We are not fans of water-borne travel on the high seas. Whilst there is nothing more relaxing than moving slowly up or down a calm waterway (the upper Nile in Egypt, the Irrawaddy in Myanmar, the upper reaches of the Mekong in Laos, the Keralan backwaters), a physical and mental discomfort associated with the movement of a ship or boat means that we have only once travelled on the open seas and that was over twenty-five years ago on a cruise around the Galapagos Islands. So there will be nothing about seafaring cruises here, unless there is no other way of doing something we really want to do.
Mobility constraints mean we often prefer to use the train as a means of moving around and seeing the world. In some destinations this is impractical and the car becomes, for us, a necessity, either with a driver or self-driven. In order to minimise wear on ageing bodies, especially backs, we occasionally do both. One person drives to meet the other at a suitable rail station before we both take the road to a destination and use the car for places that cannot, realistically, be visited in any other way. More cost, yes. More fun, yes.
Our ideal would be to travel in as environmentally acceptable a way as is practical for us. It does not always happen. Time, convenience and comfort can override environmental perfection.
The Train
We try to use train travel to get around, especially in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. Of course, it does not work for short trips to more distant European destinations but otherwise taking the train can make the journey part of your travels rather than a necessity just to get to where your travels start. I have a strong preference for the space and ability to move around offered by the train and for the cinematic view out of a train window over the view through an airplane ‘porthole’.
So, where to start for train travel out of, and outside, the United Kingdom? For both an overview and for a myriad of key details about how to travel by train, the website The Man in Seat 61 (https://www.seat61.com) is, without doubt, the best place to go. It drills down to clear explanations of which types of trains to use, where to find station facilities, how and where to buy tickets, which are the most appropriate seats to sit in, how ticket pricing works and hundreds of other useful pieces of information.
When I am looking at possible train routes, travel times and an initial view on ticket pricing I tend to use the DB journey planner. Deutsche Bahn is the German national rail company whose transport tentacles now extend across Europe (they run the Royal Train for the King). I have found their journey planner (https://www.bahn.com/en) to be the easiest to use for nearly all European destinations. It guided us around almost all of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, as well as getting us to and from London.
Once I have worked out the best timing of trains then I tend to book tickets using the websites of the national rail company of the relevant country. The Man in Seat 61 has details of the various national rail websites. All the ones I have used, from SNCF in France to BDZ in Bulgaria, have English websites. The key here is to book ahead if you can. Except when you take local trains for short journeys, all pricing goes up as the date for travel gets closer.
Car Rental
I tend to use the large international car rental companies for most of my car hire because I know what I am getting and the service if you have a problem (like locking your keys in the car on the top of the Swartberg Pass with the cloud cover coming down), they can usually help without fuss. I don’t mind that it may cost a little more than the local options on the cost comparison websites. After that it is simply a matter of which one has a suitable location and which one of them costs the least. Online research and your maps app come to the fore again.
Flying
For long haul we tend to use what is on offer. I am not such an aficionado of plane travel that I can say, definitively, Airline A is better than Airline B. There are nuances but, for the most part, we go with whatever major carrier our travel adviser suggests, just trying to make sure any multi-flight trip where we are relying on connecting with different flights is with the same airline grouping – Star Alliance, One World Alliance and Sky Team – because our perception is that it eases difficulties if one flight is delayed and it makes luggage transfer easier.
For European short haul we tend to use BA. They offer a wide selection of options for a London-based traveller and have a Business Class option (speedier transit through security, lounges, more space on the plane for tall people). We tend not to use the so-called budget airlines. For us, cost add-ons are required to elevate the experience out of the hassle category and then only to a limited extent.
For more on mobility issues at London airports see the piece on Air Travel from London.