I love traveling. Absolutely love it. Unfortunately I've never been in a situation where I had both the time and money to travel until recently, but I was always ecstatic for any of my family's long distance road trips. I was always mesmerized by the open road, watching the cars and the scenery go by, and enjoying the sounds of the road (sounds weird, I know).
People often talk about the stresses of air travel, the hour(s) spent in the security line, dealing with potential delays, and being packed like a can of sardines with a bunch of strangers in a flying metal tube for hours at a time. However, I personally enjoy most of the flying experience quite a bit. Just seeing various airport designs and layouts, wandering the terminal while waiting for a flight, watching planes taxiing and going down the runways, and especially experiencing takeoffs and landings (I love that feeling so much, again I know it's weird). I also enjoy looking down at the world going by from so high up. I figure I know I'm going to have to deal with all of that anyway whether I wanted to or not, so I may as well make the most of it. I honestly wish I could travel by plane more often.
Out of all of these though, rail is my favorite way to travel. You often get to see sights that you wouldn't be able to see by car as the rails diverge from the paths of the roads. You aren't confined to one spot, you can get up and walk around at any time. You can take a restroom break or grab some food whenever you need and you'll still be moving toward your destination, you don't have to deal with idiotic drivers, and if you need to rest you don't need to find a place to stop to do so. I also find the rocking of the rail cars and the sound of the train horn and bell from the inside to be rather soothing (who knew an air horn blasting sounds so loudly could be found to be "soothing?"). I've only taken short distance rail trips so far (I tried a long distance Denver, Colorado to Oakland, California trip a few months ago, but mudslides outside Denver canceled the train unfortunately), but I recently booked a week long rail vacation for next year, from Los Angeles, California to Seattle, Washington (2 days); Seattle to Chicago, Illinois (3 days); and Chicago to Oakland (3 days), all with a private room and I'm very much looking forward to it.
I haven't taken buses all that much in my life aside from city buses and a single hour-long bus connection on a rail trip. However, I still quite enjoyed that bus ride anyway, for mainly the same reasons as car travel.
The easiest way to put it is that when it comes to traveling, the journey to me is just as important as the destination. In the case of the failed vacation and my upcoming vacation attempt, the journey is the vacation. If money was no longer a concern I think I'd spend most of my life going anywhere and everywhere. Within reason, of course!
