More than 230 passengers and crew members have been sickened in an outbreak of norovirus during a 29-day round-trip luxury cruise from England to the Eastern Caribbean, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Queen Mary 2, the flagship ocean liner of Cunard Lines, left from Southampton, England, on March 8, according to Cruise Mapper, a tracking site. An outbreak was reported on March 18, the C.D.C. said, after the ship had stopped in New York City. Passengers and crew had reported symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting, the agency said.

The C.D.C. said the outbreak spread to 224 passengers, out of 2,538 onboard, and 17 crew members. The ship has isolated them and has taken sanitizing measures, it said.

In addition to New York, the ship had stops in St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Grenada, Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Tortola. On Tuesday, the Queen Mary, or QM2 as it’s known, was traveling through the Atlantic Ocean on its way back to Southampton, where it was scheduled to arrive on April 6, Cruise Mapper shows.

Cunard said in a statement on Tuesday that the guests were being closely monitored and the ship deep cleaned. “Thanks to the swift response from our crew and the additional measures that we have in place, we are already seeing a reduction in reported cases,” the statement said.

The vessel, launched in 2004, is 1,132 feet long, one of the world’s largest ocean liners. In 2013, a Times reporter described his voyage on the QM2, which included a departure delay triggered by a “near-military-level” eradication operation after a norovirus outbreak sickened more than 200 people.

Norovirus, a gastrointestinal illness, thrives in closed areas such as health care facilities, dormitories and cruise ships, where people are traveling and working in close quarters. The illness infects up to 21 million Americans a year, according to the C.D.C. It spreads by contact or through contaminated food or water. There is no treatment, and most people recover in a few days.

Cruise ships are required to report to the C.D.C. when there is an outbreak, which refers to the total number of people sickened throughout the voyage, not the number of sick people at the same time.

The C.D.C. has reported other cases of norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships. Twelve of 461 passengers and 22 crew members of a Seabourn Encore cruise were sickened on a voyage that left Japan on March 16 and was scheduled to dock in the United States on April 9, it said.

Last month, a Holland America ship reported a norovirus outbreak affecting 89 of its 2,670 passengers and four of its crew during a nine-day cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to the southern Caribbean.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a law — the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act — that seemed to pave the way for a national high-speed rail system in the United States. “An astronaut can orbit the earth faster than a man on the ground can get from New York to Washington,” he lamented at the time. Sixty years later, it still takes about three hours to travel between the two cities — a period about twice as long as a single orbit of the International Space Station.

High-speed rail in the United States is still years away. But projects across the country, from Washington State to Texas, suggest a growing enthusiasm for faster train service. These efforts are relatively modest in size, proposing to connect two or three cities at a time. But that may be precisely what makes them feasible.

Under the Trump administration, high-speed rail is unlikely to receive additional support from the federal government. “There should be a federal program,” said Rick Harnish, executive director of the High Speed Rail Alliance. “But in the current circumstances, states need to do what they can on their own.”

High-speed rail 101

Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, estimates that only about two dozen countries across the world now have high-speed rail, which he said typically refers to train systems that go at least 186 miles an hour. Almost all of them are in Western Europe or East Asia. The only high-speed rail in Africa is the Al-Boraq in Morocco. There is no high-speed rail in the Americas yet.

Ordinary tracks cannot simply be repurposed for high-speed rail, Mr. Kunz explained. The speeds involved require a “sealed corridor” with grade separation — features like overpasses and underpasses that prevent cars and pedestrians from having to cross in front of a bullet train. A high-speed train can’t nimbly wend its way through the landscape — it needs long straightaways, gradual slopes and gentle turns.

The fastest trains in the U.S. right now

Right now, the Amtrak Acela train is the fastest rail line in the United States, reaching speeds of 150 miles per hour. Amtrak is preparing to roll out updated NextGen Acela trains along the Northeast Corridor sometime this year. But the new trains’ top speed will be only 160 miles per hour.

Even if Amtrak spends billions on upgrades, Acela will never really be in the high-speed game. That is partly because Acela travels on ancient tracks that pass through dense population centers crowded with other infrastructure. Old bridges and tunnels create choke points. Freight and commuter lines jostle for access. “Amtrak is building a rail system for the 1890s,” said Representative Seth Moulton, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Brightline — the private rail line now running between Orlando and Miami — is the next-fastest line after Acela, topping out at 125 miles per hour. Because it lacks grade separation, accidents have plagued the line. But as Michael Kimmelman notes, Brightline has become a popular option for many Floridians and tourists.

