Travel methods
From ankle power to high-bypass turbofan
From ankle power to high-bypass turbofan
Man the animal needs to move, to travel. We are mobile animals descended from scavenger apes and with their omnivorous digestive system, hard wired to explore and experience.
Our capacity for new experiences and just the act of travelling make us enjoy travelling on foot, by bicycle, horse, motorbike, car, train, boat, aircraft and rocket to new places, ever further away in our never ending search for the new, for answers to the big question “what’s out there?”.
Even when we can’t travel ourselves we travel vicariously via photos, stories, oral discussion, guide books, YouTube videos.
Who can’t remember somewhere in their geography textbook from school that inspired them to visit? Usually in a chapter you weren't meant to be reading that term, or in one of the books the upper forms only were meant to study.
Travelling on foot, with a stout pair of boots, an OS map and a compass, ready for any type of weather and with, of course, the obligatory dog, is the purest form of travel. You can experience the smells, the feel of the path, the gradients, and as you are so quiet, the wildlife. The weather will do what it will, but that dog needs exercise and will travel double or triple your distance with its tail wagging and its nose foraging. A new trail, or the same trail at different times of year is a particular pleasure. Who knows what is around that next corner?
The bicycle is the most mechanically efficient form of transport, because the number of times the chemical energy of your muscles is trasformed before it becomes motion is minimal. The parasitic losses of drag in the chain, pedal and axle bearings, plus tyre flex are smaller than any other for of transport. Plus the freewheel for downhill, the minimal weight of the modern bicycle and the 21-speed Shimano gearbox gives you the most travel bang for the buck.
It is quiet and non-containing, so you smell the smells and you meet the wildlife. Early-morning cycle rides on country lanes are partcularly revealing. It's hard work and will make you puff more than walking, of course the wind is always against you and it's always uphill, plus even with a Hi-Viz jacket, bright bike helmet and flashing lights cars "can't see you" and all cyclists tell tales of idiot drivers, near misses and often fatal collisions.
Travelling by horse is an interesting experience: you are much higher in the saddle and can see over hedgerows and fences, your speed is governed by your mount but you certainly do experience your surroundings very closely.
The moped and the motorbike are the smallest and most efficient forms of motorised transport humanity has designed - James May (a man I rate very highly) once stated that the Honda 50 was the most important "car" of the 20th Century because it had enabled more people to get mobile than any Range Rover, Porsche or indeed VW Beetle.
Motorbikes are of course ridiculously quick, and can be used to cut through traffic jams allowing fast and efficient use of the road space, but anything two wheeled is very susceptible to poor or especially slippery road surfaces, increasing the danger factor and when sharing space with cars the fact that they are relatively small and hard to see makes them risky.
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman famously advertised the fact that it is possile to ride most of the way around the world on a motorbike and certainly, compared to a car, you're more "down and dirty" with the road conditions, but the increased speed, the noise and the helmet do isolate you from your surroundings.
The car is quite simply the best form of transport for trips over, say 5 miles. Despite being isolated from your surroundings and pampered by comfy seats, heaters, powerful engines and entertainment systems you see a lot (and can see out the front), and most importantly you retain the "what's down there?" ability to divert at your leisure. Modern roads are very good but high levels of traffic, poorly designed or funded infrastructure and low driving standards can be frustrating.
I actuially like travelling by train - you don't have to control anything and on the whole they are very comfortable. However the inability to see out of the front is frustrating, the level of delays and the requirement to change at stations, often with an unpredictable wait and poor signage detracts from the experience.
The Eurostar is a classic case of poor execution of a brilliant idea. It should start outside London, so you don't have to waste time and money negotiating London's overcrowded transport infrastructure. Given that it doesn't, the next logical thing would be for it to connect directly to the Elizabeth Line. Er.... it doesn't. So you have to swap to the notoriously delay-ridden Thameslink or the 150 year old diddley-dum Circle (that isn't a Circle any more) Tube line. You what?
The lack of Security checks used to be a major factor in selecting the Eurostar as a transport method, but now it's the same as airport security and as frustrating, so you're left having to get there hours before and then hanging about in the Departure Lounge.
Finally, your train leaves and spends the first hour at 50mph trundling through a succession of tunnels before finally emerging on to HS1 where some time can at last be made up. Slowing down again for the tunnel the train at last emerges in to France where the poor driver can actually accelerate to the train's designed speed until it reaches the outskirts of Paris where, once again, it decelerates and drops you at the Gare du Nord. So frustrating...
But trying to use trains for truly long-distance travel is a bit of a joke - it's massively expensive and terribly slow. To get to Milan you have to change at Lille and it takes 12, yes 12 hours. And costs the price of a small hatchback. the TGV is great and when it runs on dedicated TGV tracks it's very fast but too often it drops on to normal SNCF lines and can only do 100 mph or so. France is a big country and getting to, say, Angouleme, is a painful experience compared to flying.
Don't even contemplate trying to get to Valencia or Alicante by train: the high-speed line runs out South of Barceolona and you're back to low speeds.
Small boats are fun: you get to see where you're going, they can go quite fast (70Kts in a professional race boat from Tobago to Barbados showed how fun-but-bumpy the open sea can be) and yes, they are quite glamorous. I just don't (and believe me, I've tried) get the whole sailing thing. You can sheaf the halyard, shiver the timbers and haul the keel lines all you want, but even 12Kts is a lot of work. You get wet, cold and (in a past life) sick.
Commercial boats are just horrible: slow, expensive, uncomfortable and weather-dependant. Cross-channel ferries are the worst: they trundle along at 12Kts, rolling with the waves. I dont get seasick any more, following my adventures with the Instrument Rating, but a lot of people do. The hovercraft was a great solutuion and whilst bumpy, it was at least fast and fun. But that's gone now, and we're stuck with the ferry. If ferries did, say, 35Kts and the dampers actually worked they could be a contender but they certainly rank as my least favourite form of transport.
Which brings me to my favourite form of transport: the light aircraft. Fun but challenging, it does offer some extraordinary journey-time-contractions over driving. For example: Oxford to Shoreham by car: 2.5hrs if you're lucky. By plane: 42 minutes. Dorset to Aldeburgh by car: 5hrs. By plane: 1hr 5 mins. Oxford to Wick by car 11hrs. By plane: 3.5hrs. Oxford to Midden Zealand by car: 6hrs. By plane: 1hr 30 mins. Yes, you need a Medical, a licence and Ratings, it's expensive and can be very bumpy, but within a country or for Northern Europe travel, it's the best option.
Commercial aviation is of course the Top Dog when it comes to travel: it is possible to get to more or less anywhere on the earth's surface in 36hrs by plane. The crack cocaine of travel, it's desireability makes us put up with the whole airport security nonsense, ludicrously small airline seats, long waits in expensive airports and throat infections.
But it's horribly efficient: Bournemouth - Alicante return in low season is less than £50 and takes 2hrs 15 mins. Avoid the drop off charge at Bournemouth (£6!) and it's seriously cost-effective.
No, you can't see anything of the land or sea you are flying over and jet lag is hateful, the carbon footprint is unimpressive and the food even less so, but for intercontinental travel it's brutally effective.
But the ultimate "what's out there" is rocket travel: to orbit, to the Moon, to the planets, to the stars. Even if we only send cameras it's still Exploration.