There are so many different ways to travel these days, it's hard to choose a favorite. As a small child, the car was the way to go. There's nothing quite like being chauffeured around town when you still have more than a decade left before you can acquire a driver's license and your legs are too stubby to carry you more than small distances without complaint. As a few years passed, travel by car was still very attractive, but bus transportation became quite the privilege. Getting around by bus isn't exactly sexy, but as a young adult, it sure is liberating. Biking was also exhilarating, especially during warm weather when you can truly appreciate the breeze against your face as you race along. Biking downhill was always the best--all the fun and no work!
Plane travel has always been a bit of a mixed bag. For me, take-off and landing are the tensest moments, and I admit that the feeling of airline transportation is at times somewhat unnatural. However, nothing compares to looking out of the window and seeing puffy clouds below and around you, tiny sparkling lights at night, winding roads that look like long pieces of thread stretched out across the land, shimmering ocean waves of varying shades of blue, and all the sights one takes in soaring thousands of feet above the ground.
In my book, planes beat helicopters by a wide margin. It seems like every time I scan the headlines, another chopper has gone down somewhere. It could just be my overactive imagination, but...no thanks!
In college I became very familiar with taking the train to and from college. Spending eight or nine hours on a train isn't exactly the epitome of comfort, but it beats going by bus for that length of time any day. When you go up and down the East Coast by bus, there's really no view to speak of--nothing to entertain the eye. Major American highways are notoriously dull. The train, on the other hand, passes by towns, buildings, forested areas, lakes, and much more scenic areas. There are even elaborate and vibrantly colored graffiti displays along certain portions of the track, the most notorious of urban art, as train tracks and neighboring buildings and tunnels lend themselves to late-night graffiting undetected.
It probably also wasn't until college that I actually understood the value of transporting myself using my own two feet. Although an athlete in junior high and high school, off the court I was a shameless lazy bones. If it was a matter of even a ten-minute walk, I had the keys in the ignition before anyone could utter a word to convince me otherwise. At college, there was no such luck, as I had no car the entirety of my time there. Thus (sigh) I was forced to walk my tush all around campus and then some. And you know what the worst part is? I liked it. Maybe it was being in constant contact with nature, or the invigorating feeling of exercising without really noticing, or the money I saved by not having car insurance to pay--the fact is, from that point on, these feet were made for walking.
As I conclude this post, I have to wonder: do people even still travel by ship anymore? Unless it's a cruise of some sort, I think I'll pass!
As for the latest (and greatest?) "Segways" that have come on the scene in the past couple of years, I still have a private snicker with myself every time I see someone rolling down the street on one. It's a great idea and I'm all about "green transportation," there's just got to be a way to up the coolness factor a bit and not look quite so goofy tooling around on one. But hey, I guess the idea is to get from Point A to Point B (not necessarily turn heads while you're doing it). After all, isn't that what transportation is all about?
If you're curious about transportation of the stranger persuasion, check out this slideshow!
10 Weirdest Forms of Transportation
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