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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

It’s not hard to cover 50 miles a day, or 300 miles in a week, which means you can see a lot. Yet stop in a second, anywhere.

Nothing against bicycle touring, but while a bicycle may force slower travel, a bicycle is not necessary for it.

A person can road trip in their car, truck, or van [1] at a similar pace. The daily cost of gasoline will be fairly low...less than about $20 per day even for a motorhome driving California.

How a person travels is more a matter of time resources. At 300 miles a week, it will take ten weeks to go from coast to coast. Few people have that kind of free time.

And if you have ten weeks for travel, you will almost certainly have a life changing experience irrespective of travel mode.

[1] or upon a motorcycle, moped, or scooter.

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> A person can road trip in their car, truck, or van

> or upon a motorcycle, moped, or scooter.

Not quite the same thing; you're isolated from your environment by the noise and the cabin or the helmet. You won't hear the birdsong, the silence, the wind rustling in the trees. Much of the depth of the experience is in the total engagement with your environment from moment to moment.

> Few people have that kind of free time.

...if they're selling their labour in exchange for money. Do you need to spend quite as much as you do every fortnight? If you're not living from paycheck to paycheck, spend a couple of years saving and then take time off to do a big trip.

I did it during 2017; the mortgage payments continued and I lived on the rest. I had money left over at the end.

Everyone can find moral superiority in their personal choices without much effort.

Finding morality in someone else’s orthogonal choices is the hard work.

For me, the birdsong and the wind are there but for stopping beside the road for the sake of stopping.

In those moments I am just there not even riding a bicycle.

You can take a helicopter to the top of a mountain in 1/20th the time, step out and see the same view, but is it really a comparable experience to having hiked it?

Hiking is a different experience. For you the differences might make it a better one.

For someone else, the logistics of a hike might suck all the joy away.

For others hiking may become a shopping exercise…gear, guides, supplies, permits and such.

For still others, why hike up a mountain when you could go surfing?

Some people don’t want the burden of owning and maintaining a bicycle touring rig. They find more value elsewhere.

YMMV.

So you failed in "Finding morality in someone else’s orthogonal choices is the hard work." by posting that van or car might be better?

I don’t think what how I travel is morally superior.

I know it is better for me.

Because the alternative to how I travel is not a bicycle. The alternative is more or less not traveling to the places I travel.

And not traveling with a typewriter, six cameras, and a 61 key Yamaha.

That is a good point, and one I struggle to understand why more people don’t.

However! The pace can be the same by day or week. But the average speed while moving is different. One not necessarily better than the other.

Travelling by car will eg allow more time sightseeing, walking around a city at lunch. While travelling by bike is more like you get to see a little bit of lots of things. And you can stop wherever and lift the bike off the road if necessary.

For some trips, a car is better, for other, a bike. For other still, hiking or taking a train or a plane. I’ve done all five, and all have their pros and cons.

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