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Another tempting trip the company introduced this year, the Sea to Sky Rail Adventure, is a 10-day journey from Vancouver to Kamloops. You can book it from May through October; rates run from $1,900 to $2,700 and include rail travel, accommodations in hotels along the way, meals on the train, tours and travel by motor coach to connecting routes. The train crosses the remote interior of British Columbia, passes pristine lakes, mighty rivers and famous ice fields. It goes through snow-peaked mountain ranges, thick forests and numerous national parks www.rockymountaineer.com 800-665-7245). --V.M.
AMERICAN ORIENT EXPRESS OUT OF A GOLDEN ERA
The elegant paneled dining car, its tables covered with crisp linen and set with silver, china and glassware, comes from another, golden era of train travel, but it is alive and well aboard the American Orient Express, the only private luxury train in North America. From March through November this year, you can choose from five regional itineraries or select a transcontinental rail journey, either from Washington to Los Angeles or across Canada between Vancouver and Montreal. The cost ranges from $2,490 to $6,990. There's a saving of $300 if you reserve six months in advance.
Along the way, executive chef Anthony Hubbard purchases fresh ingredients for menus reflecting each area's cuisine. He researched the impeccable way food was served on the trains of the past and, he says, "incorporated some of that." The 15 vintage cars, built during the streamliner decade that began in 1948, have been restored (at a cost of $15 million) and recall the splendor of Europe's Orient Express. Sleeping cars are outfitted in mahogany and brass, and a pianist plays in the club car during the cocktail hour. All that's missing is Cary Grant www.americanorientexpress.com 888-759-3944). --By Emily Mitchell
IN THE PATH OF LEWIS & CLARK ARMCHAIR PIONEERING BY ROAD AND RAIL
For their corps of discovery, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark selected men with grit and guts. Both qualities were put to the test: the group battled rattlesnakes and grizzlies, suffered boils and dysentery, portaged canoes up hills and through rocky ravines, and were reduced to eating dogs and horses in the course of their 28-month, 8,000-mile trek to chart the western wilderness.
Two hundred years later, you can re-live that historic exploration--without the danger or the dogmeat--by taking the seven-day rail-and-road tour "In the Path of Lewis and Clark." Traveling part of the way by motor coach and the remainder aboard the American Spirit--a daylight train with refurbished passenger cars and vista domes from the late '40s and '50s--you set out from Billings, Mont., and end up near Astoria, Ore., journeying through large swaths of Lewis and Clark territory in between. You will cross the rugged Bitterroot Mountains, where the corps nearly starved; navigate the Clearwater River in canoes like those used by the expedition; stop at the Nez Perce National Historic Park to learn about the Native Americans who befriended the explorers; and visit a replica of Fort Clatsop, which sheltered the bedraggled group during the cold, wet winter of 1805-06.