Travel rant
Jul. 3rd, 2007 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andygatesGetting up to Scotland: a non-trivial operation from down in sunny Devon (well worth it though; bally fine company and Buckie-zombie hunting). How to get up there for the Highland Games triathlon? Drive? Fly? Train? The journey is in a fortnight, an ordinary, human degree of advance planning.
Driving takes three tanks of diesel return, and 10-12 hours depending on traffic, fatigue, etc. It is tiring, but not as tiring as you'd think. All travel is tiring, after all. £150 plus snacks, door to door.
Flying, at the moment, will cost me £190 including the bike, plus extra for parking. It was cheaper this morning. It was even cheaper two weeks ago.
The train will set me back a paltry £148 as long as I stick to departure times. If I have the temerity to want any flexibility, that gets first huge, then silly, in short order.
Of course by the time I've checked these against each other, I'll bet that one or the other will have changed. Upwards. Just clicking away from the page gets me cross because I can't be sure that the price I see will stick for long enough to make an informed choice. The volatility stinks of pressure sales, and pressure salesmen get only one response from me.
So I think I'll drive again. Get some chipfat to boost the gas mileage, try to do the impossible and eat cleanly on the road (why is that so hard?). Public transport has no cost advantage even for a single passenger against a slow, thirsty old brick like the camper. That's frankly pathetic. And air travel has a cunning way of sneaking fifty quid surcharges in when you're not looking. Taxes, sir? Bike, sir? Parking, sir? Guilt for raping Gaia while on a jolly, sir?
All of the 'cheap' ticket prices, every last one of them - unless you are psychic and book a generation in advance - are fraudulent lies.
This is why the car wins. It's not because the car is good and great and Clarksonderful. It's because everything else is shit.
Flying, at the moment, will cost me £190 including the bike, plus extra for parking. It was cheaper this morning. It was even cheaper two weeks ago.
The train will set me back a paltry £148 as long as I stick to departure times. If I have the temerity to want any flexibility, that gets first huge, then silly, in short order.
Of course by the time I've checked these against each other, I'll bet that one or the other will have changed. Upwards. Just clicking away from the page gets me cross because I can't be sure that the price I see will stick for long enough to make an informed choice. The volatility stinks of pressure sales, and pressure salesmen get only one response from me.
So I think I'll drive again. Get some chipfat to boost the gas mileage, try to do the impossible and eat cleanly on the road (why is that so hard?). Public transport has no cost advantage even for a single passenger against a slow, thirsty old brick like the camper. That's frankly pathetic. And air travel has a cunning way of sneaking fifty quid surcharges in when you're not looking. Taxes, sir? Bike, sir? Parking, sir? Guilt for raping Gaia while on a jolly, sir?
All of the 'cheap' ticket prices, every last one of them - unless you are psychic and book a generation in advance - are fraudulent lies.
This is why the car wins. It's not because the car is good and great and Clarksonderful. It's because everything else is shit.
