I'm assuming you're talking about the All American, as that's the main one I could find. About fifteen days, and $2400. Which is about as much as a three to five day cruise, depending on cruiseline.
That sounds awesome, and isn't that terribly expensive, honestly. My wife and I went on a similar route road trip for our honeymoon a few years ago and it was in that same ballpark of cost, between car rental, hotels, and other expenses.
It looks like you'll still be needing to pay for hotels for the nights you aren't traveling. Still, not bad especially since you don't have to deal with the hassle of driving. You just get on the train, sleep, and just appear at the next location.
Switzerland. Having grown up in the coastal plains, I just have this fascination with mountains. I don't t have the physical condition to climb one, but just seeing them up close already makes me feel things. Being on top of one, even more so.
Maybe I can do even better and do a train journey from France, and then Switzerland, then across Austria, all the way to Hungary and Romania, making sure that I cross as many mountains as I possibly can.
I bet the views of the Alps are majestic from there!
And yeah! I imagine the trip would be so much fun (though a bit exhausting). It'd be combining two of the things that fascinate me: mountains and trains.
I sometimes fantasize going from the northern tip of Scotland all the way to Singapore on a train. Not non-stop, of course, but maybe going from one city to another, spending some time on a city until I get my fill, and then hop on the train to the next one. All the way until I run out of land. Maybe from there (Singapore), I can do island-hopping across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Then road trip in Australia. But that's really stretching it, not just in terms of logistics and planning. At the pace I do things, do I really want to spend like five years crawling through Europe, Asia, and Australia? Even if money's no object, I don't think I can do that.
Sorry for the ramble. Given the scope of the question, yeah, a cross-Europe mountain train trip is perhaps my limit (that'd be like, two weeks? maybe a month if I take my time to really enjoy each place I visit?)
If you ever get the opportunity, take the train to the top of Mount Rigi. It's right on the edge of the alps. Turn one way, see the lowlands to the North West, all the way to Bodensee. Fahre the other direction, see a wall of mountains.
I would love to visit New Zealand. I'm a canuk and I hear they are like a better weather version of my country...I've also never met a kiwi that wasn't a stand up person.
Antarctica. It's possible, there are regular tours to the South Pole. In reality I can't afford €60k+ for such a tour, but if money is no object I'd go
I did a tour to Antarctica. Overrated in my opinion. But if you really want to go for yourself, the cheapest way is to head down to Ushuaia and sign up for a standby cruise. It's easily €5k or less.
I will answer for them. Because flying from the Netherlands to New Zealand in economy class will emit the equivalent of about 4 tons of carbon dioxide. Roughly equivalent to driving a car every day for a year or so.
Absolutely illogical. The flight is going because you created demand for it by buying the ticket. This is exactly the same as saying, "Why bother voting? Your single vote won't make any difference".
Fly to Frankfurt for fairly cheap. Take the train to Munich and the train to Vienna from there and attend at least a few. Get a cheaper “stay” in the outer districts that are still connected via train. Check if there is offers on “Groupon” for it potentially.
Could probably make it with 2k/2.5k
Been to a couple gran prix, it is not as fun as it seems attending in person. You can only see a small part of the track, so TV coverage is waaaay better to watch. Also noisy (though not as much as it used to be before they introduced noise limits, no earplugs were helpful). For that MC hotel, only the vanity factor is strong, but given that you already have unlimited money by design of the question - there may be better ways to show off.
I mean, if money's no object I'm sure some travel agent could put together a package deal to go to every race. That way you could experience the glitz of Monaco but also get to see some decent races.
It's amazing. I recommend sitting outside the central train station in Amsterdam and people watching, as thousands of tourists attempt to bicycle or walk somewhere, and they're just in everybody's way. It's hilarious. If you're going to cycle (which, yes, you should) stay to the right and signal where you want to go. There are bike lanes there for you to take, don't just be off in the middle of the street. Also, they want you to pay for an extra ticket to bring your bike on the train with you, I found that this can be ignored if you're not a jerk about it.
lol… it’s what you say but as tourist you not wanna cycle there. You’ll be happy on weekends yo barely have the space to walk. It’s a beautiful city though. Visited it like 3-4 times
Considering the intersection coming from noorddijk near loves tours. Nope (for me) . Even as an avid cycler seemed horrible. But anywhere else , especially Utecht , seemed nice
Finding the time is more of an obstacle, but definitely New Zealand or Australia! Love flying but just thinking about the flight time is making my butt hurt haha
Can recommend the Air New Zealand sky couch - you book a slightly more expensive economy seat and get a whole row with a special footrest that folds all the way up flat turning it into a bed 👌
I've only ever seen Sweden from the highway from Malmö to Stockholm to get to a boat to Estonia in time, and only saw bits of the harbor in Helsinki during that trip. I'd love to take more time to explore Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
My friend’s uncle lived this life but swap globe to “Lake Travis in Austin, TX” and swap friend or family member to “random babe”
One time, she (my friend), invited us out for a full day on her uncle’s boat and whenever we stopped to gas up, one babe would depart and another would hop on. He also had some kinda magical ice chest that never ran out of beer. Good times.
There's a place out in Washington State called Dirtfish. They call it a "rally school". For a bunch of money they'll give you a kickass Subaru and let you tear around a dirt track for a few days. Looks awesome.
The moon, or just into space where I can float around and see Earth from a good distance.
Do you remember being a very young kid, of maybe 4 or 5-years-old, and riding your bike without stabilisers for the first time? Riding around your neighbourhood with that feeling of limitless time and seemingly bottomless reservoirs of pure joy? Or the first time you played a video game? Or the first time you went to the cinema? Basically any fun and novel experience. You could almost physically feel the birthing neurons branching through your brain in real-time like orgasmic, electrified roots. The joy of simply having your consciousness come 'online' more and more.
