50 Fun Facts About Ticket to Ride

Who designed the original Ticket to Ride?

Alan R. Moon. The idea struck him on a walk, after a session of a more complicated game had gone badly; he hurried home and drafted a version close to the finished design.

Which publisher released the first Ticket to Ride game?

Days of Wonder. Most Eurogames of the day came out of Germany, but this one came from a young American publisher and went on to win Germany's top prize.

Which hit board game is older than Ticket to Ride, which arrived in 2004?

Catan. It appeared in 1995, nine years earlier, and the two are often named together as the gateway games that turn newcomers into hobby players.

Which city on the original Ticket to Ride board is drawn well away from its real location?

Duluth. It sits roughly where Minneapolis is: the rail hub had to be on the board, so it took the spot first marked for Minneapolis, and in 2019 a fan petition asked the publisher to move it up to Lake Superior.

Which major German award did Ticket to Ride win in 2004?

Spiel des Jahres. The prize is worth more than prestige: winning it can add hundreds of thousands of copies to a game's sales.

Which feat earns the 10-point bonus card in the original Ticket to Ride?

Longest path. It has to be one continuous line of a player's trains, and the 1910 expansion's own game swaps the card for a Globetrotter bonus for the most completed tickets.

In Ticket to Ride, what triggers the final round?

Two trains left. Once any player's stock falls to two or fewer, everyone takes one last turn; an empty card deck ends nothing, because the discards are simply reshuffled.

Which train card is the multicoloured wild card in Ticket to Ride?

Locomotive. Its power has a price: taking a face-up one uses up your whole draw for the turn, and three showing at once sweep the row away for five new cards.

What happens to a destination ticket you fail to complete in Ticket to Ride?

Its points are subtracted. Tickets stay secret until the final count, so one unfinished journey can drop a leader from first place to last.

By its 20th anniversary in 2024, about how many copies of Ticket to Ride had been sold worldwide?

About 20 million. The publisher counted more than 18 million that year and passed 20 million soon after, which lets its line manager call himself the world's largest train producer.

In Ticket to Ride's backstory, five friends meet yearly to honour which adventurer?

Phileas Fogg. On the anniversary of his 80-day wager the friends set a new one: $1 million to whoever can reach the most North American cities by rail in seven days.

What makes a tunnel a gamble in Ticket to Ride: Europe?

Extra cards. The top three cards of the deck are flipped, and each one that matches your colour demands another card from your hand; fall short and your turn is wasted.

Which piece in Ticket to Ride: Europe lets you use a route owned by another player?

Stations. Each player gets three, but every one still unbuilt at the end is worth four points, so borrowing a rival's route always costs something.

Which German model-railway maker lent its name to a 2006 edition of Ticket to Ride?

Märklin. Each train card shows a different model from the firm's range; the edition later went out of print, which made copies scarce and pricey.

What happens to double routes in a two- or three-player game of Ticket to Ride?

Only one track can be claimed. Whichever a player takes, its twin closes for the rest of the game, so small games are tighter and a block bites harder.

On which Ticket to Ride map must players buy technology cards before building routes longer than two trains?

United Kingdom. Everyone starts confined to one- and two-train routes inside England; upgrades bought with wild cards open Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the ferries.

Which Cities edition of Ticket to Ride pays a bonus for building a flag from red, white and blue routes?

Paris. Each finished tricolour scores bonus points, a patriotic extra missing from the London, New York and Amsterdam boxes, though their countries' flags share the same colours.

Besides Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries reaches which two countries?

Estonia and Russia. Murmansk anchors a nine-train route on the eastern edge; the game was first sold only in the Nordic countries, and demand elsewhere brought a worldwide release in 2008.

Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails has a world map on one side and which region on the other?

The Great Lakes. Ships joined the trains because, as the designer put it, the planet is about 70% water, so a world map could hardly go without them.

In Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails, which unbuilt piece costs four points?

Harbour. Each player has three, and one built in a port named on your finished tickets can be worth up to 40 points, so leaving them in the box hurts twice.

Which two designers joined Ticket to Ride's creator to make Legacy: Legends of the West?

Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock. The pair behind Pandemic Legacy helped build a 12-game campaign whose permanent changes leave every group with a one-of-a-kind copy of the game.

In Ticket to Ride Legacy, what do players earn instead of points?

Money. Each player runs a rail company, and the earnings pile up in a vault that carries on from one game of the 12-part campaign to the next.

How does the Ticket to Ride Legacy board grow?

Jigsaw sections. The campaign opens on the East Coast, and boxes unlocked from game to game push the frontier, and the board, west.

Ticket to Ride's 10th anniversary edition packs its trains in what?

Metal tins. The board grew too, to about half as big again, so the deluxe set needs a much larger table than the original.

How do you win Ticket to Ride: First Journey?

Six finished tickets. There is no scoring at all: finish a ticket and you draw another, and linking the west and east coasts wins a bonus ticket on the spot.

What replaces trains as the playing pieces in Ticket to Ride: New York?

Taxis. Each player has just 15 of them and the Manhattan map is tiny, so a whole game is over in about a quarter of an hour.

