I love trains. The point of this trip is (*was) to cross China by train, not to "visit" China, so flying to Lanzhou or wherever isn't some secret I overlooked. Heck of a lot easier to book a flight in China, I could even do it on my own in about 10 minutes ;) But that's not the point.

I get it. I love trains too.

The thing is, these are Chinese trains:
China has the best passenger railway system in the world.

China has the worst passenger railway system in the world.

Both of these statements are true depending on the value system of the person making them.

Chinese trains can be cheap, clean, fast, and convenient. They put you in touch with a culture/segment of society and give you a sense of history that is unique and fascinating. Befriending some migrant laborers in hard seat, consuming massive quantities of very low quality liquor, interesting flavored peanuts, and surprisingly good green tea while playing stupid games remains a real highlight of one of my first trips to China.

Chinese trains can also be expensive, dirty, slow and inconvenient. The trains run on arcane schedules, are difficult to book, and the views are often not great. Putting up with low quality cigarette smoke and rude fellow passengers on a long sleeper is an all to common bad memory from a decade of riding the train in China.

Fascinated by the statement that you couldn't even stay in the same soft sleeper bed for the whole trip. What the...?! Even if you're going from the start to the end of the train's journey?

If you love trains and want to experience Chinese trains, I HIGHLY recommend you break up your journey and take a few segments with transfers. Every train is different in China, best to roll the dice more than once so you have a better chance of something really cool and if you get something bad it will only be for 12-16 hours rather than 44. You'll also get to see more stations, more carriages, just more cool stuff about trains. You'll also have a few hours or a whole day to walk around and get some real food.

This might not be the right forum for you, perhaps you should check out a rail fan site that has information on what parts of the Chinese train network is actually interesting. As I said most Chinese trains travel through polluted flat plains of endless light industry and modern farming. They might cross mountains or important rivers/cities in the middle of the night. There are some really breathtaking vistas, but they are really rare. China is a huge country.

Title: TATRANSKÁ MAGISTRÁLA: A TREK IN THE HIGH TATRAS

Destinations covered: High Tatras Mountains, Slovakia

Theme: trek/solo travel

Style: travelogue

Synopsis: Often called the "Small Alps", the High Tatras are part of the bigger Carpathian mountain range and home to the Tatranská Magistrála trek.
Officially the trail lasts 4 days, starts in the village of Podbanské, and runs 42km ending at the lake of Vel’ké Biely pleso.
Many variants to this trail exist with several optional paths.

URL: https://www.timothycohen.com/travelogues/2018/8/12/tatransk-magistrla-a-trek-in-the-high-tatras

We're interested in everything! (specific, I know haha) We've been to Iceland, Ireland, Italy, and Greece but this will be our first time in France/Germany/Switzerland. Best "touristy" things to see that are on the rail route? We like walking around and discovering things on our own, not necessarily with any guided tours. Any recommendations on where to sleep?

We're planning on saving the last two days for Zurich! My sister's dream has been to see the mountains there.

There are webcams along the whole trail:
https://www.chamonix.com/webcam-planpraz,48-5051507,en.html
http://www.verbier.ch/fr/webcams/webcam-gentianes.htm
http://www.4vallees.ch/fr/webcams/webcam-thyon-grande-dixence.htm
https://www.lookr.com/de/lookout/1141651451#action-play-day
https://www.valdanniviers.ch/tourism/webcam.html
https://www.bergfex.ch/graechen/webcams/c150/
https://www.zermatt.ch/Webcams

Even if you managed to remain mostly above 2000 metres, you wouldn't get fully "out of civilization": you would cross cableway stations like Col de Balme, Col des Gentianes, Sorebois, Sunnegga... , ski lifts and ski pists (abandoned in summer), agricultural roads, mountain restaurants, gites d'etape, mountain huts and even hotels (like Hotel Weisshorn).

Thanks! I think this comes down to whether I want stunning mountains or beaches the last week! Admittedly Laos has a much greater authenticity factor than Thailand (at least from my view on the tourist trail).

Tourist trails are tourist trails.

Thailand has far more interesting towns away from tourists. Look at Nok Air destinations. The whole of Isaan is off the tourist trail.

I like Guangdong a lot. I've never attempted to trek in Guangdong, though there are some mountains in the province, and even some nice karst scenery. Guangdong's better for traditional Chinese culture though, with some really interesting cities and lots of nice villages. Chaozhou and Meizhou are two examples, with lots in the surroundings, and generally few tourists (though Chaozhou gets some certainly). Kaiping's also interesting, and it should be possible to avoid the crowds there if you want.

