I too am glad that you included the story about the Russian lady. Most of us have no idea how awful it was be to feel it's necessary to flee your homeland. I wish her luck also

I never sleep well on sleeper trains, probably because after all these years I find train travel exciting, even getting the local train into London feels like an adventure, never a chore. Happy Christmas and thank you for keeping us entertained with your travel tales.

Thanks once again Scott. I am delighted the lady decided to live in freedom instead of on a knifes edge. Wish her well in the new direction. I'm sure it was not an easy choice. Unfortunately it is others around us that help us come to that decision.

Hello! I am encouraged by your videos and your happy-go-lucky attitude for traveling. I am a 57 years old Japanese living in the US. My fascination for trains, planes, etc. is continuing since I was a toddler though my time and resource for traveling and thus experiences are rather limited. This night train between Budapest and Bucharest has been on my bucket list for some time. Actually I am thinking of doing a train trip from Hamburg to Athens perhaps next year, stopping in Praha, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Thessaloniki, and finally Athens. I will be doing a train trip from Stockholm to Palermo, Sicily this March, which has been on my bucket list for some time and I am very excited about it. One of my most memorable trips was taking a ferry from Bari, Italy to Bar, Montenegro, then taking a very scenic train from Bar to Belgrade. I flew into Munich and started my journey there. Took a train into Italy down the east coast. In Belgrade, the main train station had just been put out of service but the new station hadn't been completely finished either. It was interesting.... Belgrade to Budapest, and then back to Munich to end my loop trip. Three years ago, I did a train trip from Lisbon to Scotland (Glasgow, Ft. William, Inverness, Aberdeen... ) and took the Caledonian Sleeper back to London. They were supposed to have rolled out brand new train by then but that was delayed so it was still the old train but I enjoyed my dinner in the lounge car. I also enjoyed pullman dining (breakfast) on the Great Western train (made in Japan) from London to Swansea. Perhaps next year I will go back to Scotland and experience the new Caledonian Sleeper! I will check out your Caledonian video as well. Thanks for reading.

Thank you for a few good words you said about "your friend from St.Petersburg"! Appreciated. Merry Christmas from Victor in St.Petersburg!

Scott you put up great videos!

What a fantastic trip report! I miss the sounds (and the smells) of the overnight Romanian trains. I've spent many hours each year between Timisoara (where I lived) and the Black Sea or shorter Timisoara-Arad trips. My fathers has worked for CFR his entire life. You've even managed to catch a quick glimpse of the building where my mom spent her working career! (was hoping to see a quick glimpse of my high school as well...) Glad you enjoyed traversing most of my home country. Thank you for allowing me to reminisce with you!

Cheers for the Christmas Day upload Scott! Hope you're having a good one! Much like yourself, I love a European overnight train. Looked pretty good!

Thank you, Scott, for taking us along on this journey. A happy Christmas to you and yours and all the very best into the new year. I hope this Russian lady can get peace and happiness with her new life in the Netherlands.

Nice one Scott, it’s still on my bucket list to travel around Europe and use sleeper trains as overnight mobile hotel rooms

another great adventure thank you

Cheers Scott! An inspirational and comforting video in itself. Thanks for your channel.

Such empathy! Love your channel Scott. Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

These journeys are brilliant. I so look forward to them. Thanks for travelling to places I would never get a chance to see. Merry Christmas.

Scott, I frigging love your content. Keep it coming. All the best from Wales.

Thanks for a great year of travelogues and here’s to more exciting adventures in 2023!

Thanks scott very interesting journey with a real life story merry Christmas

Very informative and relatable

Thank you for sharing safe travels onwards in life

Thanks SCOTT always look forward to your video's Merry Christmas 😁

Love Scott 👍👍

I'll be going on this train in a month. Thanks a lot for the video, Scott! I love your content :)

very nice video, gonna do this trip soon.

Really enjoyed those exterior shots/ music towards the end of the post. Very natural and conveying the idea of being there.

Hi Scott thank you for another great video happy Christmas as you said their are some nice people around. Carry on the great work Paul in Kent

I did the reverse journey several summers ago, the scenery in the morning was the best I've seen.

Scott on Christmas Day. Love it. My 17 month old son loves your videos (he’s not always on iPads, never really) but for 5-10 mins to kill time, he sits with me watching you. He’s a big train fan as usual with boys.

Good professional film and hard to believe the work of one man..🥰♥️

Great video, would love to travel on this train journey

Great Video Scott! Would love to do this journey myself one day, Merry Christmas!

Cool old Bc-4 car. I like it!

Great video Scott

Merry Christmas, Scott !

Great video.

Love this channel. I'm considering a visit to Romania in the near future. This train looks a great experience.

If you want a reasonably cheap sleeper train, in your own room with a window that you can lower half way down, take a look at R614/R615 in Slovakia between Humenné and Bratislava. I'm doing it for the second time this January €39 from Humenné to Bratislava

I did this journey some years ago . I had a 6 bed compartment and it was full 😅. It is mixed but I was lucky and they were all nice people . As you can think it was crowded. My train got at the border around midnight or 1 am and it ruined my sleep . Romanian and hungarian police come on bord and check identity documents and look around . There are direct train options Bucharest-Budapest- Viena . You get clean sheets that you have to return at the end . There is a train employee on bord of every sleeper car and each sleeper car is locked , no travel from another part of the train to your side. Our compartment door had a lock too . One thing to keep in mind is that train will probably be late and stops are not anounced but if you dont go to the end of the line you can ask the employee to wake you up before your stop.

