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"If I absolutely must travel, I take a train or drive. "

The problem with train is it is expensive and time consuming in the States. I could take a train from Chicago to Orlando and it would take around 30 hours and cost just as much, if not more, than a plane ticket. Not only that, the 19 hour second leg of the ride has no food car.

This is exactly the thought that occurred to me, except for New York to Atlanta.

I've looked into taking the train a couple of times and balked each time at the idea of paying the same price for 10-15x the transit time. 40 hours in transit is going to be a non-starter for so many kinds of trips, unless you're specifically doing something like [1] where the transit is the whole point of the trip.

[1]: http://www.viarail.ca/en/explore-our-destinations/trains/roc...

The thing is it is way more expensive to provide a train for 40 hours than a plane for 2. The plane could do 20 journeys in that time, for 20x the nominal revenue.

This is why high speed rail is so good: it can actually really decrease operational costs Vs normal rail as your train, crew, station etc does 2-3x the volume of passengers, and therefore revenue, compared to slower alternatives.

It is definitely not a saving on cost or time, but I don't have to travel too much and the vastly improved experience is worthwhile for me, especially within a 2-3 state radius. Amtrak tickets will rival a plane in cost while taking longer, but they tend to be less crowded. They often have designated quiet cars. There's far less invasive security theater. The seats are comfortable. It's an environment that I can actually relax or work in, unlike a plane, which I find makes up for the extra time.

The one time I took a train (Amtrak) I found it was nearly impossible to work due to the swaying of the train. The other down side was the return train was a few hours late (Amtrak does not own the track where I was traveling).

On the plus side, the seats were large and comfortable, and the food was surprisingly good.

Was food included or did you have to pay?

Had to pay, but there was an actual menu to order from, unlike an airplane with one (or no) meals.

Ah ok. Were the prices reasonable or overpriced as it is a captive market?

A bit high, as it is a captive audience.

Passenger train is just generally severely crippled in the US.

From Louisville, KY you get to factor in the greyhound bus to Chicago, as the nearest passenger train station, because the passenger trains haven't run to Louisville in more than a decade. So far as I can tell, that's the most direct route via train: northwest by bus to go southeast by train, eventually.

You could do it somewhat more directly using a sequence of bus transfers instead, but that's also entirely inconvenient in its own way.

> renting a stateroom on a cargo ship seems like a very relaxing way to go if you have the time.

Clearly you've never been in a storm at sea. Or did I mis-interpret your meaning of 'to go'?

Next time I'd really appreciate it if folks didn't automatically disparage an entire REGION of the country as ignorant of the risks of a) living b) driving to the airport c) flying once at the airport.

As far as I can tell, DHS are the ones not properly managing risks here, not the mom traveling to Disney.

I will let my source know your feelings when I next speak with him or her. :)

I think the implication that he or she was trying to make is that statistically, those on the coasts travel by air more frequently. As someone with a mom who was very afraid of flying and terror related risks thereto, I know that fear largely dissipated when I finally got her to fly a few times. It's not an allegation of ignorance but that of relative inexperience (was my take, anyway).

Fair enough and thanks for the reply!

The frequency argument is an interesting one. This recent survey seems to indicate that travel maps pretty closely (within a percent or three) to population of the area which I wasn't actually expecting (sure, lobbying group doing the research caveat caveat): http://airlines.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/2016Survey.pd...

It also looks like there's a pretty significant difference between Midwest and Plains states in terms of numbers - less people, many fewer airports.

I totally get why the stereotype kinda makes sense given a certain view of a large swath of the country (though I've generally found these to be poor guides) but the statement would've worked without the regional or gender modifier :)

This is also a bit raw for me because I JUST flew my kids to Disney haha

Yes, a stateroom on a cargo ship sounds like it would be fun. Something to try one of these days.

No longer available. Considered a hijacking risk.

This doesn't seem to be true. This site [1] lists many agencies (based in the US, UK and other countries) that will sell you a passenger ticket for a cargo ship.

Availability is probably limited though, as each ship can only take a few passangers: "Cargo ships can carry a maximum of 12 passengers although most vessels only have accommodation for 4 to 6 passengers" [2].

[1]: http://flightlesstravel.com/plan/cargo-ships/

[2]: http://www.cargoshipvoyages.com/WhatToExpect/

You're right. Things seem to have opened up a bit. For a while, security was a big concern. CMA CGM will take passengers on some freighters. Maersk, the biggest line, won't.

That is accurate; there are very very few non-crew berths available on cargo ships nowadays. I know because I've researched alternative means of travelling to see the 2017 Solar eclipse.

They're offered as 'cruises' these days; you'd be looking at rates of ~$100-150/day, and they do single-day port calls wherever the ships' routes make a call. It looks like you do have to book fairly far in advance, though.

> They are worried that people would stop flying if they knew.

And that describes what the whole TSA thing is about. It is a theatre. There was no need to put laptop ban either because it is just as useless. One has to only check Quora answers on all sort of things people have taken through security which includes 2 full size Katana Swords, loaded guns, Fire starters, Ethanol bottles and various other items.

I understand government can not admit TSA is ineffective. But they can surely reduce the pain for us.

A fair amount of the security isn't really adding anything useful anymore. 9/11 only worked because the passengers assumed it was a hijacking, and therefore, cooperating meant they would likely live. That's out the window now. Passengers now violently subdue anyone that even seems suspicious. Between that and the secure cockpit door, a bomb is about all they have left to do anything on a large scale. Even that is tricky. The size of bomb you can sneak on limits the effectiveness[1]. Basically, the "ROI" on attacking planes isn't what it once was.

[1] Yes, you can find examples where it worked. But you can also find examples where most passengers survive even extensive damage to the aircraft, like Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (not a bomb, but still). Or Daallo Airlines Flight 159, where the bomber only killed himself.

Nitrocellulose? One could turn a troller full of cotton underwear into a bomb. So are they going to ban underwear on flights next?

They already swab for nitrates. It can trigger a false positive if you've been around an application of fertilizer.

You could create a dust explosion out of almost anything containing small enough particles and you can learn how from YouTube videos. It's seriously that easy. Are they going to ban baby powder next? Sugar, flour, corn starch, whatnot?

But all you have achieved is a hole in the fuselage. That sucks but it's nowhere near enough to take a plane down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_812 for example.