Want to do the trip from Minneapolis to the west coast (haven't decided upon the final stop yet) on the Empire Builder rail route.
want to stop along the way at some interesting towns - lots of places along the way but don't know any of them ? Have plenty of time so can stop 3/4 days at any stop.
Any recommendations ?
Haven’t done the train but looking at the route map I’d say North Dakota and eastern Montana are pretty boring. Unless you really find the center of North America interesting, or want to see a crazy oil boom town in Williston.
Might be able to find some interesting stuff at Fort Peck reservation. There’s also the Blackfeet Indian reservation near glacier that I think holds powwows for tourists.
The obvious stop is at Glacier National Park and whitefish.
Sandpoint Idaho is a nice town on a beautiful lake. I really like that place. Dunno what it’s like with no car though.
On the Amtrak map is shows two lines. On the Seattle line I think Leavenworth is cool. Yes the German thing is silly but just embrace it. Plus the setting is beautiful and lots of outdoor opportunities.
The Portland train looks like it makes several stops along the colombia river gorge which is a spectacular area. Not sure about no car transport once you get off the train but it’s a really beautiful area.
I agree with pivobar on both counts:
Are you willing to rent a car at all? Are you expecting to travel very light (recommended)? I could recommend East Glacier, Essex, West Glacier, Whitefish, and the Columbia River Gorge ... but I'm reluctant to do so if you're going to be stuck and immobilised.
I think it's safer to recommend Missoula (on the line or nearby?), Sandpoint, Spokane ... these are big enough and interesting enough to warrant a day, and being a pedestrian may not be a total disadvantage.
But overall, AMTRAK journeys are to my mind best done continuously as a destination in itself, rather than being seen as hop on hop off transport services. The lack of a car, plus carrying luggage, and the spread-out nature of just about every place west of the Mississippi, makes your goals rather difficult.
The line appears to go pretty far north of Missoula via Glacier Whitefish and Sandpoint
I’d probably rent a car in whitefish to visit glacier and then hope back on the train to Portland and rent a car there to visit the gorge area. I assume though am not familiar with Amtrak that each stop will necessitate buying a new ticket which I think would be rather expensive if you start doing multiple legs. This way you’d basically buy two tickets. Minnesota to whitefish and whitefish to Portland. And see the two main highlights along the route.
I don’t know how long the train stops in most of these places but if you have 20-30 minutes is enough to walk around most of them in Montana and North Dakota. Like Minot and Williston the train stations appear right downtown and these places are only really a few blocks by a few blocks.
Or even more creative, disembark at East Glacier and rent a car (or take a tour) through to West Glacier / Whitefish, via the Going to the Sun Road ... it's wonderful. There is also a quirky stop at Essex ... there is an old Inn (Izaak Walton) plus a railroad museum, and very little else.
I don't know if multiple point-to-point tickets are dearer than a continuous one ... you'd expect so, if only by a small percentage. I think from previous threads the trains stop just for the minimum required to drop off and pick up passengers (five minutes). But all this can be found on the AMTRAK interactive maps.
Just doing a quick search on the Amtrak website it seems a ticket with a bed reserved (which i assume for a 37 hour train ride you'd want but I dunno) is $405 from St. Paul to Portland. For St. Paul to Whitefish and then Whitefish to Portland separately it's $350 and $208. So about $100 extra for two separate tickets.
I sat up for about 40 hours on the Indian-Pacific across Australia ... even with a smoking car and a drinking car, and quite generous seats, it was still an endurance event. That's actually $153 extra for the Whitefish break, which I concede is a higher percentage than I imagined. Do they save some getting off at East Glacier I wonder.