I knew when I left for England that I was going to have to use different kinds of transportation in Canterbury than I normally used to get around. At school, I don’t have a car, but when I need one I can ask one of my friends to give me a ride. Also, considering North Central’s campus is just a 15-minute walk or five-minute bike ride and the downtown area is just a block over, it’s not too hard to get around Naperville.
Canterbury, on the other hand, is much bigger. The dorm where I live is a 20-minute walk from the main campus. The one blessing is that there’s a grocery store two minutes away from my flat, and that’s been a lifesaver. Otherwise, if I need to get anywhere for class, I have to allow at least a half an hour to walk there. That’s one of the biggest differences from the U.S.- here in England EVERYONE walks. Biking is very popular as well, and that‘s as a form of transportation, not just as a hobby. Yes, there are cars, but those are for work or longer commutes. People who walk and bike vastly outnumber those who drive.
What’s nice is that there is public transportation that’s easily available if I ever do get tired of trekking all over the town. There’s a huge bus station that can take me anywhere from my flat to London to mainland Europe. Canterbury also has two train stations for longer trips. Both are pretty affordable for a student’s budget- a bus ride around Canterbury is just over a pound (so around two dollars), and while trains are a little more expensive, they’re still cheap for travel.
Where things get REALLY crazy is when you hit mainland Europe.
I’ve been in England for eight weeks now, and I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in that time. To get to Switzerland for one of my trips, I flew with RyanAir, a popular and cheap airline that many people use for affordable flights. Flights here aren’t too expensive- I was able to go from an airport just outside of London to Zurich, Switzerland for under 40 pounds (less than 70 dollars).
In Zurich, some people had cars, but we used trams and trains to get around. Trams connected to wires wound their way all over the city, and we used them for free for the whole trip, which was wonderful for our wallets (we found out on our last day that we were supposed to have a pass, but we never got checked, so…yeah).
We used public transportation a LOT in Europe- trams, buses in Milan and Rome, boats in Venice, and good old walking in Florence and Pisa. One of the things that surprised me was how drastically the form of transportation changed from city to city- we had to relearn a whole new system every time we arrived at a new place. However, one thing was consistent everywhere- the public transportation system was miles better than the American public transportation system. Buses and trams were frequent, efficient, and covered a lot of ground, and trains went EVERYWHERE- you could live in Europe with no car and still be able to reach virtually anywhere you want to go. The US has a decent train system for major cities, but it’s nowhere near as expansive as Europe’s rail system.
I have to say I’m a lot more comfortable using public transportation after this trip. It’s not something I had a lot of experience with previously, but it’s kind of funny how riding a bus is basically the same in Italy as it is in Chicago. In general, the biggest difference in transportation from America and Europe is that there are fewer cars in Europe, but really, each city has it’s own unique main form of transportation depending on the place.