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Comment by arrrg | Hacker News Reader

But why then not pick the car? The US are mind-bogglingly car-centric. If you want to explore them, chances are you need a car even if you then want to hike, bike or do whatever.

On our road trip from Miami to Seattle (via New Orleans, Los Angeles) the only National Park that wasn’t offensively car centric was Carlsbad Caverns, even though they did want to blow a hole in the mountain in the 1930s to change that. (Maybe Shark Valley in the Everglades, too. Though in both cases you need a car to get to the entrance.)

I get the remote wilderness (no matter how touristically attractive) needs cars. It‘s just that if you take the train you can’t really get there. Unless you get out and rent a car all the time.

I certainly didn’t enjoy any of the cities. They were all car-oppressed hellholes that aren’t much fun to be in.

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The train often does not parallel the highway. There are some remote parts of the country, particularly through the mountains, that can only been seen by rail. And because we have nothing comparable to a TGV or Shinkansen, you get to relax and see everything at a leisurely 40-60/mph, "rocking to the rhythm of the rails"[0].

[0]https://youtu.be/fF1lqEQFVUo

The train ride is less of an exploration, more a viewport into, a meditation on what is happening outside the window.

I've done the road trip - a slow meandering journey spanning tens of thousands of miles across the United States and Canada across many months. It's wonderful, but it's also fully engaged while being very hard on the body to drive so much. The engagement is obviously the point, but it's a particular way of travel.

I've also done the Zephyr in both directions, lakeshore limited, etc. on sleeper trains. It's very relaxing, but you also don't get to actually interact much with what is going on outside. But that's not such a bad thing at times. Sometimes it's exactly what you're looking for.

Road trips are long and require focus.

I've done plenty of long US road trips: Chicago to Seattle, Chicago to to East Coast, Michigan to Florida, Seattle to southern California, a loop of the southwest starting and ending in Vegas, etc.

I've done road trips throughout my life (Seattle to Socal was less than a year ago) and do smaller (~3hr 1 way) ones on a regular basis (Seattle to Portland or Vancouver). I've also taken trains in the US and in other countries and it's a different experience.

Having to focus on the road for more than an hour at a time wears you down. If you have a car full of people such that you can rotate drivers, it's bearable but that just means sharing the load. In comparison, in a train I can simply relax and enjoy the sights and the trip. If there's a beautiful mountain I can focus on it without worrying about a car or animal in front of me. If I want to eat or drink or use the restroom I do without having to wait miles to find somewhere to pull over. If I want to read or use my laptop or have a beverage (even alcohol if I want), it's fine.

I've driven Seattle to Portland dozens of times. I've also taken the train several times. When I drive, I arrive in PDX tired. When I get off the train I am invigorated and ready to start my day (even though when I've done it I usually had to get up at 4 to catch a 5:30AM train, times which usually don't exist for me and should seemingly leave me tired)

As far as exploring cities: while infrastructure in the US is bad, there is a strong correlation between cities worth exploring and some form of bus/bike/scooter rental. Train stations are also usually centrally located. If I want to explore I go walking and there's plenty to do within a few miles of the station. If it's further out I grab a bus. If I'm there for multiple days AND there are far-out things I want to do I could rent a car but it's almost never been necessary. Amusingly the only time I did a combination train-car trip was in Germany, where I wanted a vehicle to bounce between small towns the train didn't hit (but took the express train back from Berlin to Munich). In America it hasn't come up because the kinds of towns that don't have public transit are overwhelmingly either so small you can walk anywhere or so generic and boring that I don't get off the train except to stretch my legs.

Yes, I'm sure that folks can find counterexamples. I'll poke a hole in my experiment with East Lansing, MI: A fairly standard college town with a beautiful walkable campus.....and an Amtrak station in the middle of an industrial park a fair walk from anything good. Even then, though, it's a 1.5 mile walk to the middle of campus or 2 miles to the bar district, so it's still not the end of the world.

Heck, I already hate having to stare at the car in front of me for the 45 minutes or so it uses to take me to drive home in my US town. At least there's a bus that works well enough, so now I spend most of my commute reading a book out commenting here.

Driving works, but I'd much rather take a train. Too bad they are generally terrible here. I've been to Europe; it can work!

My opinion having driven across the country on interstates, road tripped, and taken the train -

Interstates are utilitarian travel for getting where you want to go without much sightseeing, because you're hauling cargo or transporting your vehicle or whatever. Yes, there is some sightseeing. And if it's your first time seeing a new landscape it's always going to be awesome. But ultimately interstates are very insulating.

Road trips, as disjoint from interstates as possible, are a great way to see scenery, but they take time. Even two weeks to get across the country is too short. I'd say you want a month minimum.

Train trips are a nice middleground for getting a taste of the road trip scenery (but not the waypoints) within a short amount of time, where you have a little more time to spare than flying (several days cross country), but not much.

I have also driven from St. Louis to San Francisco and back. It's just a very different experience. They aren't really the same thing.

New Orleans is car-oppressed?

Parent was talking about national parks along the route. And, yes, although a few have shuttle buses--which may even be required--most require a car to do a lot more than take in a scenic overlook. Indeed, even in more compact parks (e.g. Crater Lake) just getting to a central jumping off point will be hard without a car.

(New Orleans itself is pretty explorable without a car.)

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