• Question: I hate flying and sailing to other countries it takes so long.Will there be a knew faster way to travel to foreign countries?

    Asked by The joeff to Ted, S. S., Laura, Kevin, Ellen, Andrea on 6 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Ellen Simmons

      Ellen Simmons answered on 6 Mar 2019: last edited 6 Mar 2019 9:25 pm


      What about trains? They aren’t too slow, depending on where you are going. You can also drive to a lot of places now, especially with the Eurotunnel in place so you don’t need to get a boat across the English Channel to go to Europe.

      My friend just started a cycling trip from England to Afghanistan – so you could try that, if you dare! It might be quite hard on the legs though!

      Alternatively, there are people like Elon Musk looking at making crazily fast mag-lev (magnetic-levitating) trains that run underground. He calls the initiative “Hyperloop” – check it out!
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop

    • Photo: Andrea Pacheco

      Andrea Pacheco answered on 7 Mar 2019:


      Well you could eventually travel everywhere with a virtual reality set, although weather, smells and other experiences will not be there.

    • Photo: Ted Burke

      Ted Burke answered on 11 Mar 2019:


      Trains that levitate magnetically can move incredibly fast! In 2015, a maglev train in Japan set a new world speed record for a passenger train by travelling at 603 kilometers per hour. These trains are also very energy efficient, run on electricity and are quiet which is good for the environment. Because they’re expensive to build, maglev passenger trains are only currently in operation in China, Japan and South Korea, but in the future I expect they will be much more widely used. They could really speed up train travel between different countries and benefit the environment too. If you were hoping for something more dramatic like a teleporter that you could use to instantly jump from one place to another, then I’m afraid we’re nowhere near developing anything like that!

    • Photo: Kevin OBrien

      Kevin OBrien answered on 12 Mar 2019:


      I’m not a huge fan of sailing or flying either.
      Sailing takes to long, and unless you’re in first class (which I’ve never been), planes are cramped, stuffy and uncomfortable.
      I don’t know if there are new methods of travelling, but there are new planes being developed powered by alternative forms of energy, and I recently read about a company planning to develop a plane that was either electric or hybrid powered and would travel at supersonic speeds, a bit like Concord, but better for the environment.
      That should help to shorten travel times.

    • Photo: Laura Farina

      Laura Farina answered on 13 Mar 2019:


      I follow Ellen… I love trains! you can walk, talk with people and look outside the window… sometime the slower is the journey the better you enjoy it!

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