Travel with Spirits

Tag: city

  • Cities in Between 🌇

    Cities in Between 🌇

    Where Sustainable Travel Becomes Visible

    Most trips are defined by destinations. Capitals. Landmarks. Final stops.

    But when traveling overland across Europe, what shapes my understanding of movement are often the places in between.

    These are not highlight cities. They are transfer points, regional stations, ferry terminals, and small towns connected by secondary lines. They are rarely the reason for travel, yet they make travel possible.

    Regional routes that quietly hold the network together.

    A regional train waits at a modest platform. It is not high-speed. It is not new. But it connects smaller towns to larger systems. People stand beside their luggage, watching the doors open and close.

    Sustainable travel depends on these routes. Not only flagship intercity lines, but the everyday infrastructure that feeds into them.

    Rural towns that remain connected by road and rail.

    Along the way, the train passes through villages that rarely appear on itineraries. These places are not tourist destinations, yet they remain connected. Flying would bypass them entirely. Rail and road move through them.

    Connectivity is part of sustainability. If infrastructure does not exist beyond major hubs, lower-impact travel becomes limited.

    Stations that serve residents more than visitors.

    At a small-town station with faded lettering, tracks run past ordinary neighborhoods. No airport-style controls. Just platforms and schedules. These stations represent continuity.

    Road travel makes transitions gradual.

    Crossing a bridge by bus, the skyline appears gradually. Overland travel reveals transitions rather than compressing them. It requires more connections, but keeps distance visible.

    Not a destination, just a pause in the network.

    Rain falls on a small regional platform. The train pauses briefly before continuing. No landmark. No dramatic arrival. Just a functional stop within a larger system.

    High-density hubs supporting regional lines.

    In larger stations, departure boards list regional and international services side by side. Commuters, families, and travelers move between platforms. Sustainable mobility relies on density.

    Daily routines unfolding beneath train schedules.

    Under digital timetables, passengers buy coffee and snacks. The system works not because it is dramatic, but because it is routine. Lower-carbon travel depends on repetition and use.

    Transfers and waiting are part of the process.

    Waiting is part of this structure. Transfers take time. Choosing rail or bus instead of flying often means accepting these pauses. It also means staying connected to geography rather than skipping over it.

    Sea crossings integrated into the land network.

    At a ferry terminal, passengers queue quietly. Ferries are not zero-emission, but in many regions they act as essential connectors where bridges do not exist.

    Multi-modal travel depends on what exists between cities.

    Two cyclists sit beside their loaded bikes at a bus shelter. Their journey depends entirely on the infrastructure between cities.

    Sustainable travel is often discussed in terms of emissions per passenger kilometer. Rail generally produces far lower CO₂ than flying. Buses often fall in between. But numbers alone are not enough.

    Infrastructure determines what choices are possible.

    In parts of Europe, rail lines end. In others, buses fill the gaps. Ferries connect coastlines. The cities in between are where these systems overlap and function together.

    Flying reduces travel time by skipping space. Overland travel moves through it.

    If sustainable travel is about lowering impact, it is also about supporting the networks that already exist. And those networks live in the cities in between.

  • Sustainable Travel in Europe 🌍

    Sustainable Travel in Europe 🌍

    From Pilgrimage to Low-Carbon Movement by Interrail and Beyond

    A Slow, Grounded, and Cultural Way of Moving Through Europe

    For a long time, travel meant arrival. Flights, itineraries, destinations, checked off one by one.

    But over time, I began to understand something more essential: what shapes a journey most is not where we go, but how we move.

    This series traces my shift toward sustainable travel in Europe, not as a set of rules, but as a lived practice shaped by the body, time, and low-carbon movement.

    It began with walking. And it continues, still unfolding.

    🥾 Walking: The Body as Teacher

    When body becomes the vehicle.

    In the spring of 2025, I walked the Camino de Santiago from Zamora. Three weeks of near-zero-carbon movement redefined my sense of distance, time, and presence.

    Before walking the Camino, I traveled the way most modern travelers do. I chose the fastest way to arrive. Flights, connections, time zones. As if the journey only truly began once I had “arrived.”

