Nothing, but nothing, is getting on my wick more than flying. Everything about it sucks: the people, the planes, the airport. The scriptwriters on EastEnders couldn’t cook up a more miserable situation even if they tried to plug a storyline involving Dot Cotton, a sex therapist and Rolly the pub dog.
It’s just a haven of unpleasantness. Vast warehouses full of knackered people, who each know they’ve got absolutely hours to wait around, taking their shoes and belts off, with sitting in pressurised canisters full of farting pensioners all they have to look forward to. It doesn’t half take the edge off your valuable holiday time.
Then there’s the disgusting lurgey to expect. Everyone has had it at some point. You get home from your flight exhausted, wake the next morning, and you’ve got it: some kind of bizarre flu/migraine hybrid that sticks around all week, the result of sucking in the virulent outpourings of the rest of the depressed people in cattle class. Last time I flew I was convinced it was Swine Flu. Really. The bloke sitting next to me looked like he belonged on a sausage plantation, so the logic seemed to work.
Gladly, I live on to make a new resolution: this summer, I’m going to give it a double whammy of benefit. Trains and boats only. It’s the travel choice of the true gent, plus, it seems, it’s going to help the planet too. Not only do you get to wander round your transport at will, look out of the window at incredible landscapes (instead of the blinding blanket of grey cirrus nothingness), you’re also emitting a fraction of the nasty gases that cook the atmosphere.
If you want the science, here goes: for every kilometre you travel there’s a CO2 output. On a ferry, that’s 120g. On a train it’s 165g. A plane – a whopping 460g. So taking the train to the continent and missing the miserable airport will be nearly three times as carbon-efficient. Plus, there’s a bar.
And things are only getting better when you hear about Eurostar’s emissions – they’ve just lowered their carbon targets. Because they’ve whizzed through the old ones, managing to cut C02 by 31%. Now a return train journey to Paris generates 6.6kg of CO2 per passenger – compared with 102.8kg per passenger by air. It’s an absurdly obvious decision when you see it like that.
Looking further into it, why not blow off the whole continental thing altogether? Surely you don’t need to be gadding all the way to Greece to lark about on deserted island beaches? Oh no you don’t – with almost spooky timing, we’re about to enter the unglamorous-sounding National Ferry Fortnight: a bargain ticket period for folk who like to bob about on boats. CalMac Ferries are running an amazing island-tour ticket, the HopScotch, that gets you around five Hebridean islands for £31.50! Saving the global ecosystem, the national economy, and also leaving a bit of wedge in the pocket of yours truly for that distillery tour…
For more details on ferry deals see sailanddrive.com
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