Well, I'm in my early 40s now, and I haven't felt that way since I was that very young child. But I don't think it's because I'm too jaded to enjoy things anymore, it's that I've experienced almost everything there is to experience in a normal everyday life, and there's not much left that is so new and shocking to my consciousness that it will trigger that magical experience again. And so there is no further branching of neurons and no further giddy joy at simply doing something hitherto completely foreign to my brain.
I think visiting space, and especially landing on the moon, would give me that feeling again. It would be the last truly novel experience I definitely have not felt before, and it's not one that I can sorta kinda experience vicariously. I mean, I've never killed anyone, but I know what an abyss of unquenchable guilt feels like, I know what the terror of being caught after doing something bad feels like, I know what it feels like to be so haunted by trauma that I have nightmares about it for years after. So I can just extrapolate from that and get a general idea of what it must be like to have done something that awful. My imagination can conjure up those sorts of ideas if I want it to, and while I won't get 100% of the way there, I can create a ballpark estimation of it. But going into space - leaving everything and everyone who has ever existed behind - and being somewhere so literally alien to my evolved senses, that's not something I can get a handle on just using my imagination.
I could be wrong of course, and going into space might simply be like visiting another country in the shittiest, most cramped Ryanair flight imaginable, but it's the only thing I think has the most chance of giving me one last brain-bukkake before I clock out.
Shame it'll never happen 🤷 Maybe I'll start a twitter account sucking Elon's fetid little dick and he'll invite me to use one of his rockets one day. Then while I'm in space, I'll take out a trans flag and play a shitty cover of Nazi Punks Fuck Off à la Chris Hadfield 🫡
Never really thought about it. Have always wanted to visit either the French countryside or some picturesque forest in Europe. But someone mentioned trains and unlimited money.
A nice indulgence then would be a luxury train line that navigates throughout most regions of the planet. Probably the most expensive ever done but should be possible. Could probably take years to travel the whole planet in maximum comfort. Wonderful.
Advantages of a vacation train would also be having other people around. One cart per person/family. Not everyone would be in it for the whole ride, so probably lots of passengers changing too. Could have wonderful parties or just group entertainment like movie nights.
I was thinking way too small with my answer. I didn't even consider the idea of telling NASA that I could fund any and every project they want done, if they just send me to the Moon
Titan is a terrible place to view Saturn's rings from; first of all the moon's orbit is pretty much coplanar with the ring disc so you're looking at something hilariously thin end-on. Second, thick opaque clouds. On the upside, Titan's gravity is so low and the air is so thick given an Icarus suit you could fly like a bird. Or pedal power a Cessna Skyhawk.
You'd probably get a good look at the rings on your way in though.
Well, I'd also accept another moon out of the elliptic, but while Jupiter would be awesome, Saturn still has my heart for the next few hundred thousand years.
Titan's also a proper planet; if it were orbiting the sun, it would be classified as such, giving it all of those great features you mentioned. But, it's posed as a vacation, not a place to live, so maybe one of the other moons with a better view of the rings.
You know what? Money's no object, so why don't we arrange a grand tour? We'll do Europa, maybe stop at Ganymede and Callisto (I don't think Io is a very pleasant destination spot), then head out to Saturn and check out Titan and Enceladus, head out to Uranus for a stop at Miranda, and then finish up at Neptune to spend some time on Triton.
Fellow human being, you are awesome. Even with the expectedly years-long journey (money may be no object, but I assume we still have to work with current tech and obey the laws of physics) I'm down. Money being no object, let's bring a hundred of our favorite people and decrease the odds of going stir-crazy.
Somewhere tropical, that won't mind if we smoke some weed on the beach. Jamaica comes to mind, but I'd research options because I'd like to see the other side of the Atlantic.
There was a knitting cruise I looked at before. Took you around Europe and had events to spin your own yarn and there would be workshops with masters. I think I would do that.
There are places where you can go and slum it and still have a great time, just visiting free attractions and going everywhere on foot and by pubic transit.
But then there are places where the luxury itself is the attraction, so cheaping out doesn't really make sense.
I can afford to get to Japan and then just stay in cheap hotels and explore local attractions in Kyoto and Tokyo.
I can afford to get to Bora Bora or Tahiti, but I can't afford the luxury stay, which would be the point of the trip.
If money is NO object then I’d buy the US government and make the US visitor friendly. I mean I’d really like to see the pained desert, New Orleans, New York, New England in the fall, hell there’s heaps of the US I’d like to visit and it seams to me that you can buy the US government for a couple of hundred billions.
Sailboat, Caribbean, and all the food and sunsets in between as long as I can make it last. Maybe I'll end it by heading straight at a hurricane, or maybe I'll just try my luck at getting to Europe. It would be amazing to get to Gibraltar under sail from the Caribbean.
Somewhere remote that already has a well-established bartering system. Most of the usual tourist places would be a disaster if there was no such thing as money.
I'd book a trip on a tall ship. I found one a while back called the Bark Europa. It's one of the few ships that goes to Tristan da Cunha, the most remote civilization in the world.
Its already expensive ($10,000+) and even more expensive if you want to go to the arctic. Unfortunately, I have celiacs, so the only way I'd be able to do it, is if I paid a stupid amount of money.
Money and time no object? I would do a tour of the Pacific islands on a 110 Wally sailboat complete with crew so I get to do the fun stuff like helming and none of the boring stuff I don't feel like doing that day. Would hit at a minimum Galapagos, Tahiti, Fiji, New Caledonia and on down to the Sundays in Australia. Would take about 6 months although I could spend a lifetime there.
If I was time limited to two weeks? Sailing in the Bahamas in a Outreamer cat, these are as large as I can safely handle with my partner and its a lot lot shallower than the Wally so I get to explore far more of the Bahamas. Shorter holidays I want less flight time, so direct like this is perfect.
I'd like to see Japan deeply. I'd go all the way across the country and make sure to stay at rural spots along the way to enjoy the stillness between cities.
Definitely take a boat ride to visit Taiwan at least once before any shit potentially goes down in Asia and war breaks out.