I've put information on these places up on the Thorntree before, so do a search if you're interested.

Actually, the best place for trekking in the region is Hong Kong, which has some fantastic long distance hiking trails, though who knows what Hong Kong will be like come winter.

We've just left Kiev, with kids of a similar age. It felt relatively safe, welcoming and fun but we did have to remind them to be careful how they spoke to each other (tone & volume of voice etc) as I noticed some very good humoured interactions between siblings were gaining glares from the locals on day 1.

There is an express train every hour into the main railway station & nearby metro. You will need to walk out of the smallish terminal I think you'll land in, straight across the car park to the next terminal and then left for further than you'd think to get to the largest terminal and adjacent train station. (I say this as our kids were convinced I'd read the airport map wrong so hated this bit and we missed our train by 2 mins & had to wait :/ ).

The metro is spacious, clean, beautiful & the easiest to use ever. It will take you to a main square with fountains, shops, restaurants etc. From here it is a 10 minute walk to a beautiful modern park with river views and the beautiful st michael's golden domed monastery with gardens & a bell tower you can climb for beautiful city scape views before a slightly different 10 minute walk back to the same metro.

Alternatively there is the Hidropark (a city centre seaside resort on an island in the middle of the river) accessible by metro. The 2nd deepest metro station in the world is a few stops before as a free, 5 min, add on.

There is also the Chernobyl museum (slightly different part of town, and will take up a couple of hours, but definitely worth a stop if you've time/it rains/have been watching the tv series).

Perhaps I should be asking if there is a better itinerary out there that allows us to see some of Austria and/or Germany while still hitting Zermatt.

I think that's a better question, and might get us away from debates about how many peaks each area has, and how high they are. I'm not sure it matters too much anyway - the quality of the experience depends on lots of other things, especially the ease of access, the excitement of the cable-car / mountain railway, and whether you can reach the summit.

The Zugspitze might not be the highest mountain, but the cable-car to the very summit was superb. As was the Gornergrat mountain train to near the base of the Matterhorn - really superb.

Anyway OP, I would look just at Zurich > Lucerne > Wengen > Bern > Zermatt ... and leave it at that. A mix of nice cities and ski mountains. I would drop the Glacier Express, St Moritz, and all those expensive ski resorts in the east of the country, and the trip out to GaPa.

As I mentioned up-thread, for a tiny taste of Germany, an excellent day-trip (or even overnight) is Schaffhausen, Rhine Falls, Waldshut-Tiengen, and other parts of the Rhine Valley on the German side - including maybe beautiful Lake Konstanz. Even though Innsbruck in Austria is lovely, it's a fair bit out of the way when Zermatt is in the mix.

Luca is right: March weather is unpredictable all over Europe.
There are tons of excellent hiking possibilities in March, however, but only if the weather is fine.

Some proposals:
Tramuntana mountains of Mallorca;
Sentier de Grande randonnée "Balcons de la Méditerranée" (nicest parts between St. Raphael and Ventimiglia);
Water channel trails along the sunny slopes of the Swiss Rhone Valley (Canton du Valais);
Water channel trails in Venosta Valley (Merano, Italy);
Panoramic trails above (and along) Lakes Lugano and Maggiore;
Sentier des Crêtes du Jura suisse (rougly between Zurich airport and Geneva airport);
Prepared winter hiking trails in snowy landscapes above 1500 metres, like
Zermatt - Gornergrat,
Riederalp (Aletsch Glacier) - Fiescheralp,
Wengen - Kleine Scheidegg,
Grindelwald - First - Grosse Scheidegg,
Maloja - St. Moritz - Pontresina.

Many mediterraen Islands have excellent hiking networks, for example:
Cyprus (Adamas Peninsula, Troodos mountains);
Greek Islands (Astypalea, Samos, Andros, Naxos, Paros, Sifnos, Kythira, Crete.....);
Malta.

March is low season; neither planes nor trains or hotels will be fully booked. Therefore I suggest to wait until the last possible moment, to have a look at the weather forecast and to decide accordingly, just 1 or 2 days ahead.
If you come from overseas, book a flight to a centrally located place from where you can easily reach all the trails you may be interested in (by low cost flight or train). A airport like Milan Malpensa might be a solution, as it is situated close to the hiking areas of the North Italian lakes, 2 hrs or so by train from the Swiss Alps and linked by frequent and chep flights to most Mediterranean destinations.