The pros and cons of travel for you might relate to distance, cost, convenience, and environmental concerns. We shall consider a few of these points in deciding on a preferred method of transport.
Car
One of the advantages of travelling by car is that you can car share. You might have seen the British Sitcom, Peter Kay’s Car Share, in which supermarket manager John Redmond (Peter Kay) participates in a company car-sharing scheme with Kayleigh Kitson (Sian Gibson), the company’s promotion rep. The idea in principle provides companionship and shares the cost of travel. The driving can be shared, too, although in the sitcom Peter Kay is always driving. Some people find it relaxing driving to work, although this is dependent on how busy the roads are at the time of day you need to travel. Insurance can be an expensive part of motoring. Its cost will depend on your driving record, and location, as those areas with higher rates of accidents, theft, or vandalism, will put your insurance premium up. This cost can be mitigated by choosing a vehicle with a lower engine size and one that is not more akin to a racetrack. Walking is the healthier option for the environment, reducing your carbon footprint, but perhaps not for your lungs, if walking alongside heavy traffic. Road traffic accounts for 10 percent of emissions in terms of pollution.
Air
For longer distances, travelling by air is faster and not so prone to accident in comparison to other methods of travel. Its users can reach their destination in a matter of hours, with it rarely taking more than 24 hours even with international excursions. Frequently flying at over 35,000 feet, private jets can avoid the majority of air traffic and avoid bad weather, so can make it to a destination even quicker than commercial flights. In addition, private flights offer more privacy, no waiting at airports, and greater luxury during the flight. In terms of transporting goods, air transport is costlier than sea transport as it is more difficult to carry items that are bulkier and more awkwardly shaped. In terms of pollution, in the US, aircraft emissions just from domestic aviation have increased by 17 percent since 1990 and represent 9 percent of greenhouse gas emissions coming from the US transport sector.
Sea
Travelling by sea, although it takes longer, offers a smoother movement in relation to personal belongings. If you are on a cruise, it allows you to visit places that are inaccessible to other forms of transport. In terms of being environmentally friendly, you might assume that travelling by sea is way better for the environment than most other forms of transport, but in truth, a cruise ship travelling for just one week will generate a million tonnes of grey (waste) water, 50 tonnes of garbage, 210,000 gallons of sewage, and about 35,000 gallons of water which has been contaminated with oil.
So, what is the best way to travel? It does depend on whether you consider the damage to the environment or your own health. In fact, many people don’t realize the damage that your chosen travel preference can have on the environment and your own carbon footprint until they have calculated it via sites like Cool Effect, and even then, they may not understand just how much the world around us can be affected. With that being said though, it could have an impact on your decision about the best way in which to travel. Also, your decision could be based on how quickly you need to reach your destination. How far it is. There is no one perfect answer, except to say that there are pros and cons to every method of transport. Train travel, for instance, avoids the traffic of the roads yet, for convenience, is dependent on how far away your nearest station is. In the UK, in the 1960s, Doctor Beeching, the then Chairman of British Railways, closed literally thousands of miles of railway track and closed a great many railway stations, from which the railway network has never fully recovered. If only the buses could travel everywhere, except that they do not, because many rural areas have been left without a bus service due to it being uneconomical to run one on those routes. It seems that perhaps, for the moment, car is our best option for travelling short distances and possibly air travel for longer trips.