What do you do on transit?

I'm going to take the train to France in two weeks. It will take me about 8 hours to get where I need to be. This made me wonder what I will do during those 8 hours. I could read or play with my phone or something. But I want some more inspiration to have a fun journey.

So what would you do on an 8 hour train-ride?

ModEdit: This thread is now about what you do on transit in general rather than just long trips, but feel free to offer suggestions to the OP!

I've changed a bit of your post

I'm relatively experienced with transit systems, at least in Canada/the US. Over the past two years, I've taken trips by bus and train, both long and short distances. I actually went on a trip meeting a lot of ZUers! :>

I've done everything from reading on the bus, to sleeping, eating, and gaming. A lot of my journey in the US consisted of me emailing people, texting the person I was going to visit next to plan things out and at one point a very lengthy (read expensive) call in order to keep myself awake at one point xD

Now a days my use of transit is rather mundane; I use it to get to and from work. I usually IM with Liah/read my book or possibly game depending on what time of day I'm travelling which is either 11pm at night or 730ish in the morning.

It depends on how I'm travelling and on how long the trip will take me.

For example, trains! If I'm not in a tunnel, I generally can enjoy myself just looking at the passing scenery if it's not a trip I make terribly often. for an example of a longish trip, I went to Paris for the first time when I was... 10? We took the Eurostar, and I just enjoyed looking at everything pass by on the way, and only on the return trip did I actually end up using my DS to keep me company. (and by that time we were already halfway back and it was just pitch dark anyway)

Taxis are similar for me. I generally don't use them often because haha money my family is not made of it, so they're reserved for relatively important occassions or very, very small journeys. But when it's the former, I generally can enjoy myself just watching where we're going and what's around.

The two times that I ever was on an aeroplane, I simply couldn't bear it. Airsickness was blehhh. I spent most of the journey attempting to sleep.


Otherwise when it comes to long journeys I generally plan on bringing something to keep me preoccupied. My DS is a faithful companion! If I fail to bring that (or it runs out of battery ;-;), or a book, or a SOMETHING ELSE, I attempt to lose myself in my imagination and try and think of stuff.
For short routine-ish journeys I'm not spending a long time travelling anyway, so I can bear those easily. :B



Barely relevant, but I totally want to try a tram one day. It's like... trains. ON ROADS. NORMAL ROADS.
I'd enjoy that journey even if it were to somewhere boring. ^___^

In transit, whether its a long trip or just going to work or school I just sit and stare into space, which apparently is irritating to some people. As if I should always be doing something. It doesn't matter how long the trip is, I'll just sit and stare.

In a car, listen to the radio or a CD or something. Doesn't matter the length of the car ride.

Last time I was on a train was, like... eight years ago, but it was this murder mystery thing that involved dinner and a show and all so that doesn't count.

On planes I usually watched TV, since I flew Jet Blue and they have TVs. Failing that, listened to music.

Originally Posted by Pietro

In transit, whether its a long trip or just going to work or school I just sit and stare into space, which apparently is irritating to some people. As if I should always be doing something. It doesn't matter how long the trip is, I'll just sit and stare.

Intentionally looking at people in public transport is fun too. They look away mostly and then they check every few seconds to see if you are still looking. It really freaks some people out

Most of my trips on transit are short, just getting to work or to a friend's place or to a bar. Point A to Point B stuff. I am always listening to music. I used to just do that and people-watch, but these days I've started to bring a book with me on transit again, so I also pass the time reading.

On long trips, it's basically the same thing. Reading and music. If an in-flight movie looks good, I'll watch that. I've never been on one of those planes that has personal televisions yet, but when/if I do I'm sure I'll exploit the hell out of those.

In a car/bus, I listen to music and look out the window and possibly pretend i'm in a movie and kind of zone out. I've caught myself staring at the ground multiple times haha and that's kind of embarrassing. I might also stare at other people and if they catch my eye I'll just smile awkwardly and look away.

I've actually only taken one train in my life, and I was with friends so I didn't really need anything to entertain me at the time. I just talked to them. The train ride was about 45 minutes so it wasn't that bad.

