I think that “not be too far from any other country” would lead to a more open community with more fluent membership status. People who feel vaguely connected to a community will go to events which are closeby, but are less likely to attend if they have to fly (and consequently have to plan much longer in advance).
At least I’m willing to travel much longer in a train – where I can do work – if I can avoid flying that way, which seems to consist solely of controlls and queueing.
Hmm yes, thanks, indeed it probably applies to quite a few people.
I don’t personally get the whole “spend a lot of time in a train/car” thing, so let me also ask: what distance on land (or travel time) would make you give up on a train trip?
Distance does not matter, travel time does. As does pricing because prices for train and plane are basically unrelated and because I’m currently a student and don’t have much money. My decision mostly depends on the events around my travel – sometimes I have to fly to make it in time. This means I find it difficult to give a simple function, so let me give some examples:
• I currently live in Edinburgh and I fly to visit people in Germany or the Netherlands over the weekend.
On the other hand, I will move back to the continent in September and will visit the LW community weekend “on the way”. This will involve a travel time of around 25h over a period of 45h (13.5h train, 6h ferry, 4h cycling, 1h waiting, ~0.5h local transport). If I took a plane, it would cost around the same and I’d spent 10h (1.5h flight, 2h security/waiting, 1.5h local transport, 5h packing and unpacking bike + getting the packaging in the first place).
EDIT: Without the bike, the times would be 19h (train through the tunnel) vs 5h and I’d fly.
• There is a reasonable probability that I’ll be living in Switzerland soon, in which case I’m planning to do family visits by ~9h train instead of ~5h flight+transport. That is because I’m expecting it to be possible to do “home office” in the train.
• I really like night trains. I count night travel as 2-3h time investment due to reduced sleep quality.
• I prefer flying + airport shuttle over driving a car for the same total time if I’m the only driver. If this is a road trip with like-minded people and we share driving responsibilities, up to like 24h of driving seem okay during holidays. I’d probably prefer the plane once I have a job.
I think that “not be too far from any other country” would lead to a more open community with more fluent membership status. People who feel vaguely connected to a community will go to events which are closeby, but are less likely to attend if they have to fly (and consequently have to plan much longer in advance). At least I’m willing to travel much longer in a train – where I can do work – if I can avoid flying that way, which seems to consist solely of controlls and queueing.
Hmm yes, thanks, indeed it probably applies to quite a few people.
I don’t personally get the whole “spend a lot of time in a train/car” thing, so let me also ask: what distance on land (or travel time) would make you give up on a train trip?
Distance does not matter, travel time does. As does pricing because prices for train and plane are basically unrelated and because I’m currently a student and don’t have much money. My decision mostly depends on the events around my travel – sometimes I have to fly to make it in time. This means I find it difficult to give a simple function, so let me give some examples:
• I currently live in Edinburgh and I fly to visit people in Germany or the Netherlands over the weekend. On the other hand, I will move back to the continent in September and will visit the LW community weekend “on the way”. This will involve a travel time of around 25h over a period of 45h (13.5h train, 6h ferry, 4h cycling, 1h waiting, ~0.5h local transport). If I took a plane, it would cost around the same and I’d spent 10h (1.5h flight, 2h security/waiting, 1.5h local transport, 5h packing and unpacking bike + getting the packaging in the first place). EDIT: Without the bike, the times would be 19h (train through the tunnel) vs 5h and I’d fly.
• There is a reasonable probability that I’ll be living in Switzerland soon, in which case I’m planning to do family visits by ~9h train instead of ~5h flight+transport. That is because I’m expecting it to be possible to do “home office” in the train.
• I really like night trains. I count night travel as 2-3h time investment due to reduced sleep quality.
• I prefer flying + airport shuttle over driving a car for the same total time if I’m the only driver. If this is a road trip with like-minded people and we share driving responsibilities, up to like 24h of driving seem okay during holidays. I’d probably prefer the plane once I have a job.