Quick heads up: natural parks = any place that could be considered outdoorsy. Think national parks or famous lakes like Lake Tahoe. Forest and wooded areas can also be included.
Anyways. Instead of wasting my money buying a bloated 4WD truck/SUV or even a AWD wagon like the Subaru Outback, I could just buy a roof rack for my 4 door sedan, buy or even rent a mountain bike, buy some outdoor/hiking gear and I’m all set. But then I thought of something better: how about I get rid of the car all together? If I go the car-free route, I now have to consider how I’m going to get there. While I could go cross-country on bike (and I do plan on doing that anyways), I was wondering if some quicker forms of transportation (excluding cars) could be an option. Do buses and trains go to these places? Would they allow me to take my bike? Thanks in advance!
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Generally there are few options unfortunately. This is probably the main thing that still ties me to my car.
To solve this we need to bring more nature to the city, and build out transit networks for popular outdoor destinations.
Agreed. I think I’ll go with my first thought: adding a roof rack to my car and buy outdoor gear. I already have a bike rack so I’ll just rent a mountain bike at a local shop. Now, if I really want to embrace that outdoor lifestyle and if my sedan won’t cut it then I’ll consider an AWD wagon like the Volvo XC70 or, even better, a Subaru Outback.
Honestly my Prius carries all the gear I need. Hatch back on an economy car has plenty of cargo space for all but the most gear intensive activities. And you can put a roof rack on there too.
I always just take a train there, if it’s a place worth visiting they’ll almost always have a train route passing by with a regular service throughout the day and evening.
For example if I want to visit the Peak District I just hop on a train to Edale and bam, I’m a 10 minutes walk from a bunch of different trails and things to see.
All the major national parks I’ve visited have been like this so far, if they didn’t have good transport links how would they expect anybody to visit? And they want people to visit, to spend money in the local towns/villages that house those transport links, etc.
It simply does not work that way in the USA. I live in one of the top50 cities/ urban areas by population and we have no passenger train service to anywhere but the freight trains are always rolling. We also have no subway, streetcars or L trains in the city, state, or region.
I’m within an easy biking distance to a national park! But this one is kinda cheating being in the middle of my city.
Damn, you’re lucky.
Renting a car, booking a cabin or yurt, or a resort if you’re bougie
An electric gravel or mountain bike would be perfect. You can add bikepacking gear and some have options for extra batteries for longer adventures.
Here in Seattle we have Trailhead Direct. https://trailheaddirect.org/faq/
It’s only active weekends and holidays but I know friends who have used it. A few disadvantages: you need to bring everything. All the water, for example. SO… not my kind of camping, because I’m a lazy shit who’s already humped too much shit and my knees are knackered lol.
I live in Southern California and I can bring my bike on the train to Lake Perris. It’s only a 6 miles bike ride to the campground.
There’s a website/app I really like using called Rome2Rio that gives you lots of options for getting from point A to point B. If there’s a car-free way to do it, it’ll typically show you.
In Canada there’s https://parkbus.ca/ which serves some parks from major cities.