For planes, if I'm sitting beside someone friendly, I might talk to them. I'm taking a 6 hour plane trip in two weeks and I plan on bringing a book to read, my iPod, and my 3DS to pass the time. Or I might sleep if I didn't get much sleep that night. I actually find it difficult to sleep on planes, but I can sleep in a car no problem. I dunno why. Guess it's because I'm thousands of feet in the air and I feel a bit scared Plus I don't want to start sleeping on the shoulder of the person next to me by accident. That's never happened to me before but it will someday, I know it D:

I almost always drive because that's what Southern Californians like to give back to Mother Earth. If you have a friend, you can play the alphabet game or chat! (Try to find each letter of the alphabet on different signs and stuff as you go past it. Can't repeat the same sign.)

If you have a DS or somethin, that's a good way to pass the time too! Or sudoku. That's what I usually do when flying. Maybe you could work on some art?


..I'm probably the worst person to ask about this. I go nuts on 4 hour plane rides. x__x

A lot of times I'll just have my ipod on and zone out... staring into space.
If i'm with someone, sometimes I'll play some sort of card game.

Though, I had a 46 hour train ride a year ago. We played a little bit of poker (we had a pretty big table on the train), watched a few movies, and thank god I brought my laptop, psp, ds and ipod.
It was one hell of a long trip. Which we also had to ride back for the same amount of time...

I just listen to music when I go on drives or anything anywhere.

On the bus and subways, I most often listen to my iPod or read a book, or study if I'm traveling when school is in session. But sometimes on the bus, I start feeling slightly motion sick if I read or study. Not like actual nausea, but my head starts hurting and feeling weird sometimes.

If I'm in the car, I usually listen to the radio.

when I used to take the bus to school, which was only about an hour ride not eight, I would just listen to music. On an eight hour drive, I'd probably bring a book.

Never been on such a long ride on transit. Mostly think, maybe bring a handheld or some sort of MP3-playing device. I hate taking public transportation, because the subway especially is very sleazy. The bus can also be very disgusting. I mostly just think on transit.

I listen to music.
But then again I am ALWAYS listening to music. So I suppose really I just sit and stare outside whilst I think.

I usually like to game when I'm traveling, so I keep my 3DS with me wherever I go. I'm also an Gold Medallion achiever and self-proclaimed expert at missing my bus/train, so picking it up is a great way to pass the time while waiting. But yeah it also depends on what I'm into at the moment. If I'm into a particular book, then I'll probably read that.
I haven't had a charger for my iPod for over half a year now (I'm an extremely lazy ass and haven't just gotten to get a new one) so the music listening have been pretty limited.
I have some music on my phone but I've been too lazy to bother and put more tunes in it (the ass is forever in the carriage).

If I'm traveling long distance, and will be gone for awhile, I usually bring my computer on which I watch tv shows.

During high school, I frequently took the public transit bus system because I grew to hate going on school buses due to the loudness and rude attitudes of the students, and the lack of WiFi connection. Since I still do live in a rural area, the transit buses only have a weird person or more every once in a while. I'd hate to call them "weird," but I'm sure that, if you've gone on public transit buses enough, you would agree that there are some weird people on there. But, if I ever wanted to go to school in the morning through the transit system, I'd have to take a bus, or shuttle, at 7:00 AM and wait almost an hour for school to start, so I mostly rode the school bus in the morning to create less waiting. But I took the transit bus in the morning if I needed help with math or science and whenever my dad was willing to give me a ride if he was driving past the school to somewhere.

In the afternoons, however, I took the transit bus whenever I could, and I was home only five to ten minutes later then usual. And, since there are less people in the transit buses around her, as opposed to the number of teenagers in the school buses, I could rest my legs and feet on the seat beside me and nap until I got to my stop. Otherwise, I'd use the WiFi connection to go on the Internet. I used to read books while on buses, but a lot of my reading is on the Internet these days. I never listened to music.

Basically, I tried to go on the school buses as little as possible due to the students on there and the fact that I never really connected with students at my high school. I know there's a public transit bus system at the university I'm going to, but I've never ridden on it. I'd get a car if I had a license and needed one, but I'm happy enough for now using public transit.

There's several things I do, the most common one is playing on my newest handheld thing.

I also listen to music, think about stuff, (sometimes both at the same time!) read a book I'm seriously addicted to, (kinda rare) draw, (though I give up quickly 'cause TOO MUCH MOVEMENT) look out the window and imagine myself running next to the bust and avoiding obstacles like I was the most agile person in the galaxy, or just sleep, though I only do if the bus is going to stop in one of those places where you're like forced to get off 'cause otherwise I'd be scared of missing my stop.