What scores extra points in Ticket to Ride: New York?

Tourist attractions. Each landmark touched, Times Square and the Empire State Building among them, adds a point, which matters on a board whose longest route scores only seven.

Which vehicle serves as the playing piece in Ticket to Ride: London?

Buses. Each player has 17 double-deckers, and the wild card is a bus too: take one face up and your turn ends there, with no second draw.

Which feat earns bonus points in Ticket to Ride: London?

Linked districts. Join every stop in a district and it pays the one to five points printed on it, a consolation that can soften the sting of a ticket left unfinished.

Which pieces replace trains in Ticket to Ride: San Francisco?

Cable cars. Routes that reach sights such as Lombard Street or the Golden Gate Bridge pick up souvenir tokens, and a full set of seven is worth 12 points.

Ticket to Ride: Berlin uses two kinds of playing pieces: trams and what?

Subway trains. Each player has only five subway cars beside a larger fleet of trams, and some routes can be claimed with nothing else, so the five have to be rationed.

Besides India, which Ticket to Ride map won the 2011 fan design contest?

Legendary Asia. François Valentyne of Toronto won a $10,000 grand prize for it; his mountain routes swallow extra trains but repay two points for every one given up.

On Ticket to Ride's Team Asia map, how do partners pool cards?

In a card holder. Each partner also keeps a secret hand: one of every two cards drawn goes into the shared holder, so teams plan without ever seeing everything.

Ticket to Ride's India map pays a bonus for connecting a ticket's two cities in what way?

By two separate routes. The rules call the resulting loop a mandala, and a single loop that covers five of your tickets is worth 40 points.

Which card type in Ticket to Ride: The Heart of Africa can double the points for a route?

Terrain cards. They only work if you hold at least as many of that terrain type as any rival, so hoarding desert, jungle or mountain cards becomes a contest of its own.

Which system did the Nederland map bring to Ticket to Ride for the first time?

Currency for bridge tolls. Everyone starts with 30 coins, and running short means a loan that costs five points and bars you from the end-game bonus for the richest players.

Which Ticket to Ride map lets players collect railroad shares as they claim routes?

Pennsylvania. The shares are named after famous historical railroads, and at the end the biggest holders of each company score, with ties going to whoever bought in first.

On Ticket to Ride's France map, what must happen before most routes can be claimed?

A track tile is laid. Whoever draws cards must also colour an empty track bed, and because claiming waits for a later turn, a rival can pounce on the route you just prepared.

Which New Mexico city on the Old West map of Ticket to Ride pays its first visitor 10 points?

Roswell. In an optional variant the first arrival wins Alvin the Alien, a 10-point token that any rival can steal by building a route into the city where he sits.

Which feature of Ticket to Ride's Japan map is built jointly and open to every player?

Shinkansen routes. Anyone may ride a finished bullet-train link to complete tickets; the biggest contributor earns the top bonus, and whoever helped least is penalised.

Ticket to Ride's free 2020 lockdown expansion was set entirely where?

Inside a house. In Stay at Home each player guides a family member between rooms such as the kitchen, bedroom and balcony, on a board that fans downloaded and printed themselves.

What do players link for bonus points on Ticket to Ride's Poland map?

Neighbouring countries. Join two of them through your network and each hands you the top card from a stack sorted high to low, so the first to connect score the most.

What is the card-removal move in Ticket to Ride: The Card Game called?

Train robbing. Lay down more cards of a colour than a rival has waiting in their rail yard and theirs are discarded, so nothing is safe until it reaches your scoring stack.

Which streaming service secured the screen rights to Ticket to Ride in 2026?

Netflix. The deal covers films, series and unscripted shows; a feature film came first, with the board game's designer signed on as an executive producer.

Pink Ticket to Ride train sets sold since 2021 raise funds for which cause?

Breast cancer research. The $5 sets are sold at cost: whatever is left after production and shipping goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, whose shade of pink they borrow.

Which games group bought Ticket to Ride's publisher in 2014?

Asmodee. The French group kept buying studios, and its catalogue came to hold Pandemic, Dobble and 7 Wonders alongside the trains.

Which earlier game by Ticket to Ride's designer won him Germany's top board game prize in 1998?

Elfenland. Its young elves race to visit as many cities as they can, travelling by dragon, unicorn, troll wagon and even giant pig.

In Ticket to Ride's Alvin & Dexter mini-expansion, what kind of creature is Dexter?

A dinosaur. He and his partner Alvin squat on cities: no route can be built in or out while a monster is there, and a ticket to a city where one ends the game scores only half.

In a 2024 Saturday Night Live sketch, a dinner guest fears that playing Ticket to Ride will trap her in which film?

Jumanji. Kristen Wiig's guest insists any board game could 'Jumanji' her, and she is proved right when Will Forte's train conductor turns up to do exactly that to everyone else.

Which sitcom is among the TV shows in which Ticket to Ride has appeared?

The Big Bang Theory. For all the gang's board-game talk it is mostly set dressing: the game is out on the table, but hardly a real turn is played on screen.