Travel in the Current Age

My recent trip to Greece made me think about how in the 21^st century we subject ourselves to travel that reminds me of squeezing cattle into boxcars. We opt for speed and discomfort rather than comfort and relaxation, a slower pace. Who, after all, in today’s world can take 6 to 14 days by ship to get from North America to Europe? It’s also cheaper to fly. One quote I read for the sea voyage was $1,500 per person one way. Still, the thought is appealing.

Just imagine, leg room, and the ability to walk around, go for meals and drinks, look at the ocean, lie down in an actual bed. Plus, no hanging about in several noisy and crowded airports. My trip to Greece started in my home city, and took me to 2 more before I finally landed in Athens (4 cities in all with waits at airports to change planes). I found Toronto’s Pearson airport particularly awful on the way over – there seemed to be noise everywhere. If it wasn’t people talking or public address announcements, it was musak. And the airlines hadn’t seemed to think of the concept of asking people to line up by rows, so that we all crowed together near the gate as if we didn’t have assigned seats. Munich airport was heaven by comparison. I had a several hour stopover there, but I found more than a couple of quiet areas plus free beverage stations from Lufthansa. That’s a bit more civilized.

Granted, ships are not for everyone (though the thought of that kind of holiday appeals to me more and more as I get older). Still, it seems to me that in the 21^st century we should be able to come up with better ways of speedy travel. What happened to the concept of the planetary shuttle? And couldn’t we have solar powered flight? Cheaper flights so we wouldn’t have to crowd together; everyone should have as much room as business class does now. Or maybe we could hovercraft across the ocean. Perhaps we need to bring back the dirigible for long distances – after all we now have gases that don’t explode to fill the balloons.

Of course, in the Star Trek universe we would be beaming back and forth, even quicker with less time on crowed airplanes.

Come on young entrepreneurs, research scientists, and engineers, get moving on this transportation stuff. The right idea could be environmentally friendly, comfortable and make someone pots of money.