I took a train from LA to NY once. Took the better part of a week, but I'd totally do it again under different circumstances if it wasn't insanely pricey.
I hate flying because of a shitty experience several years ago that had several people around me screaming, crying, and praying loudly, but I'm ok with it under certain conditions. 1. If I have a solid buzz. I've ordered drinks on 6:00 am flights before and always bring tiny bottles of booze. 2. It's an early flight....I don't know if it's true, but it seems like the weather is usually better in the morning compared to thunderstorms developing early afternoon. 3. If I'm in the front of the cabin. A flight attendant once told me that the back is a lot bumpier so now I always sit toward the front if possible. I'm dreading the flight for the honeymoon. Already scheming about how I can get a script for something to help.
This board definitely surprises me sometimes. Can we change the header to "We really fucking hate flying too." Also do you dog people take your dogs everywhere? Do you really have to? Really?
I never had issues with flying and actually like it but I hate the trains over here. They are NOTHING compared to high-speed rail like Japan or Europe has, which are inexpensive, smooth rides and incredibly fast. I have no idea why the west hasn't mass-adopted them yet.
Like I understand a fear of flying. While blah blah its safer than driving, there is still something unnatural about it and there is a lack of control, so I can understand an aversion to it as a result, especially when that's woven in with different anxiety. But you guys are shocking me. I've honestly never met a more anti-flying collection in my life. Planes more cramped despite only being in the uncomfortable situation for 25% of the time versus driving? Snacks or eating wherever you want? Seriously? Leave whenever you want? You guys realize most airports have multiple flights to each destination per day? I'm just baffled. My friends bitch about air travel, but they are traveling for work and are irritable as a result so Mouthbreathing Fatty and his wife on their way to Daytona Beach taking 30 minutes in the security line when they are trying to travel light and efficiently is an annoyance. But I dont think they would ever be like "gee, this would be better if I could just drive 4 hours to the client on a Monday morning."
Cars will always be more comfortable than sitting coach. Can we at least agree on that? And turbulence and bad weather are annoying no matter who you are.
Only if we can at least agree that falling asleep in one location and waking up 400 miles away at your destination is way better than staying awake 6-7 hours.
Totally, thats why I originally said for anything over a days drive I fly. On second thought, add a zero to that 400 number, I'd still rather drive for a day than hitch a flight. I don't get the John Madden types. It doesn't make sense to drive for 4 days when you could be in the air for 6. If you're that averse to flying, do what everyone else does, get ripped at the bar or pop some xanax. I remember I was pretty dam scared of my flight from San Diego to Heathrow. But instead of not going to Europe I sucked it up and dealt with my fear.
There's a reason that god invented zopiclone. Use it. It'll make 30 hours of flying in the back of a cargo plane seem like a walk in the park.
I don't dislike flying. It's fucking awesome. I had a shitty flight this summer--19 hours next to hellion toddlers and people puking all over shitty, but at the end of the day I went halfway around the fucking world. It's hard to overstate how amazing that is. I think the people dislike flying in America is because we just really really love to drive. The love of driving is built into American mythology. The movie American Graffiti nails it. How many of us spent our teenage years cruising? Especially out West. Hell, we used to drive 45 miles one way just to go to Sonic. Driving has too much nostalgia to ever be completed eliminated as a pleasurable activity. We even have a cliche for how much we love to drive. There aren't many people who don't enjoy "the open road." I love to fly because it is a god damned miracle, and I love to drive because it is so pleasurable to be in control and see everything in front of me. I know that driving is wasteful and dangerous, but it is too awesome to ever stop. However, the European (and I suppose Japan's) rail system seems to be the best of both worlds. I wish that shit would catch on here.
from where i live (QC for those keeping score) its 3 hours into Chicago/ohare/midway. Every fucking time i have to make that drive. either to catch a flight, or to hang out with friends, I daydream about the time i took the train from S IL into Chicago and how awesome it was. I got to read, enjoy some beers, and watch the countryside morph from rural to urban. If I could hop a train and be in a major city in a few hours, id do it every free weekend I had.
Flying is fun, the bullshit rarely has touched me because I'm spartan to the extreme when I get ready to fly. But I did have a shitty time once, because a TSA agent thought a woolly mammoth ivory knife on a stand qualified as a weapon in the Kotzebue Airport. Like I was going to pick up a $350 mounted-artifact to murder the various patrons of an aircraft to Anchorage. I just shrugged after arguing for ten minutes, gave it to my friend there and said "Just ship it to me." and got on the plane. I've also had to spend 14 hours on layovers two times in airports, the Ted Stevens and the Sea-Tac, but Ted Stevens is fucking awesome. I got drinks, food, a couple books and I was fucking doing just fine. Sea-Tac isn't too bad, but I mostly just slept. I think the act of flying is pretty great. Window seats are the bomb.
I hate talking on the phone. I can't hear people for shit, and my brain just fills in words that I think make sense. I just got a call for what I thought was a "rail alarm." Turns out it was about a "well alarm." She sort of mumbled and I just decided "rail alarm makes sense." I blame that train wreck video from earlier.
I think if you tell your doctor you're a nervous flyer, they will just prescribe you something. We fill scripts all the time for stuff like that. Usually just a couple of pills. And when I took my daughter and her friends to swim camp, they were in the front of the plane and I was in the back. I sat next to this guy and we got to talking and I told him who I was with and where they were sitting. We were in the very last row (seriously, can't people hold it for two hours, that bathroom door opening and shutting was the most annoying thing of the trip) and he started telling me how happy he was we were in the last row because he just saw a show about survival rates during a plane crash and apparently our chances were pretty damn good of survival (68%) if that were to happen. Front of plane? Done for. I looked at him a moment and said, "I...just told you my daughter was up front." We laughed about it but sometimes I think people don't think. So now you get to weigh less turbulence against surviving. You're welcome. Oh and I hate how they load planes front to back. Then we all have to wait while people pack their carryons. Doesn't it make more sense back to front?
Driving is fucking awesome. And yes, it's unlikely to just die. I once drove while a teenager to Canada just to get Starbucks just to say we did it with some friends. Once there, we instead went to a local eatery in British Columbia that I forget the name of and ate there.
Now that you say that, I remember just reading it a couple of weeks ago and THINKING IT WAS ALL LIES! I think part of it also had to do with seat assignments. Like if they let the passengers just pick their own seats, that was the fastest loading. Now it was a controlled environment I believe, not just a flight that they decided to record times. Now I need to search it. I'm sure everyone is dying to know. Thanks ROM. That wasn't even hard. Although not the article I read, same study. Thanks Mythbusters. Although I still don't get how front to back works. Also, saw this guy today, thought he looked like Elton John with that hair: