When I think of Europe, I think of backpacking across the continent and traveling by Eurorail.
It’s an often discussed, if uncommon, practice that many hope to do in their lifetimes. The idea of grabbing a few necessities and hopping on a train to see where the wind takes you is a wonderfully romantic idea.
Why, though, do we feel the need to go to Europe to do this? The answer is simple: Europe is not dependent upon the automobile in the same fashion as the United States.
I have lived on the East Coast my entire life. I grew up in New Jersey and currently reside in Washington D.C. I have seen this dependence on cars in all of my friends and family. I thought this was normal. How else could I have gotten to my friend’s house without a car? This perception, or illusion, if you will, was shattered for me when I spent a semester in Europe.
I say Europe because even though I was in Spain, the entire continent is so perfectly interconnected by public transportation that borders seem irrelevant. It’s stupefying that the United States, one nation, can’t do something even remotely similar. Yes, we have buses that can take us from one metropolis to the next, and trains so expensive that I’d rather chew off my own arm than pay the price for a ticket.
In the U.S., if I want to go, for example, from Easton, Pennsylvania to Burlington, Vermont I would have to drive the entire distance (Google Maps can’t even calculate a route via public transportation). Compare that to Europe, where I could go from Biarritz, France to Valencia, Spain (a trip that is roughly the same distance) via bus and spend only a fraction of the price that I would have spent driving. If I were feeling lavish, I could spend a tad more and take a train rather than a bus. Not so in the U.S.
We have a fantastic opportunity to build a nationwide public transportation system, but this love story of man and car has pulled the cloth over our eyes.
I’ve been told that your first car is akin to your first love. Well, if my first love is going to cost thousands of dollars, involve constant yelling, cause me endless frustration and incessant migraines, then I don’t know if I want to fall in love. Why wasn’t I told instead that my first bike would be like my first love? A little TLC is all it needs to take me anywhere I might want to go. And by bus, I’ve always arrived on time in my European travels and never wished I’d rented a car instead.
So what is the deal with the American obsession with cars? While some of us have embraced alternative transportation, why can’t we all? I hope a time comes soon when we can break away from our American obsession with insisting to be behind the wheel of our own cars.
Associating backpacking with the U.S. would be pretty cool.
Photo by Sascha Kohlmann