Hell, if it broke out while I was over there, it'd make things easier for me in a way, since I'd be more than willing to help Taiwan in the event of a war by doing whatever the hell they need me to as a civilian who couldn't join the army due to my health. Wouldn't have to be working on helping them from far away, but rather on ground.
Royal Caribbean cruise on an Icon, Quantum, or Oasis class ship (to the Caribbean, of course).
I don't care how much Lemmy hates cruise ships, nothing beats waking up to a different view out of your balcony every morning. Not to mention the unlimited gourmet food. You could eat a dozen lobster tails in a single sitting if you wanted to.
Iceland. My kid took a geology class and was excited about Iceland. This is actually college: he never got his passport so I said, “sure I’ll take you if you apply for your passport”
I handle this, as do most poor people, by not asking ourselves this question, not even fantasizing about it, for why torture yourself with something you never can do?
It'd be cool to walk about Mars for an afternoon. Maybe find that rover (Opportunity?) that ran out of power & give it a fresh battery & clean off its solar panels, see if it'll fire back up again.
Honestly I wanna do an expedition to the North Pole and see the sun do weird shit. Then treck to the South Pole so I can see the sun do weird shit but backwards. Like I know that sun is a weird freak when it doesn't think you're looking, that's why it does it at the poles. Then along the way from North to south I'll tell people how weird the sun is, and they'll have to believe me because I've been there, and they'll have to say "damn the sun is weird". Sun's going to be so embarrassed when everyone finds out how weird it is.
That or like go to Cancun or something. Anywhere that I can keep track of the sun that twisted freak you aren't fooling me.
Damn we have similar goals but different reasons. I want to have been on all continents and I am obsessed with going to Antarctica. If I had the money, I would want to stand on the planet's axis. And have the whole world actually revolve around me. Doing this on the North Pole too would be great, but it's not a continent and therefore has second place.
And now, can you elaborate the weird stuff the sun does at the poles? Besides polar night and polar day?
Did something a little bit similar last fall - Vancouver to Vancouver Island, through BC over the Rockies to Edmonton. Then flight to Montreal and up to Saguenay, down to the cantons de l"est, back to Montreal.
The whole cross country thing is on the list, bit will have to wait. This country is big...
I’m very lucky - Grew up in the GTA, went to Uni in Halifax and lived on Vancouver Island for 8 years. I’ve taken the train across, but I’d really love to drive it and really enjoy all the bits in the middle. So I’ve seen lots and explored local areas where I’ve lived, I’m really just missing NFLD.
I live in the UK now (and oddly closer to my Uni than I was out west) so the plan would be to buy a car out west, and sell it out East.
Probably any other country where I could get a doctor to take a look at my heart condition without having to take out a loan against my house to pay for it.
Alpha Centauri system. I'd keep spending money until we got a working fusion reactor and Alcubierre Drive, open source the designs, and go check that shit out.
Well if money is no object then a world tour that lasts the rest of my life, thanks (or if I can use this magic purse on behalf of others instead, stay home and buy up all the world's debt, sponsor a jubilee year.)
I'd donate alot to my local makerspace then take unpaid leave for a good while and just make things. If I had to travel i would probably go to Germany to see a few friends, it's been too long.
Disappointed but unsurprised to see nobody acknowledging that there might be reasons other than money for not flying business class to the other end of the world.
Not enough to be "disappointed" that people aren't talking about the climate implications of traveling, no. I wouldn't judge someone for taking a single vacation.
Bringing it up just feels like moral grandstanding. Let people have fun answering the hypothetical.
If people really aren't interested in the impacts of their choices, why should I not be disappointed? Why aren't you? Surely it's disappointing. Nobody will be taking any luxurious distant holidays on a planet that's been made unliveable by the cumulative impact of 8 billion people who don't give a shit.
I get that the environmental impacts are pretty significant. I looked it up and it seems like aviation is like ~3% of worldwide emissions and while that's not really the biggest number I've ever seen, it is pretty significant.
I just think it's equally unreasonable to condemn air travel in general when the alternatives are equally unreasonable. If somebody wants to go on a trip, what should they do? Months-long zero-emission backpacking journey? Never visit anywhere your whole life? Wait for your country to build high speed rail?
The 3% figure is going up, up, up exponentially with no end in sight. Because right now, most of the world's people have never set foot in a plane but they sure want to. And why shouldn't they? After all, we do (or do we?).
That figure is in fact misleading for the purposes of this debate, because for individuals flying has a huge impact on one's carbon footprint. That's not surprising when you think about it: it's similar to driving (alone in a smallish car) for the same distance, but who drives to NZ and back? The problem is distance and time. And most people in the world have never taken a plane. It's a completely unscalable as an activity.
About alternatives, the premise of this whole debate seems to be that the only good holidays are ones far, far away. That is very debatable.
Vacations are one incredibly small factor in the overall picture. In order to combat the negative impact we've had on our climate we need to fundamentally change pretty much every aspect of our lives from the top down.
And you're free to be disappointed, but just don't be surprised when other people think less of you for trying to ruin what little guilt-free fun people can have.
I'm less bothered about being a killjoy than I would be about being a hypocrite.
On an individual level, vacations are not an "incredibly small factor". For an average person, a single flight will wipe out all their other conscientious efforts in terms of diet, housing etc. For some reason most people are only dimly aware of this fact.
Yes, but the average persons individual efforts mean fuck all in the scheme of things. It's not individuals that make the difference, it's the collective effort.
Which, frankly, doesn't mean shit in this hypothetical situation. Hypothetically you could use your infinite money to create enough carbon offsets to completely fix the climate entirely for everyone everywhere.
Obsessing about small things like that to the complete rejection of all joy in life won't solve anything. If anything it will drive away any positive influences in your life, making you a joyless curmudgeon who can help no one.
If money is no object, then you can find some incredibly expensive way to travel which does not contribute to pollution. So no, there is no moral dimension
This is the closest to a sensible response so far. The problem then is that it is basically impossible to spend lots of money without creating pollution somewhere up or down the chain. Because money is itself a vector of pollution. But your point is taken.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but maybe we should all cool it on the tourism. It's terrible for the environment, mostly terrible for whomever was calling that place home. I know so many people that spout off about the environment and then think nothing of hopping on multiple flights per year.
