these guys used to be daring adventurers with goggles and swag and now the pilots have to wear a button down and the airlines squeeze every penny out of you and every drop of fun or joy or magic or adventure out of the experience.
in the 20s it was a great adventure! in the 60s people wore suits and got proper meals! now we just get xrayed and told we can’t bring in water! i love starting my vacation being treated as a terrorist!
I personally avoid traveling by plane whenever I can, the experience and added stress just isn’t worth the time saved.
and trains are awesome!
High speed rail is awesome. Amtrak in the US is a slow, lumbering joke.
You should see rail in Canada, if you have a big bag of money and a LOT of time.
Welcome to Germany, where driving a car through the entire country for 8 hours is still a better experience than trying to go anywhere with Deutsche Bahn. 🤮
American who visited Germany last year:
The DB was insanely good compared to what we get. The app even worked! The twins even arrived generally when they were supposed to!
Damn, this makes me dread ever taking a train in the US. 😅
Fun fact: i had to take a train through Switzerland and change trains in Germany, on the day a major swiss tunnel collapsed.
I made it to Frankfurt perfectly on time despite having to go around a fucking mountain instead of through it, and still accrued 3 hours of total delay on the remainder, 2 of which were just the train being stuck at the station in Frankfurt itself.
I’ve taken to calling them Scheiße Bahn.
International trains are fun though. They’re also DB, but they get privilige. I was stuck in Utrecht (NL) once, heading to Arnhem, because a tree fell on the tracks. No trains could go to Arnhem. Until the ICE came. I got to take a detour via S’ Hertogen Bosch. A train taking a detour is pretty unique, but the ICE get’s the privilege to do that. I was 2 hours delayed, but at least I got home.
You’re not from the UK are you?
UK trains are user-fee hell. It’s okay to hate them.
1.5 days by car vs 2h by plane, I’ll take the plane, thanks. But you do you 😋
For that amount of time yeah I’ll take the plane, but for travelling from Montreal to Toronto (1h plane vs 5 hours train) I’ll take the train as I’ll be able to work in the train, I won’t have to check-in and go past airport security, be there xx hours before departure, etc
I love the VIA 🥰 too bad they’re having so much trouble building a high speed rail there though, it’s honestly such a perfect use case…
I wish there was a reasonable train line to where I’d want to go, but it’s not like that for a majority of us in North America unfortunately. The few times I did have the ability to ride a train to my destination, I actually really enjoyed the experience.