Pending rail projects

Brightline West

In 2024, an offshoot of the company that built the Orlando-Miami train line broke ground on Brightline West, a 186-mile-per-hour train that will link Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. The line, which is expected to cover 218 miles, will be built on a strip of land between the north- and southbound lanes of the I-15, so it does not have to go through the costly process of negotiating rights of way with private landowners. Environmental reviews are over and done with, and passenger service is expected to begin in late 2028.

“This one is super easy to build, because it’s a wide open desert,” Mr. Kunz explained. “It’s flat,” and few people live in the harsh desert region through which the train will pass.

Read more in Michael Kimmelman’s story about Brightline.

California High-Speed Rail

“California is the first place in our nation where we will see a true high-speed rail system,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, then governor of the state, vowed in 2009. The initial phase of the project, connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles at 220 miles per hour, was supposed to have opened in 2020, and go all the way from Sacramento to San Diego by 2027.

But the troubled project is still many years from completion. For now, the state is focused on a 171-mile trunk through the Central Valley. And though California received $4 billion during the Biden administration, there remains a sizeable shortfall in funding.

At a recent press conference, Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican congressman from California, described California’s high-speed rail as “the worst public infrastructure failure in U.S. history.” Tom Richards, chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said that three challenges had proved persistent: the need to acquire rights of way through private property, the astonishing cost of moving various public utilities and the expense involved in passing environmental reviews. But bullet train boosters say challenges have been exaggerated.

“Everyone loves to rip on it in the press, but the project is about one-tenth as bad as they try to make it sound,” Mr. Kunz said. “When that thing actually gets up and running, it’s going to radically change transportation.”

Cascadia

In the Pacific Northwest, Microsoft has partly funded the planning for Cascadia, a high-speed rail line that would connect Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Vancouver, in British Columbia, at 250 miles per hour. The Federal Railroad Administration has also contributed $49.7 million.

“They’re really organized,” Mr. Kunz said.

But engineers have not decided on a route yet, and planning could take another five years. Bob Johnston, who has covered passenger rail for decades for the magazine Trains, believes that because the Pacific Northwest is already so congested with infrastructure, it may make more sense to improve service on existing Amtrak lines than to build out a whole new system.

“They have the will, it’s just going to be an uphill battle to execute,” Mr. Johnston said of Cascadia’s backers.

Texas Central

In the early 1990s, a company called Texas TGV proposed a high-speed network for the state, only to see its funding fall apart. About a decade ago, Texas Central partly revived that plan with a proposed Houston-Dallas line.

“Then the pandemic hit and everything kind of collapsed — they basically shut down,” Mr. Johnston said. But he believes that the route has many of the same advantages as Brightline West, calling the area the line would traverse “one of the most perfect places where high-speed rail could really work.”

Having evidently come to the same conclusion, Amtrak took charge in 2023. Last year, the project received a $64 million federal grant, and Amtrak is now looking for private companies to choreograph the complex dynamics of turning the projected 240-mile rail line into reality.

The dream of a national system

The dream of a national high-speed rail line is being kept alive by legislators like Mr. Moulton, the representative from Massachusetts. Since 2020, Mr. Moulton has been pitching a $205 billion federally funded high-speed rail system that would connect the entire country.

In an interview, Mr. Moulton argued that connecting two large cities with high-speed rail would also foster better connection among surrounding smaller cities. “If you built high speed rail between Chicago and Boston, it would not only be great for Chicago and Boston, it would be absolutely transformative for Cleveland, for Buffalo, for Syracuse, for South Bend, for Albany,” Mr. Moulton said. “All of a sudden, they’re accessible to these great economies.”

He suggested that by compressing enormous distances, high-speed rail could perform the important work of “truly knitting the country back together.”

The Headway initiative is funded through grants from the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors serving as a fiscal sponsor. The Woodcock Foundation is a funder of Headway’s public square. Funders have no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of the Headway initiative.

Europe’s railways have rarely inspired as much excitement as they have in recent years. Train companies, eager to capitalize on this newfound enthusiasm, have been racing to add new destinations, revive old ones or simply provide more seats on popular routes. Others have gone for luxury charters aimed at recreating the opulence of train travel in the past.

