I have managed to contract a pretty enthusiastic form of gastroenteritis which has left me stuck on the settee all day. Utterly miserable but not to waste opportunities I decided to look at non air travel.
Why? Well my parents will have been married 60 years next year and want us all to go abroad to celebrate. They have chosen Portugal as the destination. Now there are cheap flights to Portugal I know but as aviation travel causes disproportionately large damage to our climate I wondered if the journey could be done another way. We will have a week to holiday Friday pm till Monday. So:
Sailing was easy there are no regular ferries to Portugal from the UK. That suits me fine I'm not a great fan of sailing.
Ok what about trains, they have improved massively of late and I think would have a smaller environmental impact. Well it would take us over 36 hours each way with changes in Edinburgh, London, Paris, northern Spain and Lisbon. It would cost about £2000.
Flights? They take 3 and a half hours plus transfer times so say 6 hours and cost about £1000 for the four of us.
Going by bus may well be cheaper but I don't plan on travelling for 36+ hours on a coach.
So I guess that is why people fly and may be the government and those who are empowered to tackle our climate problems need to look at this. I would happily pay a little more and have a slightly longer journey to travel by train. However twice the price and 5 to 6 times as long isn't reasonable. It would mean we could avoid airports which I would love to be able to do.
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