Let’s say you walk down the aisle, express lifetime devotion and commitment to your sweetheart, and then you wonder to yourself: where do we go for the honeymoon? Sure, you could try for the clichéd (and environmentally unfriendly) flight to Hawai’i to laze around on sparkling beaches and stare at palm trees waving in tropical breezes. You could — but, as long as you aren’t really in a hurry to get anywhere, why not use transit instead? Aaron Donovan, an author for the New York-based group blog Streetsblog, wrote an awesome series of posts this week about his transit-oriented honeymoon, in which he and his wife Susan Murray traveled from coast to coast (the trip totaled to a little under 8,000 miles) — without ever renting a car, taking a plane, or hailing a taxi. All trips were made on Amtrak and local city and regional transit systems. Yes, it can be done! To boot, it’s an excellent test of the strength of your marriage: if you and your loved one can survive 8,000 miles of Amtrak together, you can probably handle anything.
It’s a fun story, so definitely check out this series of posts. The posts include a few mentions of the Bay Area, and provide a nice outsider perspective:
- Part 1 | Introduction, and reflection on Amtrak
- Part 2 | Cities
- Part 3 | Cities (includes a blurb on the San Francisco part of the trip)
- Part 4 | Commentary on trains (Local mentions: BART, Muni Metro, and Caltrain. I especially enjoyed Aaron’s jubilation over the Caltrain bike car.)
- Part 5 | Wrap-Up
Streetsblog is, in general, a great read. Their material focuses on New York and the surrounding region, but some stories do extend beyond New York. More importantly, however, the spirit of the discussion is spot on and is applicable to cities everywhere. Congratulations to Aaron and Susan for surviving their honeymoon… and for doing it with style!
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