Checked Baggage Policies

[tirsales]

Its always nice if you have the possibility to travel with a small baggage. My actual record is needing 4 sets of clothing (one of these being a formal suit another one a fire-proof outfit including helmet and stuff, two sets of normal cloth) for ONE day ...
And yes, traveling with light baggage is so mich more comfortable

[RickyMaveety]

Unfortunately, when I travel, I have to take my computer along, and since I would never in a million years check that (which would pretty much guarantee that it would be lost), I have to check what little clothing I take with me.

The other problem I have is, I mostly fly Southwest Airlines (small carrier here in the US only). They have only got one extremely narrow aisle going up the fusilage ... so, when I go to put my computer in the overhead, there is no chance of waiting until someone comes to "help" me.

To top that off, my right arm is becoming weaker over time as a result of epicondylitis (both medial and lateral) caused by my sweet but serioulsy crazy dogs (who often yank me around like a rag doll). So, I have some real trouble getting the damned thing up there.

I do always try to (1) warn the people sitting below and (2) apologise in advance for any harm I may do .... but I doubt that really helps.

These days I'm trying hard to travel less .... I'd rather not have to travel at all, but it's hard to get away from it.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I either use public transport or walk. I've never even bothered to learn how to drive.

You have no idea how much I envy you, Patricia.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I either use public transport or walk. I've never even bothered to learn how to drive.

There's only two things wrong with public transport where I live:
the transport, and the public .

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

You have no idea how much I envy you, Patricia.

Me too. We have never driven while overseas. Public transport is a wondrous blessing that we are sadly lacking in the US.

I love to travel, but am starting to hate flying. Also starting to hate that overdressed woman ahead of me in the security line who thinks she is exempt from taking off her high heels and insists on them giving her a pair of TSA footies. (I actually saw that happen at Cleveland airport once. I wonder if they have footies at Atlanta? JK!! Of course they don't!)

[bbusybookworm]

While I do depend on public Transport here in the UK, the problem is that it has got really expensive.
If you don't book well in advance online, the tickets cost a fortune. And when more then one person is travelling, it is usually much cheaper to drive, even with UK gas prices .

On flights I tend to be a bit of a pack rat, as I'm usually going away for a month or so, so tend to carry everything I'll probably need. Being the geek of the family, that means that I have to carry all my troubleshooting equipment as there's a more then fair chance that I'm going to be called on to fix something.

So while I might carry only a few pairs of clothes, most of my luggage tend to be my backup disks, extra cables, tools etc. And as for my hand luggage, last time I travelled, I ended up carry a reasonably small backpack that still ended up weighed 18kg! (my laptop, 2 HD's with power supply's, my D-SLR, its lenses, a pocket DV camera, chargers, and a partridge in a pear tree)

[tompe]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

Me too. We have never driven while overseas. Public transport is a wondrous blessing that we are sadly lacking in the US.

I have tried to use public transport in the US and it works in some cities like San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Boston. Were it did not work so good was in Chicago were I tried to to take the train from the airport and a loop train to the hotel. I ended up in a not so nice neighbourhoor with car alarms sounding and no people visible and with a lot of bagage. In Europe it is natural to take public transport from an airport but this experience lead me to always take a shuttle or similar in the US from airports to hotels.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I'm relatively lucky. I don't really like flying anymore (especially if Heathrow is involved). So I take the Eurostar or a ferry to the continent, then trains, if necessary.

Why does the USA have such a poor railway system? If the French SNCF were running it, you'd have fast trains, mostly on time.

The US has poor rail and public transport systems for one simple reason - Population Density! (or the lack thereof.)

Consider, France has 64 million people in an area the size of Texas. Texas has 23 million or so. Much of the US has similar densities. In addition, Texas cities have no geographic limiting features, so they can sprawl to the populace's content. The result is too low of a population density to economically support mass transit. Certain US cities, New York, San Francisco, Boston, ect. have geographic limits which force building upwards, providing the density to support mass transit.

As to rails, well, LA to New York - over 5000 Kms. Dallas to NY - over 3000 Kms., NY to Miami, over 2000 Kms. Flying is so much faster than rails over those kind of distances, that the result is poor rail service. It's a niche market.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Why does the USA have such a poor railway system? If the French SNCF were running it, you'd have fast trains, mostly on time.

Because the US is entierly too big and there are to many major cities... what routes would you build... are you sure you will make money on every route. Also, because we have the most efficient and affordable air travel system in the world too.

There are some high speed rail projects but they are usally state sponsored or between two states. Here is Fl we have been trying to get a rail from Tampa to Orlando and also Miami to Orlando... everyone wants it, but no one wants to pay for it. Disney offered to pay for a large percentage of the Tampa to Orlando system, but they wanted it to terminate on their property... the govt didn't like that... so we ended up with still nothing.

I also heard recenlty of a high speed system from LA to Las Vegas... however this is not the first I've heard that one proposed. I'll believe it when I see it.

