many reasons why surface travel rocks

[devi]

- Out the window you will not see clouds, which are pretty but get old fast. You will see rolling hills, spring buds, gambolling lambs, picturesque canals with colourful boats, interestingly decrepit old factories and rusting industry, daffodils, castles, primroses, ponies and rainbows.
- And the windows are bigger.
- Train food is a hell of a lot nicer and cheaper than plane food. Or you can bring your own yummy food and eat it when you like, when you feel hungry...
- because you have your bag with you for almost the whole journey.
- You know your bag is in the same country as you.
- You can throw your razor, your tweezers, hairspray and a bottle of perfume in it without getting arrested.
- Less than 10 minutes standing in queues, total.
- No one will make you take your shoes off.
- No one will search right down to inside the caps of your markers in your pencil case, while you hold your trousers up with one hand and hold your shoes in the other, because you've been told not to put them back on yet as there's a secondary shoe check up ahead.
- Generally, you will not be treated like a strange hybrid of potential terrorist and cash cow.
- You spend most of the journey actually getting closer to your destination, not rattling round in a consumer Habitrail with nothing to entertain your eyes but ads for stupid aspirational shit you don't need.
- You can bring a musical instrument or other fragile thing without it being taken from you, losing its Fragile sticker as it bumps down the belt, and tumbling out on to the baggage carousel in several pieces at the far end.
- No one is going to make you listen to tinny jingles that go 'let's fly let's fly let's fly Ryanair' over the most mindless stupid-house beat you can imagine, while you sit trapped in a narrow seat with your elbows scrunched in, unable to escape.
- You can listen to music when you want, not just in a twenty-minute window in the middle of the flight while the seatbelt sign is briefly off and you can barely hear it anyway.
- They won't charge you ten quid to check in and twenty for each of your bags.
- You can sprawl in the bigger seats and put your stuff all over the table.
- Tables.
- You get to go on an actual boat! On the actual sea!
- Catamaran go wheeeee! Crosses Irish Sea in two hours!
- Sailing into Dublin Bay on a beautiful cloudy-bright evening is, just, wow.
- You will actually get a sense of the size and the texture of the land you're passing through.
- It doesn't cost £25 just to get to your train.
- Drinks on trains and boats don't come in disturbing let's-patronise-the-poor foil bags with "BUY ONE GET ONE FREE FREE FREE FREE!!!!" written all over them. Also, they are normal size.
- No weird nose-desiccating dry stale air or ear-popping.
- If the airport bus gets snarled up on the M25 and you miss your plane, you have to pay loads of money to change your flight. If you miss your boat, you shrug and get on the next one.
- Counting airport taxes, baggage charges and airport bus, it works out about the same price as if you'd got 1p flights each way. Except it always costs that, no matter when you book. (Edit: this is just for the Oxford-Dublin journey. For some reason the sail/rail price is much less than just rail to Holyhead, and it seems to be fixed at £58.)
- It took me six hours door-to-door to fly home for Christmas, and I was left a frazzled rage-filled sore-eared wreck. Oxford to Dublin over land takes eight to ten hours, not that much of a difference, and I floated off the boat like a blissed-out Buddha.

Seriously, guys, it was awesome. And that's without even going near the greenness of it. I want to go on trains all over Europe now.

Comments

[natural20.livejournal.com]

I just drove Dublin - Edinburgh (and back, obv) and while I agree with a lot of what you say (almost all of it), there is the point that it took roughly ten hours door to door on land, whereas it'd be about three hours by plane. It adds up, sadly.

On-island I just don't take the plane any more. I've done the maths, I know of the stress reduction, train or car ftw. But when I'm going off-island, plane is still my default.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

It makes a big difference if you live near the airport, though. And I don't any more. When I lived in Dublin it seemed much easier because time to the airport wasn't a big factor. I even used to take cabs to the airport, which is inconceivable now.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Aeroplanes are cooler than boats or trains, times a billion.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Thing is, my younger self would have agreed with you 100%. I grew up flying a lot. The idea of flying is rooted deep in my dreams and my imagination. But modern commercial flying... no, all the adventure and romance has been beaten out of it, for me. It became more and more of a struggle to feel the wonder.

Flying across America on a clear day is still utterly amazing, though.

YMMV

[jinty]

Really? I wouldn't say so - even when I was a transatlantic-travelling-teen (when they were stinky with ciggie smoke and hence much less cool right away). What does their coolness consist in, for you? I can't see how anything much is cooler than a TGV or a sleeper train from Venice to Vienna - and even though London to Manchester via Virgin is a far cry from that, the space-age toilets help to make up a bit of ground.