If I were king everyone would get travel passes twice. Once in their 20s and again in their 60s.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but maybe we should all cool it on the tourism.
... and crash the economy of number of countries, making their populations poorer. Tunisia - tourism is nearly tenth of their economy and employs 400,000 people - they have entire places built for tourists, nobody would live there otherwise. Morocco is 7%, Egypt is 8%.
And I want to spend my holidays somewhere where it is warm and sunny, not fucking wet and miserable.
So we should prop up an objectively destructive sector of the economy? They'll all be a hell of a lot poorer when huge swaths of the earth becomes much harder to survive in. And I'm extremely skeptical anything of that 8% of Egypt's tourism money trikles down in a way that anyone would call fair or equitable.
And I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to burn down the planet so you can sip fruity drinks under a palm tree. Perhaps if we had invested in a rail system that was worth a damn it would be a different story. But here we are.
I have tried it. Learned a good chunk of a second language in fact. Nice of you to assume and imply I'm a xenophobic ignoramus tho. Appreciate that.
And if you'll go back to my original comment I never actually advocated for a complete stop to travel, only that we slow down and exercise some moderation.
Not to mention we have internet and readily available books on just about any topic you care to name. Much different situation than even 50ys ago as far expanding your own horizons goes. I know it's not the same as being there but still.
And I'm no more willing to burn the planet for your cultural horizons than the next guys fruity cocktail.
I'm not willing to burn down the planet so you can sip fruity drinks under a palm tree.
You want 400 000 people in Tunisia and tens on millions to lose their jobs to pamper to your prejudice. You are a complete fool. Fortunately you have absolute nothing to say in this matter.
It's like saying we have to keep supporting Israel because we don't want to lose weapons sales. Nice name calling though. Brilliant rhetoric, really put me in my place.
Keep flying, consuming conspicuously. Fuck everyone else. Every generation to come. Fuck the animals, fuck the earth. You got yours right?
It was an example of propping up a destructive practice for the benefit economy. One meant to illustrate dollars on an account sheet isn't enough to justify a morally dubious practice.
I asserted earlier that these places would be poorer for the effects of climate change. You blew right past that into name calling and and a feeble attempt at twisting my words to ridiculous lengths. Care to comment?
Or perhaps you could explain how your gracing these places with your presence, allowing yourself to be served hand and foot, is the only path forward for these economies? There are so many ways to support a region, to lend a hand and invest in their future.
Destroying tourism would mean destroying number of countries and ruining people lives. If you don't understand it thank you ARE a fool - this is a reasonable assessment of your intellectual capabilities, not a name calling.
Earth.
Like, the whole fucking thing more or less.
Might take me the rest of my life and I still won't see it all, but if money is no object...
If money is no object you can buy your own custom-built private car and pay Amtrak to pull it on their lines.
two cars, one for
I'm assuming you're talking about the All American, as that's the main one I could find. About fifteen days, and $2400. Which is about as much as a three to five day cruise, depending on cruiseline.
That sounds awesome, and isn't that terribly expensive, honestly. My wife and I went on a similar route road trip for our honeymoon a few years ago and it was in that same ballpark of cost, between car rental, hotels, and other expenses.
It looks like you'll still be needing to pay for hotels for the nights you aren't traveling. Still, not bad especially since you don't have to deal with the hassle of driving. You just get on the train, sleep, and just appear at the next location.
They say in the What’s Included section that they cover 8 nights of hotels!
Oh, damn. OK. That's a really good price then!
Looks like you're staying at pretty nice hotels in places like SF, NYC and LA. It looks like it's all included, which isn't bad at all.
Switzerland. Having grown up in the coastal plains, I just have this fascination with mountains. I don't t have the physical condition to climb one, but just seeing them up close already makes me feel things. Being on top of one, even more so.
Maybe I can do even better and do a train journey from France, and then Switzerland, then across Austria, all the way to Hungary and Romania, making sure that I cross as many mountains as I possibly can.
I saw the Alps from Germany. That would be such a fun trip!
I bet the views of the Alps are majestic from there!
And yeah! I imagine the trip would be so much fun (though a bit exhausting). It'd be combining two of the things that fascinate me: mountains and trains.
I sometimes fantasize going from the northern tip of Scotland all the way to Singapore on a train. Not non-stop, of course, but maybe going from one city to another, spending some time on a city until I get my fill, and then hop on the train to the next one. All the way until I run out of land. Maybe from there (Singapore), I can do island-hopping across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Then road trip in Australia. But that's really stretching it, not just in terms of logistics and planning. At the pace I do things, do I really want to spend like five years crawling through Europe, Asia, and Australia? Even if money's no object, I don't think I can do that.
Sorry for the ramble. Given the scope of the question, yeah, a cross-Europe mountain train trip is perhaps my limit (that'd be like, two weeks? maybe a month if I take my time to really enjoy each place I visit?)
If you ever get the opportunity, take the train to the top of Mount Rigi. It's right on the edge of the alps. Turn one way, see the lowlands to the North West, all the way to Bodensee. Fahre the other direction, see a wall of mountains.
I would love to visit New Zealand. I'm a canuk and I hear they are like a better weather version of my country...I've also never met a kiwi that wasn't a stand up person.
If money were no object, I'd book a permanent vacation to New Zealand. But a vacation into the Sun has a certain appeal too.
e: love your username btw
Money is no object?
Alpha Centauri. Build a spacious and comfortable Orion Drive ship for me and a few thousand of my best friends to go on a nice long trip.
I was going to say Mars, just to get there before fElon, but Alpha Centauri sounds nice!
Antarctica. It's possible, there are regular tours to the South Pole. In reality I can't afford €60k+ for such a tour, but if money is no object I'd go
I did a tour to Antarctica. Overrated in my opinion. But if you really want to go for yourself, the cheapest way is to head down to Ushuaia and sign up for a standby cruise. It's easily €5k or less.
