- 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. Yeah, certainly to Scotland the difference in price varies each way. Oddly too, while it may be expensive to fly on, say, a Friday, but cheap to get back on the Sunday, the train fares are sometimes the other way round, so if you are clever you can travel by one mode in one direction and the other in the other, and save money. It does take rather a lot of investigating and planning though... - 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. There is a BIG difference between six and ten hours. I've found six hours is the minimum required to get from my house, fly, and arrive at most destinations in near Europe. You then have half the day left. The extra four hours for long (or slow) journeys is the painful bit, when you really just want to be there, and means the difference between halfing half a day free and basically spending a whole day travelling.
A few points of my own in defence of flying: - Flying is not a romantic way to travel. This is a hangover from the pre-budget flights era before the masses were allowed to travel as freely as they/we do now. If you expect it to be romantic, exotic, or even enjoyable, you will indeed be disappointed. It is for getting from A to B as fast, cheaply and painlessly as possible. - Training it around Europe is not cheaper than flying, enough though trains are cheaper than in the UK. I've looked into it a couple of times, and it can actually be offputtingly expensive :-/ - My annual leave is a very precious thing to me, and I like to spend as much as possible of it wherever it is I want to be, not travelling there and back. Should I ever have a lot more spare time (and no less money, so that's unlikely) then trains will be a lot more attractive. - Apart from the occasional stunning views, plane travel tends to be rather boring more than actually painful, so long as you don't cause stress for yourself by running late or not planning ahead sufficiently. - I think it is AMAZING that we can travel as easily and as cheaply and as hassle free all over Europe (in particular) as we can, and it's something to be taken advantage of.
Btw, I just drew "Eurotrek" as my Grand National horse in the office sweepstake, which seems rather appropriate right now...
p.s. sorry, I seem to have written rather a lot, I didn't mean to do that!
p.p.s. I also apologise for the overuse of the word "amazing" and promise to be a bit more imaginative next time ;-)
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Date: 2009-04-03 01:38 pm (UTC)Yeah, certainly to Scotland the difference in price varies each way. Oddly too, while it may be expensive to fly on, say, a Friday, but cheap to get back on the Sunday, the train fares are sometimes the other way round, so if you are clever you can travel by one mode in one direction and the other in the other, and save money. It does take rather a lot of investigating and planning though...
- 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.
There is a BIG difference between six and ten hours. I've found six hours is the minimum required to get from my house, fly, and arrive at most destinations in near Europe. You then have half the day left. The extra four hours for long (or slow) journeys is the painful bit, when you really just want to be there, and means the difference between halfing half a day free and basically spending a whole day travelling.
A few points of my own in defence of flying:
- Flying is not a romantic way to travel. This is a hangover from the pre-budget flights era before the masses were allowed to travel as freely as they/we do now. If you expect it to be romantic, exotic, or even enjoyable, you will indeed be disappointed. It is for getting from A to B as fast, cheaply and painlessly as possible.
- Training it around Europe is not cheaper than flying, enough though trains are cheaper than in the UK. I've looked into it a couple of times, and it can actually be offputtingly expensive :-/
- My annual leave is a very precious thing to me, and I like to spend as much as possible of it wherever it is I want to be, not travelling there and back. Should I ever have a lot more spare time (and no less money, so that's unlikely) then trains will be a lot more attractive.
- Apart from the occasional stunning views, plane travel tends to be rather boring more than actually painful, so long as you don't cause stress for yourself by running late or not planning ahead sufficiently.
- I think it is AMAZING that we can travel as easily and as cheaply and as hassle free all over Europe (in particular) as we can, and it's something to be taken advantage of.
Btw, I just drew "Eurotrek" as my Grand National horse in the office sweepstake, which seems rather appropriate right now...
p.s. sorry, I seem to have written rather a lot, I didn't mean to do that!
p.p.s. I also apologise for the overuse of the word "amazing" and promise to be a bit more imaginative next time ;-)