So what’s the game of Ticket to Ride all about? Where are the Dice!? Ticket to Ride in a Nutshell Without it I would probably still be playing Clue with just 2 players. Ticket to Ride was the first modern strategy board game I played and I owe everything to it since it was my gateway into this wonderful hobby. Even after this, we were scoring so wildly that we kept track of our best scores with and without the expansion components…and also who won our start player Rock, Paper, Scissors competition.

It was only after we consistently scored at least 200 points a game that I decided to buy the 1910 expansion (which added more Destination Ticket cards), the Alvin and Dexter expansion (which added more conflict), and I printed a French fan created expansion (which added chaos) to deepen our games. This is my favourite route because, given the right Destination Cards, you can score 200+ points. Once we wiped the floor with a few groups of friends, we decided that we couldn’t play with anyone new to Ticket to Ride, no matter how excited we were to show it to them. Our completed Tickets tripled their starting three and we never laid any routes through Las Vegas (for which there were obviously no Destination Ticket cards). We tried playing against other friends, but we were too good. We would lay our routes so precisely then spend turns hunting through the Destination Ticket deck looking for the ones we needed. We played so frequently that we actually had the destinations on all the Ticket cards memorized. A few days later, I bought my own copy of the game and for the next three months my friend and I played Ticket to Ride daily, often playing two or three games a night. Am I ever thankful we did! After that play, we were hooked. She had been left with an equally sour taste after that first night but she obliged me nonetheless. Since I’m such an optimist, my friend and I visited a local board game café (Monopolatte) shortly after and I persuaded her to try Ticket to Ride again with me. As the photo suggests, the only time I am grumpier is when I’m hangry. I left feeling pretty grumpy that night and quite dissatisfied with Ticket to Ride.

I had focused my entire strategy on connecting all my trains only to find out at the game’s end that the trains had to be in a continuous path, branches didn’t quite count. Will you choose to lay a route or draw Train Car cards from the top of the deck hoping one will be exactly what you need? I didn’t love how frustrated I felt when it seemed like my routes were intentionally being blocked with no gain to the blocker (other than a few points) or how I misunderstood the longest train scoring. I liked the quick turns, simple options you had to choose from, and the tension that came from timing your actions. I definitely didn’t love it… but I did like it. Don’t Judge a Game by its Cover (or Your First Play)Ī few months later my friend’s brother and sister-in-law insisted that we try playing this strange Ticket to Ride game because they knew how much we both enjoyed playing classic games. That looks like the worst!” (Clearly not one of my finest moments.) Unfortunately I didn’t think the original picture was worth saving because it definitely wasn’t as beautiful as this. “They’ve been at the game for like an hour,” she continued. She then sent me a picture of coloured plastic rectangular prisms laid out on a brownish-beige map of America. She began her message with, “Look at this super boring board game my parents, are playing”. I remember the first time I heard about Ticket to Ride: six years ago I received a BBM message from my friend who was visiting her parents over the winter holidays.

A ticket to ride game