As of this writing, my wife, Logan, and I have just returned to Canada after travelling around Europe. Our trip started in Lithuania, where Logan presented her PhD research at a conference in Vilnius. From there, we flew to Frankfurt, rented a car, and travelled through Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and the Swiss Alps before arriving in Zurich, where we dropped off our rental car, and our train adventures began. Tying board gaming into our travels everywhere we went, our first train destination was Carcassonne, France. From there we took the train to Barcelona, Spain, where we enjoyed the last few days of our trip seeing the beautiful Sagrada stained glass. With Zurich and Barcelona both on the Ticket to Ride: Europe map, travelling between them by train was a surreal experience and made this month’s review a no-brainer.

Ticket to Ride: Europe is a game of hidden information, where players must strategically hide the train routes they are trying to complete while connecting ticket destinations and building the longest route. I’ve mostly played this game at two players, and I’ve found that a strong strategy is to start the game by building up a large hand of train cards before suddenly completing several routes in a row. I try to avoid giving my opponents any information of my plans. Placing trains too early can easily give away your target direction, and even taking specific coloured cards from the available face-up cards can reveal important information. Avoiding your opponents from blocking you is essential to a successful game. This is especially important at two players, where claiming one side of a double route prevents your opponent from using the other.