From Los Angeles to Seattle: A 35 Hour Train Ride with a Newborn
We took the Amtrak Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle with our 10-week-old — and it became one of our most memorable family trips. In this story episode, Maddie shares the behind-the-scenes moments and what surprised her most about slow travel by train.
Want the tactical breakdown? I wrote the full guide—booking tips, best ages, and itinerary details—right here:
What we cover
Why we chose the train (and the very real “new mom travel logic” behind it)
Our “test run” day trip: LA → Santa Barbara
Booking a roomette
Observation car ocean views + chasing the sunset
Day 2 surprise: snow near Mount Shasta + breakfast in bed vibes
Dining car community seating + the unexpected joy of meeting strangers
Was it worth it? (marathon energy… but a core memory)
If you’re considering this trip
A few honest takeaways:
This trip isn’t about efficiency—it’s about the experience.
If 35 hours feels like too much, try a shorter route first (like our LA → Santa Barbara test run).
You don’t have to travel to create family connection. But if you’re craving something different from the four walls of your house—train travel can be a cozy, enclosed adventure that still lets you move and breathe.
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Hey, welcome to Postcards for Posterity. Make the memories. Keep the story. I'm Maddie, and this show is for moms and anyone who takes the pictures and holds the stories in their families, but doesn't wanna miss their life while trying to document it.
Why This Train Trip
Today is about my most often told family travel story. It's a bit more personal, more behind the scenes. About the time we took the 35 hour train ride on the Amtrak Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle with our daughter when she was 10 weeks old. And if you're thinking why, and that sounds intense, you're not wrong, but it was also one of those trips that became a core memory because it's so unusual and slow and beautiful.
And also maybe we were just sleep deprived and not thinking clearly. I don't know, but it turned out okay. If you want the tactical breakdown, like what to book,
the overall highlights from the day, what to expect, the best age to go for your kids, I published a full blog post guide and I'll link it in the show notes.
This episode is the story version, what it felt like and why I'm really glad we did it.
Testing with a Day Trip
Because we had up to that point, never traveled with our daughter overnight. I was a little nervous about committing to such a long ride. So before we did the full ride, we actually tested train travel with a day trip from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, and it was such a good introduction and made me feel so much better and we could see the different compartment options before we went. That day trip is honestly what made me much more excited and also like, okay, we can do the bigger trip.
New Mom Travel Logic
The part that makes me laugh now is, I was a new mom, I was new to breastfeeding and the napping and everything. And I was especially nervous about traveling with a baby. And in my postpartum brain, I had this logic that felt completely sound of if we're on a train, we can get off the train. If we're on a plane, we cannot get off the plane. And somehow that made me think the least stressful intro to travel would be a 35 hour train ride.
Plus my husband had wanted to take the Coast Starlight for a while and we were in that new parent season where everything is unfamiliar anyway, but you also wanna still feel like you, so we did it.
This trip was actually very multimodal travel. We didn't wanna leave our car at the train station, so we took the metro to Union Station, then traveled by train, got a rental car when we were in Washington. We also hit a deer by accident or more accurately it hit us, but that's another story. And then we took the plane back and, again that plane piece as a new mom, I was really nervous about the air pressure , and so I read all these things about what you're supposed to do. Someone recommended, feeding them while they're going up. I overfed her as we were going up because I was so nervous about it. And then after we were at a point where we were able to take off our seat belts, essentially, my husband went to go to the bathroom and she spit up so much all over me, it went into the seat next to me where my husband would've been. From then on, I just used a pacifier whenever we traveled on the plane. Just to side note.
Booking the Roomette
For the train experience, we booked what's called a roomette, which is a small, private sleeper room.
Basically has two seats that convert into a bed and are facing each other, and then there's a bunk above you that comes down. So it's pretty cozy, like tiny, cozy, but having a door you can close makes a huge difference with a baby. And what was great about any overnight room that you book, all meals are included.
Ocean Views and Sunset
Once we got all set up, we walked around and explored the inside of the train a little bit. Went to the observation car, which is pretty much the spot you really want to be in for most of the trip because it has these windows that go from the floor to the ceiling and you can just sit there and watch the scenery go by.
It's first come first serve. So when we first got there, it was a little crowded 'cause everybody wants to see the ocean and you wanna get on the side where you can see the ocean. So if you do take this ride, go and try to get that seat as soon as you can.