BOb

[Alisa]

There are plans in the works here in California for high speed rail from the SF Bay Area to LA. They've been talking about it for years, though. We have Cal Train and BART but they don't go to enough cities. They're supposed to expand down to the south bay sometime soon but seeing how long it took to extend the Eastern line makes me despair of that happening before I retire. BART also suffers from the inability to run express service due to the track design and implementation so even if they do expand, it's not a very attractive proposition if you want to go from SF to SJ. With the large distances our transit systems have to cover due to our urban sprawl, they are constantly trying to find a balance between having enough stations to be accessible and having so many stops that it takes forever to get anywhere.

For instance, to get the 11 miles to my job from my house would take me over two hours provided I made all my connections and I'd still have a two mile walk or bike ride to get to my office. The fare would still cost more than driving even with the current fuel prices. I work in one county an live in another which is another issue with our transit system. We have all these little county fiefdoms which have to play nicely with each other. What do you think the odds of that happening are?

[TallMomof2]

DH frequently travels from Washington DC to New York City. Overall, flying is the fastest but not by much. He prefers the train even though that means he has to drive to the station which is about 38 miles from home, the airport is less than 10 miles. Even the few "Express" trains make frequent stops and the trip easily takes 4-1/2 hours plus the 45+ minute drive to the station. Including security check-in times and airport commutes flying takes anywhere from 3-1/2 to 4+ hours. DH prefers the train because he's not treated like cattle and it's easier to get around NYC from Pennsylvania Station than from the outlying airports.

20 years ago DH and I vacationed in France and rode the high speed train between Paris and Nice. It was a wonderful experience *but* I can't see it happening here because the distances are so much greater and the will much less.

[Taylor514ce]

National government exists for a reason, and one of those reasons, I posit, should be to overcome the barriers, and in some cases the desires, of local government. Government also exists to provide what's need that private enterprise cannot effectively provide. I've been called everything from a communists to a Nazi for proposing this, but the US needs to nationalize the transportation system. We already have an "interstate" road system. We need an interstate rail system, and nationalized air travel. Airlines have proven they cannot operate efficiently. Time for the big bad Government to step in.

[TallMomof2]

Taylor - ITA. Some things should be institutionalized, especially when they are for the public good.

[Taylor514ce]

I'll try not to take that personally. Oh, I'm so depressed.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The US has poor rail and public transport systems for one simple reason - Population Density! (or the lack thereof.)

Consider, France has 64 million people in an area the size of Texas. Texas has 23 million or so. Much of the US has similar densities. In addition, Texas cities have no geographic limiting features, so they can sprawl to the populace's content. The result is too low of a population density to economically support mass transit. Certain US cities, New York, San Francisco, Boston, ect. have geographic limits which force building upwards, providing the density to support mass transit.

As to rails, well, LA to New York - over 5000 Kms. Dallas to NY - over 3000 Kms., NY to Miami, over 2000 Kms. Flying is so much faster than rails over those kind of distances, that the result is poor rail service. It's a niche market.

France is significatnly smaller than the US, and the greater distances might effectively make rail travel less efficient for some trajectories (although we do also have a european rail system which allows us to travel all over the continent by train ; the farthest i've travelled by rail is to Prague, which is an overnight trip, and don't forget the grand tradition of the Orient Express linking Paris to Vienna and Istanbul. oh, and the Eurostar, which connect paris to london via a tunnel under the Channel (they tried to call it "the Chunnel" but the consensus was that that sounds stupid)).

however population density (or lack of it) would seem to me an argument in *favor* of a train system, since you could connect cities without having to make frequent stops. in france, we have about 2 to 3 times the population of texas in the same surface area, but around 20% of that is concentrated in the Paris area, with the overwhelming majority of the rest being empty countryside.




trains are perfect to connect all these isolated cities.

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

National government exists for a reason, and one of those reasons, I posit, should be to overcome the barriers, and in some cases the desires, of local government. Government also exists to provide what's need that private enterprise cannot effectively provide. I've been called everything from a communists to a Nazi for proposing this, but the US needs to nationalize the transportation system. We already have an "interstate" road system. We need an interstate rail system, and nationalized air travel. Airlines have proven they cannot operate efficiently. Time for the big bad Government to step in.

i agree, especially since as i understand it the MAIN reason you don't have any kind of efficient public transport system is because the automobile industry made sure of that, including going so far as to buy the transport company in question and then close it... (see the no-longer-in-existence "Red Cars" in Los Angeles*), so as to be absolutely certain that you would buy more cars.

*EDIT : apparently this was not only the case in Los Angles : see the Great American Streetcar Scandal :

The Great American Streetcar Scandal[1] was the acquisition of streetcar systems throughout the United States, dismantling, and replacement with buses in the mid 20th century by the National City Lines (NCL) holding company, formed by General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum. It is alleged that NCL's companies had an ulterior motive in their purchase of streetcar systems of forcing mass use of the automobile among the U.S. population.

Convicted of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, GM was fined $5,000 and each executive was ordered to pay a fine of $1 for a conspiracy to force the streetcar systems to buy GM buses instead of other buses (but not for dismantling the streetcar systems, which were also being dismantled by non-NCL owned systems).