Hello Scott, great film and Merry Christmas to you. Can we expect some films from Budapest? Fyi if you have never done it Budapest to Innsbruck via Vienna is a great journey

Really enjoyed watching that video. Bucharest Station and the surrounding streets are a bit dodgy and getting on the train seems like reaching a sanctuary. Please in a following video Budapest's impressive station. Time for something to eat and a couple of hours in a bathhouse to relax. Thank you Sir.

I went on WestJet and that was fine !

An easy journey

Merry Christmas! Very interesting journey. I think I'd have opted for a seat rather than risking sharing a sleeper with 3 strangers but fair play.

Love the idea of a sleeping berth all to myself, not so sure about sharing with strangers. Especially when you know three people might crash the space later in the journey and wake you up!

Took this train in the opposite direction pre-covid in 2018. Great train trip and as you say, people you meet on such travels can be a gift (or memorable for different reasons!!) . So sad high level political conflict always hurts ordinary folk on both sides most. History shows this has always been so, and I do not see any solutions to this human conundrum on the horizon.....

Another except video. This route is on my to do list though I have travelled by coach between Budapest and Brasvov and I stayed with a family in Arab on the trip. Maybe next time do the day journey so you can see the beautiful Carpathian Mountains.

I travelled twice on overnight trains, once between Rome and Genoa; the second time between Bologna and Rome. Yet someday, as I live in Malta, I'd love to take the journey between Sicily (where, unlike Malta, there are railway services) and the North of Italy. However, I wouldn't guarantee to be as brave as you to travel within shared compartments

I was close to doing this journey in reverse back in December 2018 but bottled it and took a flight instead, as it was about the same price. Although I've seen both it would have been nice to have shown a bit more of Gara de Nord & Keleti stations.

Thanks for this video! I like trains but would like to avoid sleeping on one. Is there a day train between Craiova and Budapest?

In Ukraine we have a lot of night trains & love them. Met a lot of people there on the way. It's fun & sustainable way to travel

Thanks Scott. I've done night trains in Russia and Kazakhstan on business trips. The problem with the upper berth on night trains is the way you get thrown around (In Russia anyway) I was scared of falling off!

Was the little wave in the loo a nod to Dylan? He does that every time.

I took the night train from Budapest to Bucharest in 1990. Had a couchette berth in compartment with 3 other people. Really interesting journey. Arriving in Romania you could see it was a lot poorer than Hungary. The area around Bucharest Nord Station was very run down. I hope it has improved now.

Alright Mr. R. Nails, I'd like to know why you don't post on that channel any longer. I'm still subscribed to that channel!😁 Just subscribed to this channel!👍

This railway station Gara de Nord is going to be modernised soon! ❄☄

Does the trip include document checkers for passengers?

just a thought could you let us know how you have got to the start point and then how you get home!?

you lost the sight of Danubio after Craiova.you can travel with russian vagons from Bucarest to Chisinau too

Not a word on Joe terrible that border is or how slow the train goes thru Hungary? I just did the same trip but on a different train company

hi scott like your videos .Did you make the journey with just a uk passport o are visas required.

Hi ,if you could say the time of all journey by train would be very useful

I've only done an overnight once in Romania between Cluj and Bucharest. Romanians always carry toilet paper with them when travelling as it's either not available or somebody takes it,

Any dining car for dinner or breakfast on the train Scott?

Since you were wondering about the similarities between the Italian and the Romanian language; Langfocus just uploaded a new video about precisely that matter. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/f7CJrbx5s7Pde5s.html

Quite the difference from some of your less-than-satisfying bus trips, eh? And yes, the first 3 rules of long distance travel are 1. toilet paper 2. toilet paper 3. you get the point.

Hey did you get controlled by the police when crossing the border from romania to hungary?

No restaurant?

Europe is so much better 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Twenty eight stops is good. You can roll dice on train table and get off to start new life. What about stop six

Was that an expensive trip?

Did the train guard speak English?

Nice! 🙂 Sadly you did not see the most scenic part of that journey in daylight, the Iron Gates on the River Danube: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r8l1ZMWIyratnYk.html Otherwise the northern route from Bucharest to Hungary via Brașov is much more scenic, crossing the tallest Romanian mountain range: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eM2XnM5puM-xeZc.html There are also plenty of inner-Romanian overnight trains partly featuring old DB sleeper compartments.

If it was 33 years ago Ceausescu's Would have been glad of train Ironically 33 years today 25 December.

Couldn't sleep with strangers in the room. I have seen too many horror movies.

You should be lucky that you didn't share your compartment with Dracula!!!!!!!!!

DONT do this in the summer the trains don’t have ac and it gets hellish Btw our trains are so slow because h th e tracks aren’t maintained and they would derail

Any pleasuring yourself on the train Scott?

It's virtually unknown where sharing a private compartment with strangers on an American train is done. One of course can share a compartment with a family member or even a good friend but never are you forced to share with someone you don't know. . American trains don't allow multiple bookings in a compartment. Each compartment is purchased by one invidual and that individual can allow whoever they want to be in that compartment. I believe this goes for Canada also. So, as an American, it is so strange seeing Scott acceptable to sharing the compartment with up to 3 other strangers. Guess it's just a cultural thing.

Would you like to be my travel partner?

so, what you have done if there was NOT an engine attached to the train? Probably, plain nothing 💩💩

Romania have the worst train in Europe blood small and dirty plus some of the price o my Lord expensive for the minimal wages in Romania .

Bizzare lack of information. No map, nothing on costs, ride quality or facilities, apart from the toilet.

Not sure you should praise that Russian lady in length, someone like Navalny didnt wait Feb 24th 2022 to oppose Putin... or that Levis and McDonald as well as Instagram left Russia. You should keep your comments for yourelf.