It was just so beautiful the ocean views and the quietness of it, but no one needed to fill it 'cause you just got to take it all in and it wasn't rushed. I think when you go on a trip where the journey is the destination, it's a relief because you get to just really be present in that and enjoy it.
Just to be on this trip together with our new baby just felt really really special. We watched the sunset, we watched the ocean. I love the sunset part too. 'cause it almost felt like we were chasing it while we were moving so fast.
Overnight Sleep Setup
That night we set up for bed. We put our daughter's travel bassinet that could get pretty low. We put that on my bed with my feet underneath, and then my husband slept on the upper bunk. And I will say that both of them got some of their best night of sleep with the train swaying. And my baby slept 10 hours, it was months before she did that again, but I slept so lightly because I was so nervous that she was sleeping so long and being in the new environment and not wanting to bump the bassinet and like wake her up every time I moved or something. So they have other sleeping options if you wanna pay a little bit more, and maybe that would've been a good choice so I could get a better rest. At that point, getting consistent sleep anyway wasn't a big deal.
Snowy Morning and Dining
And then the next day, just like waking up seeing snow? When I signed up for this trip, I didn't look at the map of where the train went. I was just like, yeah, this sounds good.
Like, we're gonna be on the coast and seeing the ocean throughout the whole trip. But at a certain point it actually goes inland. And you're not really on the coast for a pretty significant portion of the trip, but you are up in the mountains, like by Mount Shasta. So, when we woke up in the morning, it was just quiet and snowy and trees and we were just in it, and that was so beautiful.
We saw the start of the light of the sunrise. It was just so magical and so surreal. We had breakfast delivered to our room, so it felt like a breakfast in bed. We watched Saturday morning cartoons 'cause they do have wifi. Then when it stopped in Portland, we were able to get out, walk around, see the front of the train and then get back on for the last stretch.
The dining experience was an unexpected highlight and part of that was because it was community seating, so you got assigned seating, but you got paired with other passengers depending on how many people are in your group. It creates this like friendly, we're all in this together vibe.
One of the people we got to know is a bail bonds person. She was telling us some interesting stories about the middle of the night calls she would get. I feel like that's such a fun part of travels is meeting people you wouldn't otherwise, or have the opportunity to get to know.
The food was really good and our last meal was actually a three course dinner with steak as the main entree, and I was very impressed. It wasn't like Michelin Star, but it was not low quality diner food either. It was a good balance.
One my memories from this is watching our daughter look out the window of the train and her eyes just were like going so fast trying to see the outside. Her eyes literally could not keep up.
Was It Worth It
In the end, was it worth it? By the end of the train ride, it did feel almost like a marathon, which I've never actually run. But if I were, I did do a dance marathon once and that was enough. Anytime you are getting to the end of something, you're like, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to be done and proud you did it. Ready to get off. That's kind of the feeling that we had.
I'm so glad that we did it because I hadn't traveled that way before and it just forced us to slow down, just take things in, and we tend to try to fit a lot of things in a day. That was just a way to enjoy the journey truly.
Not be stuck in one seat. We can walk around, we can go different places.
It's truly a trip that we go back to in our minds a lot or bring up a lot just because of the uniqueness of it. I think part of it was we didn't really have high expectations, because it was our first trip with our baby. We were kind of in a curious discovery of how is this gonna go? It was a really nice moment and something that I would definitely do again when my daughter's older.
There's so many different routes you could do and such a unique way of seeing different parts of the country.
And I do wanna say, being a parent, a new parent is hard enough and traveling is not something you need to do to create family connections. If you are wanting to get out of the house and be in a space that's comfortable and enclosed and still allows you to be somewhere other than your living room and bedroom, then it might be a good fit.
And generally too, as a family or even we had people on the train, a group of friends that were doing like a some kind of murder mystery event and I was like, that would be so cool. I just feel like there's so many fun use cases for that kind of travel and experience and to do it with your family or friend or, even as a solo traveler.
And again, if the full route, 35 hours might be a big of a big commitment, if that feels like a bit too much, then there are shorter segments. Like I mentioned, we went to Santa Barbara and there's other stops along the way that you can go to and get off like Portland.