Fiji seems pretty cool
It's not where, if money was no object, I would be on holiday semi-permanent.
If pollution were not an issue, I would visit my sister in New Zealand. I live in the Netherlands.
Since money wouldn't be an issue, I guess you could charter a sailboat round-trip. Hope you don't get seasick.
I like that thought.
I will answer for them. Because flying from the Netherlands to New Zealand in economy class will emit the equivalent of about 4 tons of carbon dioxide. Roughly equivalent to driving a car every day for a year or so.
True, but also that flight is going with or without you so you may as well jump on
Absolutely illogical. The flight is going because you created demand for it by buying the ticket. This is exactly the same as saying, "Why bother voting? Your single vote won't make any difference".
This is fair. Even though I didn't create the demand for this particular flight, I contributed to the demand for the next one.
I'll find some wildly expensive way to travel that doesn't cause pollution
Or go slow and make the trip the destination. I once did all of South America by bus. Very cheap! But you'll need time.
Vienna. The opera season this year couldn't be better, I'd stay the year and go every night.
Fly to Frankfurt for fairly cheap. Take the train to Munich and the train to Vienna from there and attend at least a few. Get a cheaper “stay” in the outer districts that are still connected via train. Check if there is offers on “Groupon” for it potentially. Could probably make it with 2k/2.5k
Monte Carlo, during the F1 championchip race, at that one Hotel there with the best view.
Been to a couple gran prix, it is not as fun as it seems attending in person. You can only see a small part of the track, so TV coverage is waaaay better to watch. Also noisy (though not as much as it used to be before they introduced noise limits, no earplugs were helpful). For that MC hotel, only the vanity factor is strong, but given that you already have unlimited money by design of the question - there may be better ways to show off.
I mean, if money's no object I'm sure some travel agent could put together a package deal to go to every race. That way you could experience the glitz of Monaco but also get to see some decent races.
My gaming PC, my backlog is epic
Probably Amsterdam or Copenhagen for a few weeks,
properly experience a walkable city with good transit and cycling infrastructure
Having visited both and now living in Copenhagen, it could change your life to visit! Great places to be a tourist
It's amazing. I recommend sitting outside the central train station in Amsterdam and people watching, as thousands of tourists attempt to bicycle or walk somewhere, and they're just in everybody's way. It's hilarious. If you're going to cycle (which, yes, you should) stay to the right and signal where you want to go. There are bike lanes there for you to take, don't just be off in the middle of the street. Also, they want you to pay for an extra ticket to bring your bike on the train with you, I found that this can be ignored if you're not a jerk about it.
lol… it’s what you say but as tourist you not wanna cycle there. You’ll be happy on weekends yo barely have the space to walk. It’s a beautiful city though. Visited it like 3-4 times
I think it's fine to cycle here as a tourist, as long as you looked up the rules a bit first and were a decent cyclist.
Stay to the right, signal turns and stops, the only weird part is what to do when you're taking a left at an intersection, where you "park" to wait
Considering the intersection coming from noorddijk near loves tours. Nope (for me) . Even as an avid cycler seemed horrible. But anywhere else , especially Utecht , seemed nice
Tokyo. Splurge in Akihabara and eat some authentic ramen.
If money really was no object, I’d build the first lunar inn and live there permanently.
“Oooh TeamAssimilation, that’s the Apollo Lander, it’s a valuable relic, please stop licking it!”
Maybe build a submarine and visit the Titanic ;)
Finding the time is more of an obstacle, but definitely New Zealand or Australia! Love flying but just thinking about the flight time is making my butt hurt haha
Can recommend the Air New Zealand sky couch - you book a slightly more expensive economy seat and get a whole row with a special footrest that folds all the way up flat turning it into a bed 👌
Aw heck yeah! Thanks for telling me this, I'll definitely be booking it when I go there! 😃
A tour through the Nordic countries.
I've only ever seen Sweden from the highway from Malmö to Stockholm to get to a boat to Estonia in time, and only saw bits of the harbor in Helsinki during that trip. I'd love to take more time to explore Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
Yup, if the Arctic is fully booked, why not to go to Norway 😁
I'd buy a small private ship and sail around the globe. I'd occasionally port to pickup a friend or family member or drop someone off.
My friend’s uncle lived this life but swap
globeto “Lake Travis in Austin, TX” and swapfriend or family memberto “random babe”One time, she (my friend), invited us out for a full day on her uncle’s boat and whenever we stopped to gas up, one babe would depart and another would hop on. He also had some kinda magical ice chest that never ran out of beer. Good times.
There's a place out in Washington State called Dirtfish. They call it a "rally school". For a bunch of money they'll give you a kickass Subaru and let you tear around a dirt track for a few days. Looks awesome.
The moon, or just into space where I can float around and see Earth from a good distance.
Do you remember being a very young kid, of maybe 4 or 5-years-old, and riding your bike without stabilisers for the first time? Riding around your neighbourhood with that feeling of limitless time and seemingly bottomless reservoirs of pure joy? Or the first time you played a video game? Or the first time you went to the cinema? Basically any fun and novel experience. You could almost physically feel the birthing neurons branching through your brain in real-time like orgasmic, electrified roots. The joy of simply having your consciousness come 'online' more and more.
Well, I'm in my early 40s now, and I haven't felt that way since I was that very young child. But I don't think it's because I'm too jaded to enjoy things anymore, it's that I've experienced almost everything there is to experience in a normal everyday life, and there's not much left that is so new and shocking to my consciousness that it will trigger that magical experience again. And so there is no further branching of neurons and no further giddy joy at simply doing something hitherto completely foreign to my brain.
