Man Volunteers for 11-Hour Cramped Sleep Experiment with Strangers on European Train

KEY POINTS

•In October 2022, a traveler paid $44 to ride Austria's OBB Nightjet from Vienna to Venice, booking a shared sleeper cabin.
•The cabin fit six bunks and luggage in just 74 square feet, hosting three other passengers who arrived at different times during the trip.
•Before departure, the traveler spent $10 in an OBB lounge that served modest snacks, contrasting with the full train station’s busy atmosphere.

In October 2022, our brave soul tackled an 11-hour overnight rail ordeal from Vienna to Venice on OBB's Nightjet—a $44 ticket purchased with a $477 Eurail pass covering most of Europe’s trains like a budget globetrotter gone wild. The Nightjet boasts speeds up to 143 mph, which is great if you want to trade sleep for high-speed bumps in a tiny cabin designed like a clown car for six strangers and their luggage. Unlike private Amtrak rooms, this shared cabin promised three other humans in 74 square feet of charmingly cramped chaos, fostered by dim lighting and questionable mattress quality. The $10 OBB lounge fee got him exclusive access to nuts, seeds, and awkward solitude amid a bustling station, setting the ironic tone for a night of first-come, first-served bunk drama, random arrivals and exits, and pillow fights in slow motion. Spoiler: you might arrive rested if you’re some kind of miracle or have mastered sleeping through bureaucracy, undue baggage, and strangers snoring at 143 mph.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Booking an overnight train to Venice sounded romantic until it turned into an 11-hour trust fall with strangers in a six-bunk sardine can. Europeans call it travel; I call it ambitious napping failure.

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