Description
The Man in Seat 61 is a guide to travelling by train and ferry, written since 2001 by Mark Smith, a former British railway manager. For hundreds of routes, it explains which trains to take, how and where to book them and roughly what they cost. It is an alternative to flight comparison sites and booking platforms that only show planes.
Smith worked for British Rail, ran three London stations in the 1990s and later led the team regulating fares and tickets at the UK Department for Transport. He has run the site full-time since 2007. It covers the UK and Europe country by country, with photos of trains and step-by-step booking advice, plus long journeys such as the Trans-Siberian. It has won several awards, among them the Guardian & Observer’s best travel website in 2008 and the Telegraph readers’ favourite travel website in 2012.
The site is a one-person project, not a travel agency. It is funded by advertising, including Google AdSense, and by affiliate commission from booking sites such as Trainline, Rail Europe, Deutsche Bahn, ÖBB, Omio and several ferry companies, as its disclaimer explains. Smith also collects donations for UNICEF instead of for himself.
Strengths
- Precise, tested advice: times, connections and where to buy the cheapest tickets.
- Free to read, and written by one person with decades of experience in the railway business.
- Makes cross-border train travel much less intimidating, with photos of each train and each step.
Weaknesses
- Only in English, and often written from a British starting point.
- Funded by ads and affiliate links to booking sites, which the disclaimer states only in general terms.
- One author for the whole site, who says he can’t take responsibility for errors, so prices and times need checking before booking.
Who it is for
Anyone planning a train journey across borders instead of a flight, from a weekend in Paris to an overland trip to Asia.
Sources
- The Man in Seat 61: home, who is the Man in Seat 61, disclaimer, checked November 2026