I think visiting space, and especially landing on the moon, would give me that feeling again. It would be the last truly novel experience I definitely have not felt before, and it's not one that I can sorta kinda experience vicariously. I mean, I've never killed anyone, but I know what an abyss of unquenchable guilt feels like, I know what the terror of being caught after doing something bad feels like, I know what it feels like to be so haunted by trauma that I have nightmares about it for years after. So I can just extrapolate from that and get a general idea of what it must be like to have done something that awful. My imagination can conjure up those sorts of ideas if I want it to, and while I won't get 100% of the way there, I can create a ballpark estimation of it. But going into space - leaving everything and everyone who has ever existed behind - and being somewhere so literally alien to my evolved senses, that's not something I can get a handle on just using my imagination.
I could be wrong of course, and going into space might simply be like visiting another country in the shittiest, most cramped Ryanair flight imaginable, but it's the only thing I think has the most chance of giving me one last brain-bukkake before I clock out.
Shame it'll never happen 🤷 Maybe I'll start a twitter account sucking Elon's fetid little dick and he'll invite me to use one of his rockets one day. Then while I'm in space, I'll take out a trans flag and play a shitty cover of Nazi Punks Fuck Off à la Chris Hadfield 🫡
Never really thought about it. Have always wanted to visit either the French countryside or some picturesque forest in Europe. But someone mentioned trains and unlimited money.
A nice indulgence then would be a luxury train line that navigates throughout most regions of the planet. Probably the most expensive ever done but should be possible. Could probably take years to travel the whole planet in maximum comfort. Wonderful.
Advantages of a vacation train would also be having other people around. One cart per person/family. Not everyone would be in it for the whole ride, so probably lots of passengers changing too. Could have wonderful parties or just group entertainment like movie nights.
My son asked me this yesterday. Japan.
To the moon! If money's no object NASAs budget just went up 100 fold.
I was thinking way too small with my answer. I didn't even consider the idea of telling NASA that I could fund any and every project they want done, if they just send me to the Moon
Space
If money doesnt matter, why not go for the most expensive?
Italian wine tour for a couple of months
Lancaster Pennsylvania, lots of folk punk stuff going on over there and LNL is throwing another folk punk flea market in late June.
Lancaster surprised the hell out of me. I went there for work expecting another Podunk pa town and was pleasantly surprised.
I would go visit every single temple and tea house in Japan. As well as try every single unique flavor of KitKat in the country.
New Zealand
Europa, Jupiter's moon.
Not Titan? I think the rings would be worth seeing.
Titan is a terrible place to view Saturn's rings from; first of all the moon's orbit is pretty much coplanar with the ring disc so you're looking at something hilariously thin end-on. Second, thick opaque clouds. On the upside, Titan's gravity is so low and the air is so thick given an Icarus suit you could fly like a bird. Or pedal power a Cessna Skyhawk.
You'd probably get a good look at the rings on your way in though.
Well, I'd also accept another moon out of the elliptic, but while Jupiter would be awesome, Saturn still has my heart for the next few hundred thousand years.
Titan's also a proper planet; if it were orbiting the sun, it would be classified as such, giving it all of those great features you mentioned. But, it's posed as a vacation, not a place to live, so maybe one of the other moons with a better view of the rings.
You know what? Money's no object, so why don't we arrange a grand tour? We'll do Europa, maybe stop at Ganymede and Callisto (I don't think Io is a very pleasant destination spot), then head out to Saturn and check out Titan and Enceladus, head out to Uranus for a stop at Miranda, and then finish up at Neptune to spend some time on Triton.
Fellow human being, you are awesome. Even with the expectedly years-long journey (money may be no object, but I assume we still have to work with current tech and obey the laws of physics) I'm down. Money being no object, let's bring a hundred of our favorite people and decrease the odds of going stir-crazy.
I'm thinking, like, a really big Discovery I.
Somewhere tropical, that won't mind if we smoke some weed on the beach. Jamaica comes to mind, but I'd research options because I'd like to see the other side of the Atlantic.
There was a knitting cruise I looked at before. Took you around Europe and had events to spin your own yarn and there would be workshops with masters. I think I would do that.
This sounds amazing!
Probably Polynesia.
There are places where you can go and slum it and still have a great time, just visiting free attractions and going everywhere on foot and by pubic transit.
But then there are places where the luxury itself is the attraction, so cheaping out doesn't really make sense.
I can afford to get to Japan and then just stay in cheap hotels and explore local attractions in Kyoto and Tokyo.
I can afford to get to Bora Bora or Tahiti, but I can't afford the luxury stay, which would be the point of the trip.
Japan. Several European countries.
Dont go to Berlin. Trust me.
Lake Meade, Pennsylvania
it's already booked, though, family reunion.
If money is NO object then I’d buy the US government and make the US visitor friendly. I mean I’d really like to see the pained desert, New Orleans, New York, New England in the fall, hell there’s heaps of the US I’d like to visit and it seams to me that you can buy the US government for a couple of hundred billions.
The Moon.
Failing that, Low Earth Orbit.
Under Vladimir's bed
🤣🤣
Sailboat, Caribbean, and all the food and sunsets in between as long as I can make it last. Maybe I'll end it by heading straight at a hurricane, or maybe I'll just try my luck at getting to Europe. It would be amazing to get to Gibraltar under sail from the Caribbean.
Somewhere remote that already has a well-established bartering system. Most of the usual tourist places would be a disaster if there was no such thing as money.
I'd book a trip on a tall ship. I found one a while back called the Bark Europa. It's one of the few ships that goes to Tristan da Cunha, the most remote civilization in the world.
Its already expensive ($10,000+) and even more expensive if you want to go to the arctic. Unfortunately, I have celiacs, so the only way I'd be able to do it, is if I paid a stupid amount of money.
Looking at the Bahamas sometime this year, but my wife needs to secure the time off first. :(
Your moms house
🤣🤣
An all-inclusive resort, located somewhere warm with a beach.
Paradise 🙂 That's what I love.
Iceland
No where lol. I like my home area.
