Ticket to Ride
It's from 2004, before you were born.
- Maker
- Days of Wonder
- Type
- Board game (route-building)
- Debuted
- 2004
- Note
- A modern gateway-game staple
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About
As of 2026, it's 22 years old.
Ticket to Ride pulled out of the station in 2004 and became one of the definitive 'gateway games' — collect colored train cards, claim railway routes across a map of America (or later, the world), and connect distant cities for points. Simple enough to teach in five minutes, satisfying enough to hook newcomers for life.
Its genius is the quiet aggression: the route you needed is suddenly claimed by the seemingly-friendly player across the table, and a polite train game reveals itself as a tense game of blocking and bluffing. It sold millions and converted countless families into hobbyists.
Accessible, route-claiming, and slyly competitive, Ticket to Ride is the modern classic that turned building train lines into one of board gaming's great gateways.
