Wealthy travelers are flocking to luxury trains costing more than $4,000 a night

• Wealthy travelers are increasingly booking luxury train vacations.
• High-end suites often include amenities like bottomless Champagne, butlers, and private bathrooms.
• A night on Belmond's iconic Venice Simplon-Orient Express starts at about $4,370 per person.

Vintage luxury is making a comeback. Not just with clothes, but with a particularly beloved mode of transit — trains.

Set to debut in April, Italy's La Dolce Vita Orient Express would offer guests luxuries like a stylish lounge, Champagne buckets from Giobagnara (which can command more than $500 each), and meals curated by the chef of Rome's three-Michelin-starred La Pergola.

Expect dishes like calamari carpaccio and lamb with artichoke and truffle shavings — for lunch, no less.

"It's all a bit pricey, but we're determined to put all the finest stuff made in Italy on board this train," Samy Ghachem, the coming train's general manager, told Business Insider.

La Dolce Vita Orient Express is not to be confused with Belmond's iconic Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, best known for its sumptuously restored century-old carriages. Both trains are helping lay the tracks for a revitalized rail renaissance characterized by surging demand and increasingly high-end amenities.

Luxury train bookings are going loco-motive

Train-focused tour company Railbookers had been experiencing double-digital growth before 2020. However, after the pandemic and the subsequent boom in "slow travel," popularity started going express.

Frank Marini, president and CEO of Railbookers Group, told BI that 2023 and 2024 have consecutively been the company's best-performing years, with no signs of slowing down. During this period, Railbookers also saw a 68% spike in luxury-level bookings.

"It keeps snowballing," Marini said. "We see passengers that have come back traveling with us on a lot of luxury rail, and they're like, 'well, where else is there luxury rail?'"

Unlike bus tours or flights, the vacation experience doesn't begin when you arrive at your destination. Instead, like cruises, it starts when passengers board.

And unlike their at-sea counterparts, trains are one of the most eco-friendly ways to travel.

Plus, the amenities can be as lavish as a five-star hotel. Guests traveling Canadian Via Rail's Prestige Class have enhancements like a butler and a private bathroom with heated floors. Gold-level US and Canada's Rocky Mountaineer travelers get a dining room, an open-air viewing platform, and glass dome lounges.

On Belmond's Andean Explorer, based in Peru, suite guests slumber in 141-square-foot bedrooms with private bathrooms and lounges.

Such luxury comes at a cost, of course.

Andrew Channell, Railbookers Group's senior vice president of product and operation, estimates a typical multi-day luxury train trip, but not of the highest-end tier, could cost around $3,000 per person and day.

And then there's the iconic Venice Simplon-Orient Express, where a one-night journey from Venice, Italy, to Paris starts at about $4,370 per person for a basic cabin with a shared bathroom.

The train's most luxurious Grand Suites come with a private restroom (plus upgrades like bottomless bubbles) — for about four times the cost.

They are, after all, a "rich and famous-type bucket list item," Julie Durso, a travel manager for agency Scott Dunn Private, told BI.

Gary Franklin, Belmond's senior vice president of trains and cruises, told BI that reservations for the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express spiked 10% from 2023 to 2024. The Grand Suites are often the first accommodations to be booked.

To adapt to this swell in demand, the train — which only accommodates about 100 passengers — now operates a longer season than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The popularity of train travel is seeing a renaissance," Franklin said, adding that bookings for Belmond's five — soon to be six — other trains also increased. This includes a 25% boost for the Royal Scotsman, which was almost fully booked through 2024. (A two-night roundtrip Edinburgh, Scotland journey on the high-end locomotive starts at about $5,940 per person.)

Full steam ahead on luxury

Popular commercial travel companies, like airlines and cruise lines, often offer cheap, low-tier options to capture more guests. Think interior cabins on cruises and basic economy seats on airlines.

Belmond is taking the opposite approach by enticing wealthy travelers with increasingly luxurious add-ons.

In 2024, the company introduced two Grand Suites to the 40-year-old Royal Scotsman. The addition was "exceptionally well-received," Franklin said — so much so that Belmond plans to add more in 2025.

The train had previously been updated in 2023 with a Dior-branded spa carriage, now also available on the recently relaunched Eastern and Oriental Express.

"We all lead these very frenetic lives," Franklin said. "This is an opportunity to slow down, look out the window at the incredible scenery, and come together with fellow travelers in a nice luxurious environment with great food and beverage."

Not everyone can afford to spend thousands of dollars for a night on Belmond's trains. However, the financial barrier isn't deterring travelers from their luxury vacation dreams.

According to Marni, all of Railbooker's conventional train bookings now include some touch of extravagance, such as a cabin upgrade, a night's stay at a high-end hotel, or an exclusive excursion. This "little luxuries" trend, as he calls it, only started a few years ago.

Or, if you're rail-y in the mood to splurge, you could request Belmond's new L'Observatoire suite. The skylight-lit moving hotel room spans the entire carriage — hidden tearoom and marble bathroom with a tub included — all for about $101,515 a night.

Sounds pretty train-quil, doesn't it?