Money and time no object? I would do a tour of the Pacific islands on a 110 Wally sailboat complete with crew so I get to do the fun stuff like helming and none of the boring stuff I don't feel like doing that day. Would hit at a minimum Galapagos, Tahiti, Fiji, New Caledonia and on down to the Sundays in Australia. Would take about 6 months although I could spend a lifetime there.
If I was time limited to two weeks? Sailing in the Bahamas in a Outreamer cat, these are as large as I can safely handle with my partner and its a lot lot shallower than the Wally so I get to explore far more of the Bahamas. Shorter holidays I want less flight time, so direct like this is perfect.
I'd like to see Japan deeply. I'd go all the way across the country and make sure to stay at rural spots along the way to enjoy the stillness between cities.
Vietnam looks nice.
Canada. Somewhere.
Definitely take a boat ride to visit Taiwan at least once before any shit potentially goes down in Asia and war breaks out.
Hell, if it broke out while I was over there, it'd make things easier for me in a way, since I'd be more than willing to help Taiwan in the event of a war by doing whatever the hell they need me to as a civilian who couldn't join the army due to my health. Wouldn't have to be working on helping them from far away, but rather on ground.
Royal Caribbean cruise on an Icon, Quantum, or Oasis class ship (to the Caribbean, of course).
I don't care how much Lemmy hates cruise ships, nothing beats waking up to a different view out of your balcony every morning. Not to mention the unlimited gourmet food. You could eat a dozen lobster tails in a single sitting if you wanted to.
Iceland. My kid took a geology class and was excited about Iceland. This is actually college: he never got his passport so I said, “sure I’ll take you if you apply for your passport”
The Sun.
I handle this, as do most poor people, by not asking ourselves this question, not even fantasizing about it, for why torture yourself with something you never can do?
Italy, Japan, or some place with beautiful mountains.
But money is a thing, so i'm not going anywhere.
The fuckin moon, and it's not even close. Get me off this rock
It'd be cool to walk about Mars for an afternoon. Maybe find that rover (Opportunity?) that ran out of power & give it a fresh battery & clean off its solar panels, see if it'll fire back up again.
If I could get there that fast, I'd be curious to check out Mars for a few hours. Maybe from inside a shelter with big windows?
Pitcairn Island
Switzerland.
Some expensive Carribean Islands like the Bermudas or Aruba.
Honestly I wanna do an expedition to the North Pole and see the sun do weird shit. Then treck to the South Pole so I can see the sun do weird shit but backwards. Like I know that sun is a weird freak when it doesn't think you're looking, that's why it does it at the poles. Then along the way from North to south I'll tell people how weird the sun is, and they'll have to believe me because I've been there, and they'll have to say "damn the sun is weird". Sun's going to be so embarrassed when everyone finds out how weird it is.
That or like go to Cancun or something. Anywhere that I can keep track of the sun that twisted freak you aren't fooling me.
Damn we have similar goals but different reasons. I want to have been on all continents and I am obsessed with going to Antarctica. If I had the money, I would want to stand on the planet's axis. And have the whole world actually revolve around me. Doing this on the North Pole too would be great, but it's not a continent and therefore has second place.
And now, can you elaborate the weird stuff the sun does at the poles? Besides polar night and polar day?
The Maldives.
another dimension
*cue title card* I Trick The Vacation Genie Into Doing Physics Research With Me
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Road trip across Canada, coast to coast. Just before starting it though I’d fly to the Yukon.
Did something a little bit similar last fall - Vancouver to Vancouver Island, through BC over the Rockies to Edmonton. Then flight to Montreal and up to Saguenay, down to the cantons de l"est, back to Montreal.
The whole cross country thing is on the list, bit will have to wait. This country is big...
That sounds amazing!
I’m very lucky - Grew up in the GTA, went to Uni in Halifax and lived on Vancouver Island for 8 years. I’ve taken the train across, but I’d really love to drive it and really enjoy all the bits in the middle. So I’ve seen lots and explored local areas where I’ve lived, I’m really just missing NFLD.
I live in the UK now (and oddly closer to my Uni than I was out west) so the plan would be to buy a car out west, and sell it out East.
A yacht with a Titan seamoth in either the carribean or Australia to just cruise through some reefs.
Mount Blue Sky, Colorado. Home of the highest elevation optical astronomical observatory who's operators I share a language with
Probably any other country where I could get a doctor to take a look at my heart condition without having to take out a loan against my house to pay for it.
novosibirsk russia
Super expensive to travel there and looks like some nice architecture. Just need to hire a team of security specialists.
Ticket prices $36,000 usd round trip from Minnesota. First class.
1996
So you can observe Mankind?
Alpha Centauri system. I'd keep spending money until we got a working fusion reactor and Alcubierre Drive, open source the designs, and go check that shit out.
Alpha Centauri
I'd just rent a cabin in a nearby mountain.
I don't see the appeal in going far away from vacation.
I would go to Freemoneyland and get free money
New Zeeland. But not by plane - by ship! I hate flying, but half around the globe on a small luxury cruise ship or yacht would be nice.
Malta I have been wanting to see the hypogeum for a while.
Well if money is no object then a world tour that lasts the rest of my life, thanks (or if I can use this magic purse on behalf of others instead, stay home and buy up all the world's debt, sponsor a jubilee year.)
The sun.
Rowing in sweden. Go there by bike.
I probably wouldn't go much further than a couple of hours drive. The mindset of travelling half the world "just cuz we can" has become unpleasant.
Right where I am.
Because if money were no object I'd definitely not be living in this shithole country.
I'd donate alot to my local makerspace then take unpaid leave for a good while and just make things. If I had to travel i would probably go to Germany to see a few friends, it's been too long.
A socialist liberal democracy in the entirety of the United States.
Nowhere probably. I'm not traveling because I can't afford to but rather because I'm not interested to.
Disappointed but unsurprised to see nobody acknowledging that there might be reasons other than money for not flying business class to the other end of the world.
Wow almost like people don't feel the need to moralize a hypothetical asklemmy question
Do hypothetical questions automatically have no moral dimension?