With travelers now spoiled, the selection below focuses on some constants: tried and tested routes that are easily accessible and offer the kind of beautiful scenery that has been a source of delight to travelers for decades, or even a century. Most of them run daily and come at no extravagant cost, yet still have special details that will make your journey comfortable, scenic and memorable.

Austria

The Transalpin from Zurich to Graz, Austria, is one of only a handful of trains with the Swiss Federal Railways’ first-class panorama car. Its high, curved windows rise above the seats to reveal sweeping views of the Alps. In good weather, you can spend most of the nine-and-a-half-hour journey (it runs only during the day) gazing at a rolling landscape of mountains, meadows, clear lakes and peaceful villages.

Crossing nearly all of Austria, the train stops at popular mountain resorts, which have increased their variety of year-round activities, like hiking, mountain biking, water sports and farm stays, to complement traditional winter sports.

The dining car serves schnitzel, knödel and other local dishes with Austrian wines, and will deliver your meals to your seat in first class. There are breakfast options served with fluffy Kaiser rolls starting at 6.60 euros (about $7.15), mains at €11.40 and a seasonal menu with vegan and vegetarian options.

Graz, Austria’s second largest city, has a pleasant historic quarter on the banks of the River Mur and is a good starting point for a Central European adventure, thanks to good onward connections to Vienna, Prague, Budapest and beyond.

Tickets from the Austrian Federal Railways start at €40 in second class and €60 in first. Look for train numbers EC163 or 164. You can buy a €3 reservation, making sure to pick both the first-class and the panorama car options, to secure a seat with a view.

The Gotthard Railway, one of Switzerland’s main Alpine gateways to Italy, combines dramatic views with spectacular engineering feats. To make the most of the scenery, board the Treno Gottardo, a direct service from Basel or Zurich to Locarno. The train travels through the original Gotthard Tunnel from 1882 at above 3,000 feet. It spends about 10 minutes in the tunnel, allowing travelers plenty of time to take in the views on either side. You may be tempted to stop and explore the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, at the southern end of the route, before heading on to Milan or Venice on direct trains.

South of Lake Lucerne, the train climbs a series of bridges and spiral tunnels to reach snowy peaks before descending to Locarno on the palm-tree-lined shores of Lake Maggiore. The lake, with blue waters bordered by steep slopes, straddles Switzerland and Italy, and its tiny islands are home to elegant palazzos and lush gardens.

Tickets to Locarno start at 32 Swiss francs ($37) for rides departing from Basel or 24 francs from Zurich. They can be booked on the Südostbahn website.

Italy

The trips from Milan or Rome to Sicily are among the longest direct train routes you can embark on in Europe. Though perhaps slightly too great a distance to travel by day, it can be a comfortable length for night trains.

Two trains that once ran this route, the Freccia del Sud, or Southern Arrow, and the Treno del Sole, or Sunshine Train, played a role in the large-scale migration of Italians from the rural south to the industrial north after World War II.

Today’s travelers can order dinner or go to bed shortly after boarding and wake up to southern sunshine and coastal views. The highlight comes around breakfast time, when the train cars are loaded onto Europe’s last passenger train ferry (complete with tracks) to sail across the Strait of Messina to Sicily. The final leg of the journey is a scenic coastal ride to Palermo or Syracuse.

Tickets from Trenitalia to either Milan or Rome start at just under €50 for a couchette in a basic four-person compartment. Three-sleeper and single cabins with a private bathroom are more expensive. All fares include breakfast.

Scotland

Shortly after leaving Glasgow, this line turns north, traveling between glistening lochs, and heads into untamed highland wilderness. After three hours, trains reach the Corrour station, set in a vast moorland accessible only by foot or rail. Corrour has a cafe and many walking routes. The station is famous for a scene in the 1996 film “Trainspotting,” in which Ewan McGregor’s character sits surrounded by its mountains and rants about how unbearable it is to be Scottish.

Farther on, Fort William is the ideal stop for a hike up Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest mountain. And before reaching Mallaig, trains cross the Victorian-era Glenfinnan Viaduct, popular with filmmakers and seen, most recently, in Netflix’s “The Crown.” From the port of Mallaig, you can catch a ferry to the Isle of Skye to explore its castles and dramatic shores.

The local carrier ScotRail runs several trains daily. One-way tickets start at around 20 pounds ($26). ScotRail offers travel passes for a set price if you plan to stop along the journey.

