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Comment by humanrebar | Hacker News Reader

> One of the things that bothers me about individual automobile travel is how isolating it is. I want to interact with people and experience local art and culture, of which there is a lot in the NYC subway. We're a communal species.

You can make phone calls and listen to local podcasts in a car. You get better exposure to architecture, nature, and automobile design in a car than in an underground train.

>I want to interact with people...

You must be riding other trains because on the trains I have ridden, everyone is extremely efficient at avoiding eye contact.

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> You can make phone calls and listen to local podcasts in a car. You get better exposure to architecture, nature, and automobile design in a car than in an underground train.

You can listen to podcasts and music on a train as well. You can even make phone calls (much to the annoyance of the rest of us). Some of us spend a lot of our train time above ground. Some of the views from the NYC subway in the parts when it's not a subway are fantastic.

Real life is so much more interesting, IMO. Also there's far more that you can only experience by walking or riding a bike around the city.

There are things you only experience scooting around the city, but there are things you only experience when you get at least 30 miles out of an urban area. And there are things you only experience if you go on a full-blown roadtrip.

I think there's a lot to find interesting out there. Generally I only feel limited by my curiosity and imagination.

If you're on a road trip across a "boring" part of the country, chat up a trucker at a rest stop. Ask how the business works, how they got into the business, how things changed since they started, what their bosses seem like, etc.

Yeah, and try doing it on a bicycle. I biked across the US (SF to NYC) last summer, and it's something you simply cannot replicate any other way. There is so much more to the world when you hear the sounds, smell the smells, and have spontaneous conversations with people ("you're on a bike? going to where? what?").

That's mostly true, but then try living for a few years in Germany and then your perception of what it means to avoid eye contact will vastly change :)

I'm a German living in Germany. Can you clarify your comment for me? :-)

As a Dutchie who just spent three years in Germany... You are perceived to be very closed, at least initially. Nice when you want to be left alone, going about your business. Not so nice when you are used to more interaction with strangers.

I'm from Scandinavia and it's pretty much the same.

There's a whole other level - try riding the subway in Seoul if you look like you're definitely not Korean. It's like you're invisible and inaudible.

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