That's why we're going by land and sea to Greece

[tortipede.livejournal.com]

a strange hybrid of potential terrorist and cash cow
Terror-cow says "Moooo!"
(Now I have to learn to cartoon, so that I can draw that.)

Re: That's why we're going by land and sea to Greece

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

hahaha, terror-cow. Please do.

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

+ you can bring yr bike with you.

I <3 trains and boats for travel.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

There is that, too. Mum couldn't fit my bike in her car, and my homehome village is too far from everything for it to really be useful, but if I was ever coming back to Dublin just to hang out with my friends...

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I want to train round Europe with a camera and a laptop, geeking and sightseeing as I go.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

oh, me too.

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Air travel is eating itself with its general awfulness.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

It is actually getting more awful, isn't it? It isn't just the romance of childhood holidays fading away?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I want to go on trains all over Europe now.

This is one of the best things I have ever done. Recommended!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I might pick your brains at Bangface...

[paste.livejournal.com]

i travelled around the states & canada by train, it was amazing, in terms of scenery, convenience and space! so yes, trains all the way. in june i will be catching a train from somewhere in provence to barcelona, i can't wait.

and for all your future train needs, around the whole world!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

That is a very cool site.

I want to take a sleeper train from here to Barcelona some time soon.

[tackline.livejournal.com]

I recommend Milan-Zurich (the William Tell line). There is a slight danger that your ears might pop though.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I can handle the ear-popping if I'm looking at spectacular mountains while it's going on!

[shermarama]

I have been to Tilberg in the Netherlands for a music festival twice now; once we went by train and ferry and train, which was entertaining but quite slow (six hours on the ferry, but there was a free buffet of all the things truck drivers like to eat, and we had a cabin and everything) and once we went by train the entire way, which was easily as fast as the plane would have been and entirely comfortable and pleasant. The speed was at least partly due to how close to St. Pancras I live, but even so - overland travel definitely rules.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I'd like to try that too. Been meaning to go back to Amsterdam for (oh my god I'm old) ten years.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... It's good to hear a contemporary opinion, because London-to-Holyhead used to be a five-hour rail journey and everyone I knew who'd done it had a nightmare of missed connections, delays and cancellations. Leicester-to-Holyhead was even worse...

Today, it's down to four hours and only one change (in Chester) and I suspect that the reliability has improved...

Trouble is, the fare's eighty quid and we haven't factored in the ferry; another ninety minutes with the supercat and God Knows how long with the old-fashioned boat... Plus boarding times and I saw the foot passengers queueing just as long as the cars...

I can't see it happening in less than seven or eight hours, and I don't see change of a hundred quid: sod Ryanair, there's BA and Aer Lingus business-class tickets available for that, and I've frequently done the trip from desk to Dublin in four hours. And time, for some, really is money: a day of my life - and my holiday allowance - has a measurable cost.

Travel to the Continent, however, is a very different matter; Eurostar try very hard to reproduce the travel-by-air experience of airport hassle, but it's still the best way to get to Paris, Bruges, Brussels, and a vast swathe of European cities less than two hours journey on the TGV from Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Eighty quid? It was fifty-eight the lot for me. It's cheaper when you're buying a sail-rail ticket, and I understand that fare is fixed.

And yes, they've modernised that line up to Manchester now so it's pretty speedy. I did get delayed by half an hour on the way back, but it wasn't a big deal.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

hello!

yes, there are certain journeys that i totally wouldn't even think about flying for (scottishland, brussels, paris), but we were looking at berlin and i think it's *just* too far to realistically train all the way, much as i would like to. we're contemplating bilbao as well, i think that might be slightly more doable due to tgv goodness.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

and by "realistically" i mean "realistically as part of a four day holiday", obv it's not actually impossible, but it's an overnight trip...

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree too. Going from Chicago to Seattle by train was fantastic - it was two nights on the train which sounds awful, but it flew by.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I'd love to do a train journey in America. I especially fancy the one that goes up the west coast into British Columbia. And two nights on the train sounds fine to me. I am a patient person. :)

[grahamb.livejournal.com]

I like the way you get get on a train/bus with zero notice and some hours later you're somewhere else entirely. You can look at the departure board, see what trains are going where, and as quickly as you can get your ticket you're away! Try doing that with a flight these days. Also you're not left to feel like you're endangering the lives of other passengers if you don't listen to the safety demonstration.

etc etc.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

YES. Going to another country by train, because it's so much more casual than flying, makes it seem closer in a perverse way.

clarisinda describes below how she can avoid most of the annoyances by planning ahead, which is fair enough, but I liked the way this trip didn't feel like military precision was required.

