My wife and I are taking our two sons (ages 11 & 9) to New York and Boston after Easter. Our flights and hotels are booked, but how should we get between the two cities? Steve Taylor, by email

Sunday Times travel expert, Richard Green, responds: There are several hundred flights a day between New York and Boston, but the smart move is to cover the 190 miles by train. You’ll save a schlep out to the airport and avoid another pass through the mangle of modern air travel. Instead, you’ll be whisked from city centre to city centre in hassle-free comfort, and get a proper feel for the north-eastern landscape to boot.

The TGV-style sleekness of Amtrak’s Ecela Express was designed to compete with the airlines over shorter inter-city routes like this one. It is a high-speed train and can travel 150 miles an hour, but for the most part it uses existing track, cruising at slower speeds and using tilting-carriage technology to negotiate bends more swiftly than an ordinary train.

It has roomy seats, a ‘bistro’ car, and fewer stops, so you leave Penn Station in downtown Manhattan, and three and a half hours later, pull into Boston’s Back Bay Station (convenient if you are staying in Back Bay or South End), or South Station (best for the Waterfront and Theatre districts).

Book through the Amtrak website at www.amtrak.com, and adult fares start at £29 one-way (from £15 for children aged from 2-15).

Times recommends

• Britain's top 10 New Year's Day brunches
• Mozambique's lost islands
• The best things to see and do in 2010