Occasionally, when I'm in the early stages of planning a trip, I will, laughably, check to see if it's feasible to do something *without* the car, or a plane.
Bus and train. It may take longer than a plane, and be less convenient than by car, but better for the environment, right? Let's see.
Well. I COULD drive 11 hours from Austin to Albuquerque, where I have family, which costs whatever horrible gas prices we have right now. (Plus driving time always inflates for pit stops.)
OR take a plane (2 hours in the air, plus airport time, and probably need to rent a car there) for roughly $150ish.
Or...I can take the Greyhound bus, which....means taking the bus to Dallas, then transferring to go to Oklahoma, then transferring to another bus to go to Albuquerque. And it'll only take 20 hours and cost $250.
OR.....for $220, I can take an Amtrak from Austin to Dallas, then change trains to go to Oklahoma, then *switch to a bus* to go to....Kansas? And then get on a train in Kansas to go to Albequrque. And it will only take 30+ hours.
.....
Ok.
Chicago. Go see the Field Museum.
I can drive there in 18 hours. Or fly, about $200 and 3 hours in the air.
Greyhound for $250 in 25 hours. Amtrak for $230...in 29 hours.
.....
What if I just want to go to Houston for the weekend and not deal with the traffic? I can drive to Houston in 2.5 maybe 3 hours? I'd never fly that, since that's crazy (an hour in the air, but driving is actually faster if you account for airport shennanigans). This one at least has a viable bus option at 3 hours and $40 (but then you don't have your car with you, so you have to figure out transportation around Houston...)
Amtrak...amazingly , requires a train transfer in San Antonio, takes 16 hours, and costs $70.
Ok, New York City. 26 hours of driving. 5 hours and $300 flying. Bus is only $180 and takes....45 hours.
Amtrak. Costs. $440. And would take...54 hours...on three different trains.
And I just.
Fine. I'll drive.
Austin to NYC should only take two trains and about iirc about 30 hours? Sometimes the route planner on their website gets weird with it for some reason (possibly because it's optimizing for distance? Those three trains would probably be shorter but the transfer times more than offset that).
But yeah it's completely insane and also your train will almost certainly be late (I took the Texas eagle from Austin to Chicago a couple days ago and it was 6 hours late), if you're using amtrak it's really gotta be for the love of the game (or in my case jokingly tell your parents that'll you'll go to the family function if they pay for a sleeper, which they then do for some reason)
Well, that's too to know. That's at least comparable with the driving time, and the cost of a hotel could...close the difference some with a sleeper car. So something to think about.
I just wish Amtrak was more convenient to use. I'd really love to support passenger rail more. But the routes out of Austin are just so abysmal.

























