Best places to visit on world’s longest train journey: a guide to what the Singapore to Portugal route has to offer
- The 18,755km odyssey, made possible with the new US$6 billion Vientiane to Boten line, passes through 13 countries and could take as little as 21 days
- But why rush? From Unesco World Heritage Sites galore to street food in George Town to visiting France’s Bordeaux wine region, there’s much to see along the way
You may have missed the fanfare that accompanied the December opening of the railway line connecting the Laotian capital, Vientiane, with Boten, a town on the Chinese border, but the news sent train buffs into a frenzy, not least because the high-speed link makes it possible to now travel all the way from Portugal to Singapore, or vice versa, by rail.
The 18,755km (11,654-mile) odyssey through 13 countries is believed to be the longest continuous railway link in the world.
Timetable obsessives calculate that, allowing for some hurried connections, the expedition could be completed in 21 days, although Covid-19 restrictions, suspended services, closed borders and opaque visa regulations ensure the trip remains hypothetical – at least for now.
That needn’t stop us from sizing up what the route has to offer:
Singapore to Kuala Lumpur
According to the Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Our 18,755km epic begins with a five-minute shuttle train from Woodlands railway station, in Singapore, to JB Sentral Station, in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.