France

Named after the blue waters of the Mediterranean, this train trip from Marseille to Miramas takes under two hours. The route owes its popularity to its first section — to the fishing town of Martigues — which skirts white cliffs directly along the sea. It recently underwent critical work to ensure its safety and keep it from closing.

The best approach for this day trip, leaving from the heart of Marseille, is hopping on and off the train along the coast to enjoy local attractions. From L’Estaque station, you can embark on a walking tour of sites that inspired painters like Paul Cézanne and Georges Braque. A seaside trail from Niolon to Cap Méjean takes you through a succession of calanques, rugged limestone coves resembling miniature fjords. Calanques on the Côte Bleue are not as unspoiled as in the national park south of Marseille. But a tiny port and an imposing railway viaduct towering over the blue waters, like in Méjean, add their own character.

The port of Sausset-les-Pins is a short walk from the train station and has several spots for dining on the water. And in Martigues, a bus can take you to the center of town, where canals are lined by pastel-colored houses.

Tickets from the French national railway company SNCF start at €13.20. With a day pass for the Bouches-du-Rhône département, which includes Marseille, you can hop on and off as many times as you like for €20.

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The ferry ride from Helsinki’s city center to the island of Pihlajasaari takes only 10 minutes and deposits visitors at a playground of beaches, trails and rocky shoals excellent for sunbathing. But I had a different mission: to speak to a tree.

This was meant to be a therapeutic exercise, one championed by the Finnish biologist Adela Pajunen. Finns, she’d told me, sometimes share their worries aloud to trees or birds. Occasionally, they may even sing to them.

On shore, I followed a gravel path in search of the perfect tree. I ruled out several pines before spotting a short black alder. I clambered onto a rock and began to tell the alder my woes: I’d been romantically involved with someone who just told me he wasn’t ready for a relationship. Still, I told the alder, I was hopeful things might yet work out. He and I had kept in touch, sending voice messages back and forth. The alder’s leaves rustled in response, a sign I interpreted as sympathy.

I had come to Finland to see whether I could bring happiness back to America with me. Finland has topped the World Happiness Report for the past eight years, a merit largely attributed to the Nordic welfare state, trust in the government, and public policies like free education and universal health care. Under these criteria, living in the United States (No. 24 on the list) is practically a recipe for misery. But the Finns also find contentment in more attainable ways, such as their close relationship with nature (74 percent of the country is covered by forest) and visiting the sauna daily (there are three million saunas for a population of 5.5 million).

Visit Finland, the country’s tourism agency, uses the happiness ranking to entice travelers. And it appears to be working. Tourism is up to almost five million visitors in 2024 from about two million in 2022. Last June, it hosted its second “Find Your Inner Finn” master class, awarding winners chosen from a social media challenge a free trip to Helsinki to learn from five locals known as “happiness hackers,” including Ms. Pajunen and D.J. Orkidea, a top Nordic electronic music performer.

I didn’t enter the contest, but I liked the idea. Like many other Americans, I’ve struggled with unhappiness since the pandemic hit, sometimes experiencing anxious dreams, feelings of dread and crushing loneliness. So I sought out some advice from the happiness hackers, and planned a trip to Helsinki last June to put it all to the test.

The hackers armed me with various solutions, both for the trip and to use on my return to the United States. Luka Balac, a co-owner of the zero-waste restaurant Nolla, gave me a list of local dishes (including licorice ice cream and savory rye-crusted Karelian pies) that would tie me back to nature. Lena Salmi, a vibrant 71-year-old who skateboards and swims, spoke about her intense focus on the diving board. And Tero Kuitunen, a ceramist, suggested doing something, anything, by hand — read, pick berries, fish, knit. And several told me to visit the saunas.

These activities each contained similar goals: Stay present and strive for a communal, minimalist lifestyle that relies on the earth. Frank Martela, a happiness expert and assistant professor at Aalto University, just outside Helsinki, explained that Finns often brag when their summer cabins aren’t equipped with dishwashers, or even running water.

“That would be considered almost cheating,” he said.

A Nordic Education

Shortly after landing in Helsinki, I dropped my bags at the Hotel Fabian and headed to the waterside sauna and restaurant Loyly (which means “steam”). I’d expected the place to be quiet and calm with tinkling music; instead, I came upon a loud group of Finnish men drinking beer in their swim trunks.