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

- Out the window you will not see clouds, which are pretty but get old fast. You will see rolling hills, spring buds, gambolling lambs, picturesque canals with colourful boats, interestingly decrepit old factories and rusting industry, daffodils, castles, primroses, ponies and rainbows.
That is partly true, but also, you will see quite a lot of not much. European motorways in particular can be deathly boring. And on a clear day the view from a plane can be amazing - I've looked out a window and been able to see both Edinburgh and Glasgow at the same time, both the Clyde and the Forth; that was amazing. And I've seen Snowdonian mountains sticking up through the cloud and flown over the Alps - views you'll never get from the ground, and it's AMAZING we can do this.
- And the windows are bigger.
That is true. A train we once got from Oslo to Bergen had ceiling to floor windows in the buffet car, and comfy seats facing them. Very cool.
- Train food is a hell of a lot nicer and cheaper than plane food. Or you can bring your own yummy food and eat it when you like, when you feel hungry...
You can bring your own yummy food on a plane.
- because you have your bag with you for almost the whole journey.
Now, see a lot of the problems people have with travelling is that they take TOO MUCH STUFF. I'm in agreement with Ryanair here that most short hop journeys of a few days around Europe do not require hold luggage. People get lumbered and slowed down by their excessive baggage. If I can do a fortnight in South Africa, including a full length bridesmaids dress, with just handluggage, then it's not so hard. Not that you can do it all the time, but most of the time it's possible. And cabin luggage is not entirely safe either - someone once walked off the plane with my little rucksack - which had my handbag, and therefore my entire life, in it - by accident, and I was left with hers. That could have happened just as easily on a boat or train.
- You know your bag is in the same country as you.
If you travel light with just handluggage, you know that on planes too.
- You can throw your razor, your tweezers, hairspray and a bottle of perfume in it without getting arrested.
I've never heard of anyone getting arrested for carrying any of these things - they'd just be confiscated. And you can take some razors on board. My tweezers and penknife are the only things I have to leave at home (I have no use for hairspray or perfume).
- Less than 10 minutes standing in queues, total.
If you check in on line, and don't care about standing in the front of the queue to get on the plane first (not quite sure why people do this...) then there is very little queuing involved in flying. On a good day. On a bad one it is indeed a bit of a nightmare...
- No one will make you take your shoes off.
Is that really an inconvenience?
- No one will search right down to inside the caps of your markers in your pencil case, while you hold your trousers up with one hand and hold your shoes in the other, because you've been told not to put them back on yet as there's a secondary shoe check up ahead.
Maybe it's because I don't wear belts and do wear slip on shoes, and am generally an organised traveller, but this has never been a problem.
- Generally, you will not be treated like a strange hybrid of potential terrorist and cash cow.
It might just be me, but I take quite a pleasure in NOT giving any extra money to Ryanair (in particular), playing them at their own game, and doubtless being one of their customers who DOESN'T make them any profit ;-)
- You spend most of the journey actually getting closer to your destination, not rattling round in a consumer Habitrail with nothing to entertain your eyes but ads for stupid aspirational shit you don't need.
On the other hand, you can walk about, have a meal, go shopping, do whatever. The actual travelling bit is kept to an absolute minium. I've travelled a lot between Edinburgh and London, both by train and plane. There are pros and cons both ways, but a pro of flying is that it's only an hour sat still, rather than 4.5-6 hours on the train.

(tbc...)

