Recently I announced I grounded myself from all flights within North America where I do 90% of my work. On Tuesday I will take the bus from home to Harrisburg, PA (1 hour, $18 one-way) then spend the night with friends, so I can get my 5 AM train to Burlington, NC (11 hours with 90 minute layover in Philadelphia, $107 one-way)
What I look forward to on this particular journey.
1. Hanging out with friends in Harrisburg who I don’t get to see often. We will have a nice dinner and catch up
2. 11 hours in a train. This may seem awful to some, but I am reading an amazing memoir by Japanese poet, Mutsuo Takahashi, so look forward to long stretches of uninterrupted reading. Also, I have about 60 pages of my own memoir completed and need to do some edits. I expect to get through most of it by the time I pull into Burlington.
3. I purchased a fetching bento lunch box along with a set of travel cutlery and chopsticks. The bento box has little compartments for rice, vegetables, tofu, etc, stuff I like to eat but they surely do not serve in Amtrak’s Cafe Car (Although they do offer Annie’s Vegan Burgers–which they ALWAYS overcook in the microwave.
I most definitely will NOT miss going through airport security along with the car ride to the the airport, the two flights and then long car ride to my destination
Bento box arrives tomorrow. Yay.
Peterson Toscano's A Musing 
Wise choice to bring your own food. I traveled from New York to Ocala FL once to visit my parents because the train fare round trip was seventy-five dollars cheaper than the best airfare I could get and money was tight.
I completely failed to take into account the obvious fact that on a twenty-three hour train ride I was most certainly going to want to EAT at LEAST one meal and probably more.
Long story short the food prices on AmTrak were atrocious (as was the food); by the time I arrived in Ocala (three and a half hours late which time included sitting in Jacksonville for at least two hours in the heat and the dark because all the power on the train was shut down) I had not only made up the difference between the train fare and the airfare but I had actually spent MORE than I would have had I flown.
(NEVER again on any trip that takes more than six hours by rail. NEVER.)
LOLOLOL