As is custom, I alternated between short stints in the wood-fired sauna and the Baltic waters, frigid even in June, reached via a ladder from the sun deck. Research has shown that cold plunges have physical benefits, but Finns also view the activity as a mental exercise — a way of staying present. I set a goal of 30 seconds. The water was so biting that all I could think about was counting to 30. Did that count as staying present? I pawed against the chop, trying not to drown.

When I emerged, a rush of accomplishment overcame me. I repeated the circuit twice, and by the time I left, I felt a sense of ecstasy as my skin seemed to glow and my mind decluttered.

Happiness came in waves and troughs over the next few days, though. I got a hit of endorphins at a different and more tranquil sauna, Lonna, and unwound while eating salmon soup recommended by Mr. Balac. Then I found myself crying in the hotel room after ruining my shoes in the rain, overwhelmed by the elusive promise of happiness in this faraway country where I knew no one. Had I fallen prey to a marketing ploy?

On my final morning, I took a 20-minute ferry ride to the rugged island of Vallisaari, intending to take one last relaxing forest walk along a 1.8-mile trail. But as the boat puttered away, I began having a panic attack. “Today is the perfect day to be happy,” a painted wooden sign read, but loneliness and isolation had followed me halfway across the world.

That night I’d planned to hit a karaoke bar to test out one of D.J. Orkidea’s happiness hacks — communal dancing — after having dinner at the sustainable, Michelin-starred restaurant Gron. But I slipped into bed instead. As I wrote in my journal, “Sometimes happiness is a hotel bathrobe and snuggling under the covers.”

Still, I was optimistic that I could recreate the happiest moments of this trip back home in New York, even if I had to get creative — say, a forest walk in Central Park.

How hard could it be, really?

The American Reality

As it turns out, happiness is a luxury in America — a privilege, even. I was dismayed to find that most sauna passes in New York cost upward of $60. As a freelance journalist, I could not afford to steam like the Finns — many of whom have access to saunas in their homes or apartment buildings.

But I eventually found a place in Brooklyn that offered a reasonable deal and on Friday evenings began visiting its backyard barrel sauna, soaking tub and one-person cold plunge. It wasn’t Helsinki, but the space was tucked away enough to give an aura of serenity.

Because I was not about to forage for my own food like the Finns, I tried the next best thing: shopping at the farmers’ market. I also purchased a pot containing basil, thyme, chive and sage plants with the intent of becoming a gardener. Anna Nyman, a forager who lives about 30 minutes from the Helsinki city center, told me that she once grew produce and herbs on her balcony and therefore other city dwellers could, too. “I even had a watermelon growing,” she said.

My kitchen does not get much sunlight, so every morning I carried my little garden to the roof. Some nights I went out drinking and forgot about it. Summer storms soaked the soil. One evening I chopped the basil stem too low and was left with a barren nub. Everything eventually died, and someone tossed out the pot.

All in all, however, things were going pretty well. I even had a breakthrough one afternoon as I rushed through Central Park after an emotional therapy session and noticed a cluster of people staring at the ground. I flicked my eyes to the asphalt. A cardinal! I stopped to admire the bird’s red plumage before it flapped away. This was a win, I decided, for staying present.

A ‘Simple’ Discovery

Then in late July, the man I’d been involved with texted me to say he had started seeing someone. I soon learned that he’d actually gotten married.

I tried to channel sisu, a Finnish word meaning perseverance, but my mood fluctuated for weeks. Sometimes all it took was a brisk nature walk for the dopamine to kick in. Other times I ate very little or cried at random, once while chopping a farm-picked tomato I’d bought for the purposes of this experiment. Soon, even the sauna no longer lifted my spirits.

I was sitting at the beach one afternoon, wondering why nature was not making me feel better, when the answer hit me: I was trying too hard to live exactly like the Finns. I’d been so bogged down trying to find the time and money for the happiness hacks that I’d missed the point of what all the hackers were saying: Quiet the mind, and find pleasure in small acts and observations — like a cardinal taking flight, or talking to trees. “Simple things,” Ms. Pajunen had said. “This is at the core of what Finns have to offer the rest of the world.”

One Saturday, I forced myself to get dressed and walk my dog in Central Park. I said hello to the European lindens and northern red oaks as we strolled near the zoo. Immediately I felt better. But before we moved on, I carried out a small but comforting ritual I’d developed. I thanked the trees for listening.

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