The Low-Carbon Vacation

Submitted by Jerry Tinianow

Last spring, my wife and I began a casual conversation about whether it would be possible to go on a really cool vacation from our home in Columbus, Ohio without using a car or a plane. After a lot of research, we cooked up a wonderful trip from Columbus to Aspen, Colorado.

Although Columbus is not served by Amtrak, it is served by Megabus, a fabulous discount intercity bus line. We live two blocks from the main north- south street in Columbus. To go on vacation, we simply walked two blocks with our luggage, caught a city bus downtown, and then took Megabus to Chicago . After an overnight stay there, we took an Amtrak sleeper car to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, then used the intercity bus service in the Roaring Fork Valley to cover the 40 miles from Glenwood Springs to Aspen. We rented bikes to get around in Aspen. To get back home at the end of the trip, we simply reversed the process.

If you don't have Megabus in your city, you can't appreciate how great it is. Not only do you get to see the country from far above the road while someone else takes care of driving, but the cost is dirt cheap. The total roundtrip cost for the two of us together between Columbus and Chicago was only $32.50, and it could have been even cheaper if we had booked earlier.

In fact, the entire transportation cost of the trip was less than we would have paid to take a plane and rent a car. Keep in mind that if you take a sleeper car on Amtrak, not only do you get a room for the night, but all of your meals on the train are free. But the best part isn't the price; it's the view you get as you see fly-over country close up from ground level. In addition, if you are traveling as a couple, you typically get seated for meals in the dining car with two other people. We met several interesting couples during our travels. This will never happen on an airplane.

When we discussed this trip beforehand with our friends, most of them thought we were crazy. There is a lot of prejudice out there about bus travel. People seem to assume that you'll get cooties if you take the bus. Of course, most of these people haven't actually taken a bus—at least not for a long time. Our local buses in Columbus are quite comfortable, and the Megabuses that travel out of Columbus are true pleasures to ride in. The only downside is that, for the moment, Megabus only goes to three destinations from Columbus — Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Chicago . But with gas prices rising by double-digit percentages every year, that situation will probably change soon.

My wife and I both bike to work frequently, as Columbus has an excellent north-south bike trail system. Thus, using bikes to get around in Aspen was no big deal. Aspen also has a great local bus system, and most local routes are free. You can even get up to a federally-protected wilderness area, the Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness, for only $6.00 per person.

A lot of people believe that the only way they can reduce their individual carbon footprints is to change our lives in ways that make them less pleasant. But our experience integrating local and intercity rail in Columbus with Amtrak, other bus systems and bikes shows quite the opposite. Our travel was not only cheaper, but far less stressful. We saw things we would never have seen, and met people we would never have met, if we had used planes and cars instead of buses, trains and bikes.

As a result of this trip, I suspect that our future travels from Columbus will be launched a lot less frequently from Port Columbus International Airport and far more frequently from the Megabus stop downtown.

As a final note, during our visit, the price of gas at the pump in Aspen was $5.12 per gallon. Seriously. Makes the bikes look pretty attractive, doesn't it?

Photo Caption: Jerry Tinianow begins his low-carbon vacation at a bus stop in Columbus, OH. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Tinianow)