Acela NE Regional train at Boston’s South Station.

For most Americans Amtrak is a curiosity, but for those of us along the east coast it is an actually useful mode of transportation. The three busiest Amtrak stations are New York, Washington, and Philadelphia, after all. So with that in mind, here is BeyondDC’s list of the top Amtrak destinations from DC.

The list is based on a subjective combination of ease of travel via Amtrak and, y’know, whether the destination is a place anybody would want to go.

Number 10: Boston Big city, plenty of frequent trains, Acela the whole way. Boston would be much higher on the list if it weren’t so far. At 450 miles it’s on the outer edge of a reasonable distance for travel by train.

Number 9: Coastal Connecticut From cosmopolitan New Haven to touristy Mystic Seaport, there are plenty of places to go, and it’s on the high-qualify Northeast Corridor.

Number 8: Charlottesville Virginia’s likable college town makes for a perfect day trip. Unfortunately there aren’t many trains, so scheduling can be tough.

Number 7: Williamsburg Ditto Charlottesville, but the train schedule is a little easier.

Number 6: Hudson Valley With light houses and fortresses perched atop rocky riverside embankments, the views are nothing short of stunning. As long as you’re staying south of Albany the trip is easy and relatively cheap. For extra savings, take Amtrak to New York and then use Metro North for the second leg.

Number 5: Atlantic City OK, you have to transfer to a New Jersey Transit train in Philly, but that ain’t no thang.

Number 4: Richmond At two-and-a-half hours it’s a comfortable ride, and even though it’s south of DC there are enough trains that scheduling is pretty easy. Use Main Street station rather than Staples Mill for a more urbanistically and architecturally interesting trip.

Number 3: Baltimore Everybody loves the Inner Harbor, right? The only problem with Amtrak to Baltimore is that it’s almost too close. On weekdays those $7 MARC tickets trump the faster but more expensive Amtrak trip.

Number 2: New York America’s unquestioned king of all things passenger rail would be number 1 if the bus from DC wasn’t such a competitive option. Still, there’s something magical about arriving in Penn Station via train (even if Penn Station is a hole).

Number 1: Philadelphia It’s a relaxing-length ride along the high-quality Northeast Corridor, and it’s to a fun city. Amtrak is always my mode of choice to the City of Brotherly Love.

Dishonorable Mentions: Amtrak is what it is, and so even though we’re on the east coast there are some nearby destinations that *should* be easy to reach via train, but unfortunately aren’t. Pittsburgh is almost exactly the same distance from DC as New York, but the one train there per day dumps you off in the middle of the night and is essentially unusable. Harrisburg is as close as Richmond and has decent Amtrak service, but you have to go out of the way to Philadelphia and then backtrack to use it. Norfolk and Virginia Beach are too far from the Newport News station for it to be very useful, although that is due to be fixed.