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

- You can bring a musical instrument or other fragile thing without it being taken from you, losing its Fragile sticker as it bumps down the belt, and tumbling out on to the baggage carousel in several pieces at the far end.
I don't have this problem with woodwind ;-)
- No one is going to make you listen to tinny jingles that go 'let's fly let's fly let's fly Ryanair' over the most mindless stupid-house beat you can imagine, while you sit trapped in a narrow seat with your elbows scrunched in, unable to escape.
I've had this happen, and it's horrible, but on most budget flights in hasn't. I hope they realised how counter productive it was...
- You can listen to music when you want, not just in a twenty-minute window in the middle of the flight while the seatbelt sign is briefly off and you can barely hear it anyway.
If it's only a twenty-minute window, it's only an hour long flight. Is that really a hardship? I listened to almost all of Bach's St Matthew's Passion (the 2.5 hour version) recently on an Easyjet flight back from Istanbul. Not being able to listen for take off and landing was bearable ;-)
- They won't charge you ten quid to check in and twenty for each of your bags.
People seem to miss the point with this. If you see taking loads of luggage as the default, then this appears to be very annoying. If you look at it as "if you don't take loads of luggage you can get twenty quid off your flight cost!" then it's a bargin. I've compared budget flights to more conventional ones on the same routes several times, and the conventional airlines charge the same as the budget ones *including the luggage charges*. As for paying to check in, if you check in online (simple, fast, and no queuing involved) without handluggage, then it's free. If you have hold luggage, then you don't pay, because it's covered by your luggage fee.
- You can sprawl in the bigger seats and put your stuff all over the table.
This is true. Though sometimes you get an empty flight, which is nice...
- Tables.
Er, ok ;-)
- You get to go on an actual boat! On the actual sea!
I can't disagree with this one. I love boats :-)
- Catamaran go wheeeee! Crosses Irish Sea in two hours!
I got the catamaran once, years ago. It was a bit windy and it was two hours of feeling very green and wishing I hadn't had that Guiness... Much as I love boats, I'm somewhat prone to seasickness :-/
- Sailing into Dublin Bay on a beautiful cloudy-bright evening is, just, wow.
Approaching somewhere by water is amazing - Venice of course being the best example - but flying over a city before touch down can be just as much so.
- You will actually get a sense of the size and the texture of the land you're passing through.
So do you from flying, sometimes moreso, sometimes less.
- It doesn't cost £25 just to get to your train.
That is true. But whether or not that matters depends on the relative price of the tickets. Sometimes it's still cheaper to take a train to Stansted then fly to Scotland than it is to take the train from King's Cross, sometimes it's not.
- Drinks on trains and boats don't come in disturbing let's-patronise-the-poor foil bags with "BUY ONE GET ONE FREE FREE FREE FREE!!!!" written all over them. Also, they are normal size.
I've not come across that. But then as I said above I don't give Ryanair any more money than absolutely necessary...
- No weird nose-desiccating dry stale air or ear-popping.
I've only experienced the dry air thing once, and that was on a long haul flight. Ear-popping, so long as you don't have a cold, lasts about half a second...
- If the airport bus gets snarled up on the M25 and you miss your plane, you have to pay loads of money to change your flight. If you miss your boat, you shrug and get on the next one.
I once had to pay (when I missed a flight home from CDG years ago) and once missed an Easyjet flight, and they were lovely and just put me on the next one for no extra cost. Though I do suspect that wasn't really standard policy...

[juliet]

Heh, no argument from me there!

I've finally made the decision that I won't be flying again absent genuinely exceptional circumstances. Which, yeah, means if I want to go to Berlin it'll be at least a week, and no return to the Americas till I've saved for a boat again, & so on, but there we go.

(The world being what it is, this decision was tested almost immediately - due to transport kerfuffle I now won't be at glasto, bah.)

The 2 worst parts of my journey to Aus were the 6 hr un-made-up road crap minibus in cambodia, and the 5 hr fkight darwin-singapore. Of the two, i'd rather do the bus again if I had to choose.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I'm happy this trip was so pleasant, because I wanted to give up the five or so short hauls home per year, and now it looks like it might be possible. I'll need a little more time, which may require some rejiggling of lessons at work, but I spent the whole journey writing and drawing and reading good books - I was a lot more productive than I'd have been at home with the internet and all - so it doesn't feel like time wasted.

I don't feel I could go as far as you, not yet, but this is a start.

Will you be back for Glade? ;)

[therealjo.livejournal.com]

I approve of this. Some friends of mine have just traveled back from Australia by land, some on trains, some on boats and some in a battered old Trabant. They too arrived blissed out :-)

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

I'm dickering with the idea of some serious Euro train travel later this year. Tjough it may be a flight out (prob to Venice, natch), then heading back by train through the Alps and up to Paris.

And I am doing one of the longest train trips you can do in the UK next month - Inverness-London non-stop (just under eight hours, allegedly)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

'Trains are mint' - yes indeed.

But your ferry journey description sounds like the Stena HSS, right? I remember that with distaste (I was particularly annoyed by the Sky News too) but neither of the Irish Ferries boats are like that. There was loads of sprawl space. (ISTR the HSS only has a tiny patch at the back where you can stand more or less outside. Which is also ugh.)

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

I agree with this post.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Apropos icon love.

[kauket.livejournal.com]

http://www.seat61.com/

I'm trying to work out how to get to Egypt...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I am a little bit in love with the Man in Seat 61.

And Egypt over land - wow, that's gotta be tricky.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

All three of trains, planes and buses are seriously flawed because, too date, there is no fare option which takes you to a random place that you weren't expecting to be at the end of your journey. That's why I always travel by hijacker instead.