After house journey there’s a large drop. A have a look at my favorite sorts of motorized transportation.

I woke early and went for a drive. That’s how I started New Year’s Day. That’s how I usually start the yr. That’s as a result of Toronto’s roads are empty early within the morning on January 1. They are so clear it appears like an episode of the Twilight Zone. As I drive alongside streets which might be usually bumper-to-bumper, I can nearly hear Rod Serling saying, “the hand on the steering wheel belongs to Andrew Clark, known by some as the Road Sage, a writer who dreams of open roads, but who just took a left into the Twilight Zone.”

I take advantage of my New Year’s drive as a reset. It appears like I’m driving the way in which it was when, the truth is, I’m driving the way in which it was meant to be however by no means was. With the exception of some holidays and a few days through the pandemic, the roads have not often been this clear, not for the reason that Nineteen Twenties, and even then, they have been fraught, chaotic areas.

It’s additionally an opportunity to recalibrate my values. An opportunity to take a break from blowing the lid off onerous information tales (such because the perils of parking dibs) and interact in meditative musing. This time I contemplated the query: What is one of the best form of transportation? Here, I break down my prime three.

1. Space journey: From the passenger’s perspective, there is no such thing as a “downside” to house journey. It seems enjoyable in all the flicks and billionaires and Katy Perry like doing it.

True, it’s odd for me to decide on one thing I’ve by no means accomplished (house journey) as my prime decide however I noticed Star Wars: A New Hope eight occasions within the theatre when it opened. Besides, the actual fact I’ve by no means expertise it means I’ve not see the ‘darkish facet” of space travel.

Once you eliminate space travel, there is a very big drop off.

2. Automobile: I’m a product of the 20^th century, an age when the automobile was equated with freedom. I got my learner’s permit the day I turned 16. I find driving soothing. Driving is independence. You decide where you’re going and you get yourself there. I have my preferred automobiles: Mini Cooper, Porsche, 1967 Mercury Comet Caliente two-door, four-door 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit. To me, a well-designed automobile is a work of art, the culmination of the human race’s capacity to strive and wonder.

If you want to see a place, really see it and explore those hidden roads, the automobile is the finest way to do it. Bicycle and horseback, if you are up to it, are in the same vein. After the 1920s, the road trip became the North American secular pilgrimage. As beatnik writer Jack Kerouac wrote, “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

There isn’t a single thing I don’t like about driving, except the other drivers, the pollution, the carnage, the maddening traffic congestion, the confusion, the extinction of manual transmission, large screens everywhere and the fact the interior of an automobile can seem like a steel cage, a prison in which we squander what little time we have left.

Otherwise, Number Two.

3. Airplane: Many will have trouble with this choice. Some people loathe flying. I love it because it is the opposite of driving. Unless you’re the pilot, you are passive. You sit there, have a bite to eat, read, have a few drinks, watch a movie, sleep and then wake up thousands of kilometres from where you began.

Utter transcendence. As French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, wrote in his 1943 novella The Little Prince, “I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.”

As with automobiles, I like flying so much I have a “preferred airline.” Mine is ITA Airlines, because I go to Italy at least three times a year. They fly direct to Rome and offer 16 regional destinations in Italy. I get to speak Italian with the flight crew and the in-flight food is tasty.

While many “priority lounges” have become crowded pigsties with irate travellers fighting each other at the trough, ITA’s 1,000-sqaure-metre Piazza di Spagna lounge in Rome offers serenity and fresh-baked Roman pizza. ITA is the official airline partner for the 2026 Winter Olympics. I’d go but my “job” prevents me.

Air travel has its downside and can be frustrating, tedious and exhausting. Long lines, flight delays and cancellations, plus the drive to the airport is often the worst part of the journey. Still, so far as frustrating, tedious, exhausting experiences go, it’s one of the best.

Honourable Mention: Train: For much of my life, the train has been my preferred means of travelling the corridor between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. It began with the “thrilling returning trains of my youth.” They were quick, romantic and easy. Now, not so much. The cost often seems almost as expensive as flying. Trains are frequently delayed. In fact, two of the last four trains taken by myself or my family between Toronto and Montreal were delayed by hours. An autumn train from Niagara Falls to Toronto was three hours delayed.

It’s a far cry from the romance of the rail that I enjoyed when I travelled to Vancouver from Toronto on Via Rail in 1995. Here’s hoping 2026 sees a return to former glory.

I’ll give the last word to keen traveller Robert Louis Stevenson, who published his novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886. He wrote, “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”

Words to dwell by in 2026.