Transportation is a fun dimension of travel.

I just love and, you know, using and learning about Europe's amazing transit systems.

Cities have public transportation that are far beyond what we're used to here in the United States.

You know, the United States is sort of wired for cars, and that's just the way we've been designed from the start. And it's just a reality in Europe, they didn't have that sort of commitment to cars from the start, and they're more into public transportation.

Here is a good example.

London, the Metro system or the Tube. Right. The subway system. It's sort of an attitude and I struggle with this myself. It takes a lot of brain power to figure out the public transit. And wouldn't it be easier just to take an Uber or something like that?

But those who commit themselves to using public transportation, they save a lot of time. They save a lot of sweat and frustration, and they save a lot of money and they're going local. It just is a smart way to travel.

Any city in Europe has this public transportation that we can commit ourselves to, and we can travel with that. All over Europe, they're very interested in making more green and more efficient transportation, becoming traffic free and pedestrian friendly.

This is Nice in the south of France.

Obviously, this street would have been full of cars a few years ago.

Today it's a green belt with a couple of steel rails. And you've got trams that glide by every three minutes. There's one that goes this way. And one that goes that way. If you see how it laces together, everything you need and you get your all day pass, you got the city by the tail. It empowers you.

Commit yourself to public transportation. A lot of my friends in Europe, they never, they never learn how to drive. It's not a political statement or an environmental thing. It's just why would they drive?

You know, public transportation is subsidized, and it works for them so well.

As travelers, we have to decide what's better for us overall. Take the train or rent a car. And it depends on your style of travel and where you're going.

If you're going from big city to big city to big city, you don't want a car. A car is a worthless, expensive headache if you're going from city to city. You pay to rent it. You pay a lot to park it. You know, you spend a lot of time in traffic to get in and out of these cities. And the last thing I want to do is drive in a city.

When I rent a car, I do the city. Then I pick up the car on the way out of town and I drop it off later on in my itinerary before I hit another big city. You see, I try to do the cities together and the rural areas and the small towns that lend themselves to car travel all together.

So if you're going from city to city, you want a train ticket. If you're out in the countryside trying to find scenic spots like this, that's where you're glad to have your own wheels.

This is the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

You know, in Ireland you want your own car. I mean, there's lots of places where you're glad to have a car. If there's a group of you, like five people, it's much cheaper in a big car.

Eight people in a minibus. That's really taking advantage of the scale of your group. And it is economic for all involved, as opposed to 5 or 8 train tickets. You have nothing on economy of scale, if five people buy train tickets to the same place. If there's 1 or 2 of you, then it's expensive to have a rental car compared to taking the train.

Also, you can choose your mode of transportation to a certain degree by how heavy you pack. If you just don't buy this business of packing light, rent a car. You can even rent a trailer.

The transportation by train, it's mind blowing. I mean, there's a whole web of bullet trains all around Europe now. I was on a train in France recently. I was just coursing across the countryside, tinted windows, beautiful pastoral views, and it was silent and smooth and so comfortable and I noticed the speedometer in the passenger car only turned on when it exceeded 250km an hour or something like that. I mean, 150 miles, anything less than that, it was kind of embarrassed, they didn't tell you how fast it was going.

Okay. So the trains are really fast. I remember a time when everybody would fly from Madrid to Barcelona. People don't fly from Madrid to Barcelona because the train is so fast and inexpensive, and it goes from city center to city center. No airports to deal with.

It just makes sense to take the train instead of fly. So the trains are great and the trains are coordinated with other forms of transportation.

If you're on a remote Norwegian fjord and there's two trains coming in and there's two boats a day going out, they're going to be coordinated. The train will come in coordinated with the boat, which then after a few minutes will depart.

All over Europe except in Italy, where the train comes in just in time to see the boat pulling out.You will find that there's this wonderful coordination. So celebrate that. And there's kind of an equation for the cost of first and second class. First class costs 50% more than second class. A $100 second class ride costs $150 in first class.

Second class, more crowded, four seats across. Noisier, a little more chaotic.

First class, less crowded. Three seats across, a higher caliber of traveler. People willing to pay 50% more to buy themselves out of the rabble, frankly.

Now, if I'm working, I want to have peace and quiet. I'll pay extra to go first class. But the action’s down in second class. It's fun down in second class. And I've noticed that almost every train has both first- and second-class cars on it, each of them going precisely the same speed. So from a transportation point of view, second class really is a better value.

I remember a time when nobody would fly who was spending their own money. It was just really expensive. But now the air industry… airline industry has been deregulated and it's quite inexpensive to fly in Europe. So I like to no longer just take a Eurail pass to cover everything. But my style is typically a few train rides point to point, a few flights to connect the big connections, and then rental car here and rental car there.

See I cobble it together.

Don't underestimate the economy and efficiency of flying point to point in Europe. Generally it's $100 a hop. If I'm in Bergen and I want to go to Helsinki, that's quite a complicated surface trip, but it's 100 bucks by air, so remember that it can really play a part in a smart itinerary.

On the other hand, remember it's becoming an ethical issue. It's much more green to take the train than to fly. And a lot of people are favoring the train when they can.

So factor that in. But remember that the airline option is a real one.