If you are from a country built around cars, then your life has been shaped to want and do the things built around a car, and discount or ignore the things you

If you are from a country built around cars, then your life has been shaped to want and do the things built around a car, and discount or ignore the things you can't do. When you drive, you can't step into the dining car and grab some lunch and a beer while you catch up on podcasts as the scenery goes passing by, like you can in a long distance train. When you're stuck with a car you can't make day walking trips from village to village, unless you plan to make a circle to get back to your car. Doing something like the Pilgrims’ Way, a 10 day pilgrimage walk from Winchester to Canterbury, is right out. Gud is from Switzerland, where there is no need to pick someone up from the airport because all of the airports have excellent transit connections. I guess you won't visit a random restaurant or historical site in Zermatt, as that's one of the car-free places in Switzerland, and the train you'll take likely won't have the temperature set at the warmth you require. When you're in a place built for cars, you expect stores to be far away, so need to buy in bulk since you only want to shop for a week. When you are on a place built for walking, stores are also in walking distance, and you can easily go every day or two. But even if you don't want that, grocery stores can deliver - friends of mine in the UK got a bulk Tesco delivery every week. For that matter, the last few times we got furniture we paid someone to move it for us - I've never had a car big enough to move more than a couple of chairs or some flat pack box from IKEA. The US has "soccer moms" because their younger teens essentially require a chauffeur to do any after-school activity. For some that idea of being chained to the kids' free time activities is great, to others it's a nightmare. In places with good mass transit, kids have more freedom to travel on their own and be independent. I dunno. It seems like the Europeans I know have done a lot of things. It helps they have 4-6 weeks of vacation time. And Portugal to Norway is quite a long way. And, cars take time. They need to be maintained, you need figure out insurance, if there's something wrong you need to get it fixed, and have backup transportation. You've got to deal with traffic jams, you've got to figure who is the DD for the night if you go out drinking with friends, if you get kids you might have to buy a new car - it's an endless list things.