Man in Seat61.com publishes book

Earlier this week GreenTraveller met up with Mark Smith (the man behind seat61.com) and had a sneak preview of his excellent new 496-page book: The Man in Seat 61: A guide to taking the train through Europe. Part One is a guide to train travel, including timetables and tips for booking tickets and railpasses; Part Two is a country-by-country guide to recommended routes, train times and fares from the UK. There's information for 35 countries, from Albania to Ukraine, as well as details for travelling by train long distance - to Morocco, Tunisia, Syria-Jordan-Iran, and China-Japan via the Trans Siberian Railway.

Mark Smith in his favourite seat: Eurostar's Seat 61

The book mainly uses content from the website but it has a useful amount of extra detail on how book tickets, and what to see on the way. There is a good "Top Tips" section covering subjects like security, what to take, and suggested short breaks - a great place for the novice train traveller to start testing out Smith's philosophy that "getting there is half the fun".

Some of the connection times are worryingly short, with no allowance for delayed or missed trains, but there are instructions on how to check for alternative times on various websites. You need to look at seat61.com for photos showing the variety of sleeper carriages on European trains and some maps would have been useful, though he does recommend the Thomas Cook Rail Map of Europe. The main advantage of the book is the format: whereas the website has small white text on a black background, which can be tricky to read, the book's clear layout really does encourage the armchair traveller to browse, dream and plan.

To order a copy of Mark's book (£12.99, published by Transworld), go to: www.rbooks.co.uk.

Mark is currently writing a book on worldwide train travel, due out next year.

Review by Richard Hammond and Olivia Lacey.