3 ms·

It might be a nice idea if you have time to burn, but a pain point is making all the connections between different routes. And honestly, if you're mostly going

It might be a nice idea if you have time to burn, but a pain point is making all the connections between different routes. And honestly, if you're mostly going for the destination (maybe a meeting, a wedding, etc), rather than a nice 'road trip', you should include all the hotel stays in the carbon budget. IMHO aviation will be fixed with sustainable synthetic fuels. And in any case, it doesn't deserve it's current demonization, compared to say deforestation for cattle feed, etc, or just agriculture generally. However, I do think trains, and sleeper trains are an overlooked option for land travel compared to planes. Unfortunately, they're often more expensive than a short-hop flight.

praptak 4y ago
Hotel stays do cost something but much of this is just the daily carbon emission of the traveller, just done elsewhere. The delta exists but how big it is actually? Wash the towels and bedsheets, vacuum the room?
- jacknews 4y ago
  Assuming this took off, you'd have the embodied cost of all the extra hotels required, for a start. I love the idea, I always try to travel leisurely when I can, but it's in no way a realistic carbon-reduction strategy, IMHO.
josephcsible 4y ago
> I do think trains, and sleeper trains are an overlooked option for land travel compared to planes. I don't see how sleepers would ever be a viable alternative. Trains stop being competitive with planes after only a few hundred miles, and that's too short for sleeper cars to make sense to put on the trains.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  If I’m taking a weekend trip, I’d be happier to wake up in the destination city from a sleeper train than to take an 0600 flight to arrive around the same time. If I have a need for transit and a need for sleep anyway, I’d rather the sleeper train take 8 or 9 hours. (I did basically this with a Eurail pass in college. I’d often plan to visit cities that were 8+ hours apart by train and just sleep (in regular train seats) rather than pay for a hotel.

praptak 4y ago

Hotel stays do cost something but much of this is just the daily carbon emission of the traveller, just done elsewhere. The delta exists but how big it is actually? Wash the towels and bedsheets, vacuum the room?

jacknews 4y ago
Assuming this took off, you'd have the embodied cost of all the extra hotels required, for a start. I love the idea, I always try to travel leisurely when I can, but it's in no way a realistic carbon-reduction strategy, IMHO.

josephcsible 4y ago

> I do think trains, and sleeper trains are an overlooked option for land travel compared to planes. I don't see how sleepers would ever be a viable alternative. Trains stop being competitive with planes after only a few hundred miles, and that's too short for sleeper cars to make sense to put on the trains.

sokoloff 4y ago
If I’m taking a weekend trip, I’d be happier to wake up in the destination city from a sleeper train than to take an 0600 flight to arrive around the same time. If I have a need for transit and a need for sleep anyway, I’d rather the sleeper train take 8 or 9 hours. (I did basically this with a Eurail pass in college. I’d often plan to visit cities that were 8+ hours apart by train and just sleep (in regular train seats) rather than pay for a hotel.