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Comment by xyzelement | Hacker News Reader

Really drives home the blessing of air travel. LATAM offers the same route for about the same price, 5 hours instead of 118.

I assume the author just had nothing better to do which is fine, but great to have the other option.

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'nothing better to do' is where all of life's greatest surprises are hiding.

You can also have nothing better to do in rio for 5 days

You're making the mistake of thinking that the place you're headed is your destination. When you look back (I hope) you recall fondly your younger days adventures where you had 2 bucks and an open road. The best adventures happen when we don't expect them because we're on the way to the 'important' thing.

We very rarely correctly identify in advance what the important thing is.

I disagree that I'm making that mistake - I'm saying that 5 days in some foreign city can be filled with adventure just like 5 days on a bus through unknown areas can be.

Why not 5 days traveling and 5 days more in Rio? Or 50?

Sure, I was just assuming a scenario like "I need to be in rio in 6 days for a job" or whatever

Now I've got small children, we fly instead of taking the long bus, train or boat journey. But the long bus, train and boat journeys and the places we experienced along the way are half of what my wife and I talk about when we reminisce about our travels. In the UK at least we call it "going travelling", which to me acknowledges that the actual travelling is important, not just destination hopping.

And what's the price if you want to stop at all 12 cities listed there?

If that's your actual goal sure.

I’m not convinced you read the post. I believe the author makes quite explicit their goal was to actually visit these cities, noting this is far from the most efficient bus route. Their itinerary also shows long stays in several spots.

Yes. I am just saying what an amazing thing air travel is when this is your baseline.

There are great mid-sized towns along the the route, especially in Parana and Sao Paulo. I'd have liked to read about any impressions.

when traveling and especially backpacking, the road and the experiences and people you meet along is the goal, not tackling a checklist of stuff internet/llms has given you as must-see.

Thanks for explaining that. Had never encountered this concept before.

I believe (s)he is responding to this comment of yours:

> Really drives home the blessing of air travel

It might lead one to surmise that you may have never encountered this before. Just sayin

Or it could just be an observation. You can look at how arduaous that trip is and be amazed that now-a-days, if you just want to get from point A to point B, you can do it in few hours of comfort on a plane. That doesn't take anything away from that you might want to take the long path. But seeing the long path, you can certainly appreciate how awesome it is that you don't have to take the long path when you don't need/want to .

I'm certainly glad that went I decide to go from California to Hawaii it takes 5 hours and not 5 days like it did 100 years ago. Or Japan, 14-15 days and now 10-11 hours. Sure, it might be interesting to do it once the long way, but having someone show me the long way makes me appreciate that I don't have to do that.

I cannot tell if this is sarcasm.

I think you didn't get the point of the article.

I’ve watched a video about a guy who did the same route, and a lot of passengers said they were taking the bus back home because they were afraid of flying.

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