    But after walking for weeks, I felt something I had never felt so clearly before: The body needs time in order to enter a place.

    When movement slows down, the senses awaken. Terrain, climate, distance, fatigue, none of these are inconveniences. They are signals.

    That was when I understood that sustainable travel is not only an environmental choice. It is also a form of respect for the rhythm of the body. This is why, after the Camino, I began rethinking the way I move.

    From Camino to Sustainable Travel →

    🛤 Trains: The Low-Carbon Backbone

    Watching landscapes change instead of flying over them.

    From May to July 2025, I traveled across Europe by train, using an Interrail Global Pass. Trains allowed me to arrive gradually, watching landscapes shift in real time.

    The value of train travel is not only its lower emissions. It creates a transition space. A stretch of time where body and mind adjust together.

    On daytime trains, I watched light shift, weather change, temperatures rise and fall. On platforms, I shared waiting time with commuters, families, solo travelers. These ordinary moments brought back a sense of humanity to travel.

    Trains do not erase distance. They make distance understandable. For the body and mind, that is a form of gentleness.

    Traveling Europe by Train: Learning to Arrive Slowly →

    🚂Night Trains: Time Reimagined

    Sleeping while the land moves.

    Not every journey needs to pause at night.

    Night trains dissolve the opposition between movement and rest. Instead of losing time to airports, artificial light, and exhaustion, I sleep while the land continues to move.

    There is something profoundly gentle about waking up in a new country without rupture. No sudden dislocation. No abrupt transition. Just continuity.

    The body travels. The mind rests. And arrival feels aligned rather than imposed.

    Night Trains in Europe (coming soon)

    ⛴️Ferries: When the Sea Replaces the Sky

    The sea as transition, not empty space.

    Not every crossing requires flying.

    Ferries transform the sea into a visible passage rather than an empty gap between destinations. Standing on deck, watching the coastline slowly recede, I can feel departure happening in real time.

    Arrival unfolds the same way, gradually, perceptibly. The sea is no longer something to be bypassed. It becomes part of the journey itself. In that slowness, distance regains meaning.

    Ferries as a Gentle Crossing (coming soon)

    🚌🚏 Buses: Beyond the Railways

    Not romantic—but real.

    Not every place is connected by rail.

    In parts of the Balkans and other peripheral regions, buses are not a romantic choice, they are the only realistic one.

    They may not be punctual. They may not be comfortable. But they exist within the everyday lives of local people. Choosing them, for me, is a form of practical sustainability.

    Not pursuing ideal systems, but selecting lower impact, more human ways of moving within real conditions.

    When railways end, movement does not stop. It simply becomes more grounded.

    Traveling by Bus Beyond Railways (coming soon)

    🌆 Cities in Between: The New Space of Transition

    Slow travel happens in the in-between.

    The greatest gift of slower movement has been rediscovering the in between.

    Not the landmarks. Not the destinations. But the spaces between cities and countries that are usually ignored.

    In these transitions, I learned to accept uncertainty, delays, waiting. I began to understand that time is not wasted. It is a container. These experiences cannot be replicated by air travel.

    Cities in Between (coming soon)

    🍷🥂☕️🍻 Drinks on the Move: Culture in Motion

    Shared tables. Moving landscapes.

    Movement is not only about distance. It is also about ritual.

    Coffee on cold platforms at dawn. Beer after long days of walking. Wine in dining cars while fields blur past the window. These small drinks are not indulgences. They are anchors.

    They root me in a place without spectacle or performance. They invite conversation, or quiet observation. They turn anonymous transit spaces into temporary living rooms.

    Tasting something local between destinations is one of the most grounded forms of cultural connection. It is not about consumption. It is about presence.

    Drinks on the Move: Tasting Europe Between Destinations (coming soon)

    If travel is an extension of life, then sustainable travel is the choice to let that extension coexist rather than extract.

    Perhaps what we are truly trying to reach is not a particular city. But a way of moving that feels more aligned with ourselves, and more respectful of the world.