Ranked by each train's own cheapest standard cabin or seat, not its top suite — an apples-to-apples look at what it actually costs to board, in US dollars per person.
Pictured: the Golden Eagle Silk Road Express, #1 with cabins from $26,900.
| Rank | Train | Cheapest cabin | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Golden Eagle — Silk Road Express (Central Asia) | $26,900 | Asia |
| 2 | Al Andalus (Spain) | $7,190 | Europe |
| 3 | Venice Simplon-Orient-Express | $4,934 | Europe |
| 4 | Maharajas' Express (India) | $4,890 | Asia |
| 5 | Eastern & Oriental Express (Malaysia) | $4,650 | Asia |
| 6 | Rovos Rail — Pride of Africa (South Africa) | $2,920 | Africa |
| 7 | Train Suite Shiki-Shima (Japan) | $2,150 | Asia |
| 8 | Seven Stars in Kyushu (Japan) | $2,020 | Asia |
| 9 | Rocky Mountaineer (Canada) | $1,635 | Americas |
| 10 | Belmond Andean Explorer (Peru) | $1,400 | Americas |
No matching rows.
The cheapest berth is a twin-share Silver Cabin on an 11-to-16-day journey across Central Asia — Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan among the stops. Golden Eagle's older, better-known Trans-Siberian route has largely given way to this one since 2022, when the operator stopped running trains through Russia.[1]
A seven-day loop through southern Spain — Seville, Córdoba, Cádiz, and Toledo — aboard restored 1920s carriages once used by British and French royalty on the Calais–Côte d'Azur run. It marked its 40th anniversary in 2025 by adding Madrid to the route for the first time.[2]
The cheapest fare is a shared Historic Twin Cabin on the one-night Paris–Venice run — no en-suite bathroom, just a fold-down basin, with the reward of one of the most photographed dining cars in the world. Longer multi-country routings run considerably higher.[3]
Operated by India's state railway, IRCTC, on a twin-share Deluxe Cabin basis for its shortest itinerary. Longer week-long routes through Rajasthan's palaces and forts push well past $8,000, and the Presidential Suite alone can top $24,000.[4]
The entry-level Pullman Cabin on the relaunched Singapore–Malaysia route, which revived the train's tiger-emblem livery in 2024 after a four-year pandemic hiatus. The original Bangkok–Singapore routing it was famous for no longer runs.[5]
Marketed by its own operator as "the most luxurious train in the world," Rovos Rail's flagship Pride of Africa route runs between Cape Town and Pretoria on its standard itinerary, with vintage 1920s- and '30s-era carriages restored to a finish the line has built its reputation on. Longer routes push as far north as Tanzania.[5]
Operated by East Japan Railway (JR East), Shiki-Shima is a rolling boutique hotel carrying only a small number of guests at a time on one- to three-night loops out of Tokyo, built around a glass-roofed observation car designed to frame Japan's passing scenery. It debuted in May 2017 as Japan's second so-called "cruise train," with an interior designed by Ken Okuyama, better known for styling cars for Ferrari, Maserati, and Porsche.[5]
Launched in 2013 as Japan's original luxury sleeper train, Seven Stars in Kyushu pioneered the ultra-exclusive "cruise train" format that Shiki-Shima and other Japanese lines later followed, circling the island of Kyushu on one- to four-day itineraries with only a handful of suites aboard. Designer Eiji Mitooka, who set out to build what he called "the best train in the world," capped capacity at as few as 20 guests per departure, and demand has stayed so high that JR Kyushu still allocates seats by lottery.[5]
Running daytime-only routes through the Canadian Rockies between Vancouver, Banff, and Jasper, Rocky Mountaineer skips overnight travel entirely, stopping each evening so passengers sleep in hotels rather than aboard the train — a different model from most other entries on this list. The service began in 1988 as a government-run VIA Rail route before Ottawa privatized it in 1990, selling the equipment and brand to Vancouver businessman Peter Armstrong, whose company still operates it today.[5]
South America's first luxury sleeper train, the Belmond Andean Explorer runs through the Peruvian Andes near Lake Titicaca and Cusco at altitudes above 11,000 feet, with oxygen-enriched cabins built in to ease the effects of the thin mountain air. Its carriages have a well-traveled past: built for Australia's Great South Pacific Express in the late 1990s, they were mothballed and later shipped to Peru, where they were refitted for the Andean Explorer's 2017 debut.[5]