(Photo: Rovos Rail)
If you're trying to get between Point A and Point B as quickly as possible, then South Africa's Rovos Rail isn't for you. It offers luxurious tours across southern Africa, hauled by one of several restored antique steam engine locomotives. It takes 15 days to travel from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam--a journey that takes only a few hours by air.
On one of these long expeditions, you can travel in luxurious surroundings designed to resemble a lost, golden age of elite railway travel. If you get a royal suite, you can sit in a full-size bathtub and watch the scenery go by outside enormous windows. There is also a classically-decorated dining car. Gentlemen must wear jackets and ties while dining there.
Now put your cellphones away. There are no televisions, radios, or Wi-Fi on this train. Travellers are not allowed to use electronic devices outside of their suites. Instead, you're supposed to, well, talk to each other.
-via Christine Blau and Marilyn Terrell
Or so I've heard. I'm too afraid to try it.