Not enough to be "disappointed" that people aren't talking about the climate implications of traveling, no. I wouldn't judge someone for taking a single vacation.
Bringing it up just feels like moral grandstanding. Let people have fun answering the hypothetical.
If people really aren't interested in the impacts of their choices, why should I not be disappointed? Why aren't you? Surely it's disappointing. Nobody will be taking any luxurious distant holidays on a planet that's been made unliveable by the cumulative impact of 8 billion people who don't give a shit.
Nobody is taking a luxurious distant holiday period. We're talking hypothetically
I get that the environmental impacts are pretty significant. I looked it up and it seems like aviation is like ~3% of worldwide emissions and while that's not really the biggest number I've ever seen, it is pretty significant.
I just think it's equally unreasonable to condemn air travel in general when the alternatives are equally unreasonable. If somebody wants to go on a trip, what should they do? Months-long zero-emission backpacking journey? Never visit anywhere your whole life? Wait for your country to build high speed rail?
The 3% figure is going up, up, up exponentially with no end in sight. Because right now, most of the world's people have never set foot in a plane but they sure want to. And why shouldn't they? After all, we do (or do we?).
That figure is in fact misleading for the purposes of this debate, because for individuals flying has a huge impact on one's carbon footprint. That's not surprising when you think about it: it's similar to driving (alone in a smallish car) for the same distance, but who drives to NZ and back? The problem is distance and time. And most people in the world have never taken a plane. It's a completely unscalable as an activity.
About alternatives, the premise of this whole debate seems to be that the only good holidays are ones far, far away. That is very debatable.
Vacations are one incredibly small factor in the overall picture. In order to combat the negative impact we've had on our climate we need to fundamentally change pretty much every aspect of our lives from the top down.
And you're free to be disappointed, but just don't be surprised when other people think less of you for trying to ruin what little guilt-free fun people can have.
8% ain't nothing. I'd say reckoning with our travel habits and what we feel entitled to is a fundamental part of any solution.
I'm less bothered about being a killjoy than I would be about being a hypocrite.
On an individual level, vacations are not an "incredibly small factor". For an average person, a single flight will wipe out all their other conscientious efforts in terms of diet, housing etc. For some reason most people are only dimly aware of this fact.
Yes, but the average persons individual efforts mean fuck all in the scheme of things. It's not individuals that make the difference, it's the collective effort.
Which, frankly, doesn't mean shit in this hypothetical situation. Hypothetically you could use your infinite money to create enough carbon offsets to completely fix the climate entirely for everyone everywhere.
Obsessing about small things like that to the complete rejection of all joy in life won't solve anything. If anything it will drive away any positive influences in your life, making you a joyless curmudgeon who can help no one.
If money is no object, then you can find some incredibly expensive way to travel which does not contribute to pollution. So no, there is no moral dimension
This is the closest to a sensible response so far. The problem then is that it is basically impossible to spend lots of money without creating pollution somewhere up or down the chain. Because money is itself a vector of pollution. But your point is taken.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but maybe we should all cool it on the tourism. It's terrible for the environment, mostly terrible for whomever was calling that place home. I know so many people that spout off about the environment and then think nothing of hopping on multiple flights per year.
If I were king everyone would get travel passes twice. Once in their 20s and again in their 60s.
Stay home, read a book, plant a garden.
... and crash the economy of number of countries, making their populations poorer. Tunisia - tourism is nearly tenth of their economy and employs 400,000 people - they have entire places built for tourists, nobody would live there otherwise. Morocco is 7%, Egypt is 8%.
And I want to spend my holidays somewhere where it is warm and sunny, not fucking wet and miserable.
So we should prop up an objectively destructive sector of the economy? They'll all be a hell of a lot poorer when huge swaths of the earth becomes much harder to survive in. And I'm extremely skeptical anything of that 8% of Egypt's tourism money trikles down in a way that anyone would call fair or equitable.
And I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to burn down the planet so you can sip fruity drinks under a palm tree. Perhaps if we had invested in a rail system that was worth a damn it would be a different story. But here we are.
Tourism isn't just sipping drinks. It's also broadening your cultural horizon and learning about other countries and cultures
Might be something you want to try
I have tried it. Learned a good chunk of a second language in fact. Nice of you to assume and imply I'm a xenophobic ignoramus tho. Appreciate that.
And if you'll go back to my original comment I never actually advocated for a complete stop to travel, only that we slow down and exercise some moderation.
Not to mention we have internet and readily available books on just about any topic you care to name. Much different situation than even 50ys ago as far expanding your own horizons goes. I know it's not the same as being there but still.
And I'm no more willing to burn the planet for your cultural horizons than the next guys fruity cocktail.
A lot of colonizer mindset happening in this area
You want 400 000 people in Tunisia and tens on millions to lose their jobs to pamper to your prejudice. You are a complete fool. Fortunately you have absolute nothing to say in this matter.
It's like saying we have to keep supporting Israel because we don't want to lose weapons sales. Nice name calling though. Brilliant rhetoric, really put me in my place.
Keep flying, consuming conspicuously. Fuck everyone else. Every generation to come. Fuck the animals, fuck the earth. You got yours right?
If you think tourism is comparable with war crimes, you are even bigger fool than I thought.
It was an example of propping up a destructive practice for the benefit economy. One meant to illustrate dollars on an account sheet isn't enough to justify a morally dubious practice.
I asserted earlier that these places would be poorer for the effects of climate change. You blew right past that into name calling and and a feeble attempt at twisting my words to ridiculous lengths. Care to comment?
Or perhaps you could explain how your gracing these places with your presence, allowing yourself to be served hand and foot, is the only path forward for these economies? There are so many ways to support a region, to lend a hand and invest in their future.
Destroying tourism would mean destroying number of countries and ruining people lives. If you don't understand it thank you ARE a fool - this is a reasonable assessment of your intellectual capabilities, not a name calling.
Now, disengage, fool.
A vacation sounds boring as fuck. I would rather eat shit.
You are very welcome to.
We accept your proposal