> I have travelled but I don't see what great experience I was missing out on. Could you give some examples of yours so when I try it again I'll know what to lo

> I have travelled but I don't see what great experience I was missing out on. Could you give some examples of yours so when I try it again I'll know what to look for? As an example, in 2011 I went to Europe for the first time; Spain and Italy. We went to Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Venice, Florence, Rome. How did we get between cities in each country? High speed rail. It wasn't as inexpensive as I thought it would be, but the experience was much much better than flying. Sure, the US is a lot larger and it might only work well in some places, but it opened my eyes to a different, more pleasant and more efficient (from the travelers perspective at least) than flying is. In Barcelona, we rode the subway a bunch. The stations we were in all had a clock on the wall that counted down from 5 minutes. Not once did a train not show up before that countdown got to zero. I'm generally happy with the frequency of service of BART during commuting hours, but there are frequent train breakdowns, track maintenance, etc. that totally screw things up. I'm sure there are issues in the Barcelona subway as well, but maybe there is something to be learned about the appeal and utility of public transit seeing how it's done in other countries. Just two relatively minor things that you could read about in a book but not truly appreciate until you've experienced them in person.