This article assumes you have played or are familiar with how to play this game, if you aren’t read my Ticket to Ride game review.

My Ticket to Ride Strategy Tips

Be selective: Don’t take more than one destination that takes a lot of trains unless it overlaps one of your other destinations. This is pretty basic, but you only have so many trains. If you try to do too much you may find you run out of trains. Especially if someone takes one or more of your planned routes and you have to take a longer way to connect your destination. Do try to select destination cards that have routes that overlap.

The Long Haul: Try to choose destinations you can link together into one long train. This will help you get the longest train. I have seen the bonus from having this win many games. That being said…don’t count on the longest train alone to win you games.
Keep aware: Watch what other people are doing. Can you block the leader from getting the longest train? It is obvious someone is trying to claim the route between St. Louis and Nashville? Make them take the long way around. To help you figure out where other players are going look at what colors they are drawing and where their current trains are.

Draw: When drawing cards pull ones that are showing in the colors you need first. If there are none in a color you need then take a random card from the top of the draw deck.  Now see if the one you drew matches any that are face-up. If so take that as your second draw, if not take another random one.

Route Length of 6 = 15 points: This strategy consists of taking initial destination cards and finishing them quickly. After that just get as many routes that are six long as you can. Each one is worth 15 points which is better than most of the destination cards and easier to get.

Hopefully these tips will help you win that next game of Ticket to Ride you play. Do you have any tips I didn’t think of?