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We continue our ‘Recommend Railway Read’ blog with Tom Chesshyre’s Ticket to Ride which also includes a Ffestiniog Travel mention after Tom joined us on one of our Small & Traditional escorted tours to Kosovo.

Welcome to the first in a series of Recommended Railway Read blogs, where we invite you to delve into an excerpt from our chosen book to see if it piques your train travel interest. During this time of COVID-19 enforced lockdown we thought you might enjoy some armchair travel courtesy of a good railway read!

As an expert rail tour operator Ffestiniog Travel will always advocate train travel as the best way to see more of a country at ground level within the timeframe of a typical holiday. If you factor in the environmental impact of travelling anywhere then the train trumps flying and road travel for being the most eco-friendly. As more and more people become mindful of their carbon footprint, how they reach their holiday destination or tour a country is fast becoming a major influence on where they go and how they holiday.

Readers who are already familiar with our Small and Traditional tours to former Communist bloc countries will know that we are always looking for new destinations, especially those that give the opportunity to explore those places which are well off the beaten track and to learn about the local culture and social history whilst, at the same time, sampling their railways. It all started with Romania back in 2008 and has subsequently expanded to include most of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Georgia, Armenia and Uzbekistan. Whilst the details may change from country to country, we do aim for some constant themes in this programme, particularly the use of locally owned accommodation, restaurants, transport and guides. This ensures that our custom benefits the local community rather than lining the pockets of multi-nationals.

The Telegraph described Uzbekistan as the “most fascinating country you’ve never been to” with only an estimated 1,000 Britons visiting each year. Ffestiniog Travel has been running an annual escorted tour to the country since 2017 and the destination is gaining interest among a growing number of tourists as red tape surrounding the former Soviet Union country eases. The country has so much to offer, some of the most beautiful cities in Central Asia and an interesting history along the famous Silk Road. This blog has been written by Ian Handley, a Ffestiniog Traveller, who joined one our Uzbekistan tours. He was drawn to the railway element we included in the tour itinerary and shares his experience of the train and transport systems of the country.

A rail tour of India's remarkable Hill Station railways offers both the enthusiast and general train tourist a wonderful opportunity to experience a piece of India and railway history. To cover the Shimla, Darjeeling and Nilgiri Hill Railways in the timeframe of a regular holiday - in this case 3-weeks - requires a lot of travelling, as Ffestiniog Travel guest David Peel, found out. But the sightseeing content and railway experiences certainly made it a worthwhile odyssey. David shares his thoughts of Ffestiniog Travel's 2017 Indian Hill Railways tour in this unedited, candid account!

Our closest neighbour across the Channel has been a popular holiday destination for British holidaymakers for decades. The majority of travellers tootle their way through France by car, but Dan May, Ffestiniog Travel’s European rail ticket specialist, believes for those who travel light there is a more appealing alternative of getting around France - the train!

Readers who are already familiar with our Small and Traditional tours to former Communist bloc countries won’t be surprised to read that we are always looking for new destinations, particularly those that fit our mould of a venture into the unusual, giving the opportunity to explore those places which are well off the beaten track and to learn about the local culture and social history whilst, at the same time, sampling their railways. It all started with Romania back in 2008 and has subsequently expanded to include Moldova, Bulgaria, Georgia and Uzbekistan. The details inevitably change from country to country but one theme is constant – we do, for the most part, aim to use locally owned accommodation, restaurants, transport and guides, thereby ensuring that our custom benefits the local community rather than lining the pockets of multi-nationals. By the way, did you know that, at the time of writing, there are no McDonalds or Starbucks in Albania? This seems a good reason to pay the country a visit! Albania certainly hasn’t yet been “globalised”.

Ffestiniog Travel actively encourages its customers to offer feedback on the tours and holidays they have taken with us and the more elaborate the better! So again we welcome another customer blog to these pages and one that captures the essence of our annual pilgrimage to India, combining journeys on the wonderful Hill Station Railways with visiting some of the Sub-Continent’s notable landmarks. This travel blog by Dave Firth chronicles his experience of our 2016 India Tour in which he describes the practical elements of the holiday, the interesting stops along the way and of course the railway journeys themselves!