The travelling itself. Destinations are never my main interest. It’s being in a moving vehicle. I enjoy buses and trains. Just sitting in the hum and watching the scenery zip by.
I hope that counts as travelling.
Usually that ends up looking as following: Start -> Train -> Waiting for a train back -> Train -> Back to start destination. If there’s more ways to travel though, I’ll join them. That means going there and back via different routes. So I may go into some city by train, and back by a bus or vice versa. Bonus points if I have to use city transport.
Even then, I still need preparation the 1st time. Looking through street view and learning the streets I’ll have to go through, searching for backup transport options, finding what bus companies I’ll use, reading their ToS (seriously), checking their fees, checking whether they are in TransCard system, checking photos and videos of how people get in and pay (details like “do I have to just tap the card, or press something on the screen?”, which doors are for entry and exit, do the doors use “open” buttons or are they driver-controlled, etc… Sometimes buses show up in backgrounds of local news reports, and that’s what I look for.), what are the buses’ license plates, what bus models the company uses and their colors, what route the bus goes through (on map - the longer the better, more distance between stops preffered), it shouldn’t be on Mondays and Fridays due to increased number of people.
And with my laziness that can take some time. But after the 1st time, I can just more or less spontaneously go there any time. Just need a few minutes to check whether the timetables and fees were updated, or if there’s something else important different (e.g.: closed roads that could result in skipped stops). If it isn’t obvious, I am not necessarily looking for anything new, just longer routes with less stops. The same route is still as enjoyable for me after taking it every work day twice for past 3 years just as it was the 2nd time.
Oh, but I really like temporary railroad blockages. The replacement bus still needs to take me to the same destination at (more or less) the same time, but via a different route.
The travelling itself. Destinations are never my main interest. It’s being in a moving vehicle. I enjoy buses and trains. Just sitting in the hum and watching the scenery zip by.
I hope that counts as travelling.
Usually that ends up looking as following: Start -> Train -> Waiting for a train back -> Train -> Back to start destination. If there’s more ways to travel though, I’ll join them. That means going there and back via different routes. So I may go into some city by train, and back by a bus or vice versa. Bonus points if I have to use city transport.
Even then, I still need preparation the 1st time. Looking through street view and learning the streets I’ll have to go through, searching for backup transport options, finding what bus companies I’ll use, reading their ToS (seriously), checking their fees, checking whether they are in TransCard system, checking photos and videos of how people get in and pay (details like “do I have to just tap the card, or press something on the screen?”, which doors are for entry and exit, do the doors use “open” buttons or are they driver-controlled, etc… Sometimes buses show up in backgrounds of local news reports, and that’s what I look for.), what are the buses’ license plates, what bus models the company uses and their colors, what route the bus goes through (on map - the longer the better, more distance between stops preffered), it shouldn’t be on Mondays and Fridays due to increased number of people.
And with my laziness that can take some time. But after the 1st time, I can just more or less spontaneously go there any time. Just need a few minutes to check whether the timetables and fees were updated, or if there’s something else important different (e.g.: closed roads that could result in skipped stops). If it isn’t obvious, I am not necessarily looking for anything new, just longer routes with less stops. The same route is still as enjoyable for me after taking it every work day twice for past 3 years just as it was the 2nd time.
Oh, but I really like temporary railroad blockages. The replacement bus still needs to take me to the same destination at (more or less) the same time, but via a different route.
I think I would agree that this is my favourite part as well, if not for Canadian public transit being not that great. Still, planning is fun.