Loads in the Baltic and Mederteranian too, Spain to the Canaries and Mallorca, Sicily to Naples, Venice and many other Italian ports to Greece, several in Greece. Alas no longer a ferry from Greece to Cyprus/Israel/Egypt.

Bulgaria to Georgia too [0], cross the caspian sea [1].

[0] https://horizonhunt.com/en/a-slightly-differen-cruise-ferry-...

[1] https://www.madornomad.com/caspian-sea-ferry/

I really wish the ferry over to Norway still ran, but the one I just missed by a couple of years ran from Denmark up to Shetland, then to Faroe and Iceland. I had wanted to ride up to Shetland and then take the bike up further. I think you can still do it as a foot passenger, but there is no vehicle service.

> Here in Japan, some remote islands, you can travel overnight boat.

I'm sure there are many overnight ferries all over the world and I can't say I have traveled with many, but one I can recommend is the overnight ferry from Ziguinchor/Senegal to Dakar – it's reasonably priced (for a foreigner), and the cabins are very comfortable and even include a shower!

Meanwhile, the 3-day ferry from Puerto Montt (central Chile) to Puerto Natales (Patagonia) is very expensive (> 500 USD per person for the most basic cabin) and very unreliable (expect last-minute cancelations).

Corsica to Marseilles has an overnight ferry, at least back in 2000, but I don't think it's has sleeper cabins, more set up like an overnight flight, but a big cruise ship form factor. Instead of cabins they had space for cars. They had the option of getting a ticket without a seat so you just roam around the boat and find an open space, including outside on the decks.

> 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.

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'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!

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.

Yeah - I regularly go to Corsica from Italy or France, overnight. It's nice when you have to drive several hours to the port, but if I lived near the port, I would definitely go for day travel — it's much faster and way cheaper.

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

Indeed, a few years ago I spent a couple hundred bucks to travel from DC to LA (in a seat, not a cabin). It took 3 days and was only a little cheaper than a flight that would have taken five hours, but it was something I always wanted to do. But if it were competing on price and/or convenience, long range train travel in the US almost always loses to flights except for in the Northeast corridor (and even then its at best a tossup)

it's expensive but it's $500.

you dont have to go first CLass.

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 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.

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