Buses and planes, boats cars and trains …

The best way of travelling hopefully? Let’s see.

A bus can be fun, but that’s strictly for local exploring. Unless you can get yourself to India and hitch a lift in God’s Own Palace … Though you’re much more likely to be catching the long-distance bus whose driving seat I feature here …

Air travel has lost its sheen, since Airport Security and Queuing became a A Thing, not to mention those CO2 emissions of which we’re now so horribly aware. Even so, there is something thrilling about watching the changing landscapes of the earth far below, and cloud formations too.

You could take to the water, and sail to your destination near or far…

On the way to Rotterdam

Car travel gives you the opportunity to please yourselves and follow your noses, and even to get off the beaten track, but again … all those emissions.

My own favourite way to get from A to a distant B is by train. I sit, I watch the world go by. I read. If I’m lucky, there may be coffee on offer. And the journey eases the transition from home to away by gradually introducing fresh landscapes, fresh outlooks. There’s something discombobulating about leaving – say – foggy England by plane and arriving two hours later – say – in sunny Spain. Here’s the TGV from Barcelona to Paris. It says it all …

Station architecture may be inspired, whether from the Golden Age of Steam, or assertively twenty first century.

All things considered, I can’t agree with the disconsolate boredom of this particular passenger. By the way, you, get your feet off the seat!

Or … there’s always the motorbike … as spotted in their dozens and dozens outside Mysore Station.

Bike park outside the Station

All the same, modern travel with all its advantages can seem busy, stressful. Sometimes, we might just want to exchange the traffic jam for something rather simpler.

John has provided this week’s LENS-ARTISTS CHALLENGE #215 – Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and the places they take you.

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and living in North Yorkshire, where I walk as often as I can, write, volunteer, and travel as often as I can.

51 thoughts on “Buses and planes, boats cars and trains …”

  1. Cantabria or Wharfedale! Sublime images, Margaret. All the romance of travel. It’s so tied up with guilt these days, isn’t it? I tried to express this to Sarah but you say it so much better. Love that London bus capture but those bikes in India are surreal. Just watching the closing stages of a quarter final in New York. Tense!

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  7. Loved this travel post and the pictures accompanying it. Beautiful! Also, inspiring. Your sentence ‘the opportunity to please yourselves and follow your noses’ has just inspired a poem for Rebecca’s September Poetry Challenge. Not finished it yet, will give you full credit, of course.

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  8. Pingback: Wind, by Britta Benson – Odds & Ends – Poetry Blog

    1. Well, you nailed it Britta, so I’m happy to bask in reflected glory. A clever use of the anaphora device too, nicely recurring as it wanders through your piece.

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  9. Love this post – wonderful photos, as ever! Train is my preferred way of travel, these days. We had a couple of holidays in Central Europe before covid hit, the last one from our front door to Warsaw two weeks later. On Saturday, we’re off on Eurostar again but on a much shorter and more direct journey.

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  11. Well, you certainly have come up trumps with this comprehensive collection of great transport shots! I love the motorbikes in India and your country roads in Spain and Wharfedale, and although I’m totally with you on the ‘feet off the seat’ comment, that photo did make me smile 🙂

    There seems to be a general consensus around the pleasures of train travel and I’ll add my voice to those. Whether a short Eurostar hop to Paris or a slow drawn out ride across part of India, it can’t be beaten. But although I want to cut back on flying by reducing shorter journeys, there’s no real alternative if you want to see the far reaches of our globe, is there? And once in the air, like you, I find the guilt and the hassles are buried beneath the pleasures of watching the landscapes and clouds below.

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    1. Yes, there’s no other ay of appreciating how very very empty parts of Russia, and indeed North America are,. I couldn’t believe how far we travelled between any small sign of human activity.

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  13. Great travel stories and beautiful photos, Margaret! All tell why we enjoy travel. Train offers a lot convenience and easy to be get on and off. Great post!

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  16. A brilliant reflection on travel, Margaret. Humanity loves to travel, to embrace new ways of seeing the world around us. We engage with others and know the joy of diversity. Most of all it challenges us to get out of our comfort zone, to experience and sharing meaningful, unexpected moments. As T.S. Eliot say in the Four Quartets:

    “We shall not cease from exploration
    And the end of all our exploring
    Will be to arrive where we started
    And know the place for the first time.”

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  18. I think I’m going to sell my big 4wd, Margaret. I’m consumed with guilt every time I drive it. The squiggly, lonesome road lures me. Vera drives a Defender so …. . Did you go down that squiggly road, Margaret? Love that photo. Plane travel is so exciting but, yep, all those emissions. Thanks for stating this. It is too easy to deny our part in our own demise.

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    1. That squiggly rad, Trqcy. Yes, of course I’ve been along it, and 100 like it. This is North Yorkshire, famously rural! Yes, 4×4. A problem. There are those who can justify having them, but too many who live in big cities where they can hardly get out of 3rd gear. I;m sure someone like you uses yours as responsibly as you can. We sorely need better public transport in this country, I don’t know if the same could be said for you. Problems … guilt … not a great mix.

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      1. I hope I do, Margaret. All of the same here, My 4×4 seems to be made to perfectly fit someone of my short stature. I can see over the bonnet, the sun shield sits low enough to shield my eyes from rising and setting sun. Many small car models are not similiarly friendly. I wonder why that is? But, yeah, the guilt …

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  20. I’m with you, train travel for the win. I do love a good road trip, although fuel prices and the gas guzzler guilt take the shine off these days. Once the kids are up, think the horse and caravan might do me- could even squeeze the dog in!

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  21. I do like the ‘freedom’ of a road trip, especially here in Canada when you can get away to tranquil corners…but the guilt of emissions is a very real deterrent. Have had a few horseback weeks lately but then there is the harmful flight to arrive. Thought provoking post and I may explore more train travel as a result!

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    1. One of my unrealised dreams is to cross Canada from East to West by train. What an adventure that would be. But yes, the journey distances in the USA and Canada are dauting to the Would-be-Green Traveller.

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  22. Great post, Margaret. I really enjoyed your images and thoughts. It’s true for me, too. I’m enjoying train travel, the gradual transition. No TSA baggage checks, no need to get to the station 2 hours in advance. It’s funny that the old-fashioned means of transportation is much more relaxing now!

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