I’m a big fan of traveling by trains, and it always pains me how impractical it is in most parts of the world, even in places where they would make economic and environmental sense. Europe has been getting better at this, with excellent high-speed rail connections from Amsterdam to Paris for instance, but other than a few anomalies like that, you’re mostly out of luck.
Maglev trains are super high-tech and an order of magnitude more expensive than traditional high-speed railways, so they are also much harder to economically justify, but what they lack in that area they more than make up for by the technology just being absolutely awesome. Is wanting to ride one a good enough reason to plan a trip to Japan? You know, it might be!
The Real Engineering channel on YouTube recently published a video on them, which I can heartily recommend: