Sleeper train journeys rock

Sleeper train journeys rock you to sleep, they rock in terms of your carbon footprint and they can rock your world. Especially when you have that experience of leaving London at sunset and waking up in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands at sunrise. Or stepping off a night train in Nice and taking a morning dip at Opéra Plage. Sleeper trains also roll their way across Europe, and with the no-fly movement growing all the time, train companies are dusting off their old rolling stock and waking up to the fact that sleepers are keepers. Here are some of our favourite sleeper train journeys to add into a natural adventure. And if you only take a sleeper train once, trust us, it’s worth it.

Caledonian Sleeper to Scotland

The Caledonian Sleeper between London’s Euston Station and the Highlands of Scotland is a Celtic coup. There is one train that leaves the capital at 21.15, which then splits en route with sections that continue to terminate in Inverness, Fortwilliam or Aberdeen. Refurbished in late 2019, it has a variety of cabins with basins, showers, toilets, bunks or double beds, as well as accessible cabins. If you want your own loo, you need to spend a few more pennies (if you know, you know). Solo travellers don’t have to share with a stranger but can have their own room, and if you want to travel overnight cheaply, you can just book an upright seat instead of a cabin. It also has a Flexipass for more regular users, a collection of 10 one-way sleeper tickets that’s valid for 12 months. So if you are travelling as a group or you want to give it to someone else after you’ve gone home, it might be worth it.

The Caledonian Sleeper makes for a perfect finale if you’re heading to the south of England after finishing the West Highland Way, Great Glen Way or the Rob Roy Way, and then travelling back the Caledonian way. You can also get a sleeper train to Glasgow to start the West Highland Way, although it’s a pretty speedy day train now anyway.

Our in-house travel writer on the Caledonian Sleeper train from London to Inverness.

Night Riviera to Cornwall

This overnight sensation starts at Paddington Station in London and ends in Penzance, which is the most westerly major town in Cornwall. So, if you are thinking of walking the South West Coast Path, and you are flying into Heathrow, for example, you can zip into Paddington Station from the airport, leave your luggage while you explore the capital, and hop on the night train, which leaves at 23.45. This service is operated by Great Western Railway (GWR), which also has day services, but this service is a lot of fun, super clean and efficient.

You have a variety of cabin prices and, as a solo traveller, you pay a supplement if you want a single occupancy cabin. The beds are comfy, the duvets crispy white and service is beyond friendly. There are no showers on board, but there are some in the lounges at Paddington and Penzance, which you get access to if you book a cabin. So, if you are walking the South West Coast Path section from St Ives to Penzance, you can take a sleeper train back to London at the end. There are a number of other stops along the way, and great onward connections at Penzance, so you can find a way to tie a sleeper adventure into most of our natural adventures along the South West Coast Path. See our in-house writer’s short video of her boarding the Night Riviera.

Intercités de Nuit from Paris to Nice, France

The Paris-to-Nice sleeper train, or Intercités de Nuit, was actually put to sleep for several years and then brought back due to popular demand in 2021. The train itself is not as chic as it sounds, but you do feel as if you’re in a movie when you leaving Paris’ Gare d’Austerlitz at 20.51, and wake up on a track that clings to the Med as you travel through Cannes, Antibes and finally Nice, arriving at 09.25. Your sleeping facilities are in shared cabins, called couchettes, and you can request a women-only, or you can book an Espace Privatif, where you have the cabin all to yourself, for a supplement, bien sûr.

The bed linen is a bit of a flimsy sleeping bag, so it’s worth bringing a sleeping bag liner with you, or your own liner. You also want to pack a sense of adventure as you can take on our walking holiday from Villefranche-sur-Mer (just 3mins by train from Nice) to Antibes. Or it’s a two hour train journey up into the mountains to join our Mercantour National Park walking holiday. Just a few of many natural adventures on the Côte d’Azur. It’s also not astronomically expensive, with bunks from only €29 per single journey if you book well in advance. The train guru, Mark Smith of the much-adored Seat 61 website, has all the information you need on getting tickets and choosing sleeping options for this sleeper train, and all the ones that follow below too.

Fall asleep in one city and wake up in another. It’s a dreamy way to go.

Berlin and Hamburg to Stockholm with EuroNight

We love this sleeper train which opens up northern Europe with a superb daily service between Germany and Sweden, run by SJ, or Swedish Railways’ brand EuroNight all year round. Leave Berlin at 18.37 and arrive in Stockholm for a celebratory fika just before 10.00. If you choose to leave from Hamburg instead, it picks you up at 22.00, just in time for bed. Accommodation varies from private sleeping compartments to shared, six-bunk couchettes some of which are women-only. There are fresh sheets and blankets on each bed, and there is also a wheelchair-accessible room. Be prepared for border control and having to show your passport on this journey, but it all adds to the Agatha Christie-ness of it all. A Scandi-sleep costs from around €45 for a bed in the shared couchette which, for Scandinavian high cost of living, is great value. But they do book up, so get in soon with bookings opening a few months before travel. Once you arrive in Stockholm, you can wash the sleep out of your eyes on our summer Stockholm archipelago tour or our quieter autumn or spring one.

Milan to Sicily, with Trenitalia Intercity Notte

Actually this is just one of many night trains on offer in Italy, but we are choosing the Milan to Sicily as it’s unique in Europe. Not only because it’s the longest sleeper train journey in Italy, but because the train is shunted onto the ferry at Villa San Giovanni to take you across to the island of Sicily. This superb daily service leaves Milan at 20.10 and arrives in Palermo at 16.55 the next day, with a section heading in the opposite direction to Catania and Syracuse. There are compartments that sleep one, two or three people, and couchettes that sleep four people.

Strangely for Italy, there’s no food along the way, except for coffee in the morning of course, so you do need to stock up in advance. Bedding is a simple sheet and blanket and, as this journey is so long, you’ll be glad to know that the beds fold up to become an upright seat for daytime travel. Like so many train journeys in Italy, prices are fantastic, from as little as €40 for a bunk in a 4-berth couchette. This train also stops at Bologna, Florence, Rome or Naples, and we have too many adventures here to mention. But let’s guide you to our Sicily tours first, because you really don’t want to miss that shunting experience. It’s a one off.

Shunting the sleeper train onto the ferry to reach the Italian island of Sicily.

Other dream-filled Italian sleepers

Before we say goodnight, we’ll leave you dreaming of three other sleeps in Italy. The first is between Trieste in northern Italy and Venice or Rome. There are so many holidays you could tap into as you step off the train on this one, such as Cycling from Venice to Istria. Or you could go a bit loco and have a train adventure combo, cycling from Lake Bled to Venice, getting the sleeper train to Trieste and then cycling from there to Pula in Croatia. The second sleeper train journey that we’d like to highlight is from Milan to Puglia, where we have an array of adventures when you step off the train in Bari, Brindisi or Lecce. And last but not least, the Austrian ÖBB Nightjet service connects Austria with Verona, Milan, Genoa and finally La Spezia, gateway to our Cinque Terre and Liguria holidays.

We love trains at The Natural Adventure and if you’re a fan too, or you want to embark on a train journey across Europe, we have plenty of blogs to get you on board. Check out How to book cheap train tickets, Top cycling holidays accessible by train, Best train journeys in Switzerland, Our top French holidays by train and Top walking holidays accessible by train.