As I reach an apex (I hope) in the amount of international travel I have to routinely do, I’ve realized a lot of my planning now orients around “will this itinerary allow me to take my normal morning shit without holding or hurrying it or having to pay to use a theoretically public toilet?” Which means trains. Lots of trains. Preferably train routes close to their point of origination so other train passengers haven’t yet had a chance to sully up the toilet too badly.
There are a lot of reasons to prefer trains, but I feel like that one is really underrated. Budget airlines flying into dumps like Charleroi - those dumps have pay-per-use toilets (but here is a secret: small regional Italian airports are miracles of convenience and efficiency. Not just the bogs. They’re what all airports should be: a simple place that gets the job done fast, where you can get a brioche, a good coffee, and probably a fresh-squeezed orange juice). And whilst on the flight, I just can’t relax enough to shit; too busy imagining some hideously malfunctioning “Get Smart” scenario wherein I’m unwittingly doing a very exact sequence of actions that is going to lead to the floor collapsing and me tumbling into the void.
And coaches - nothing to object to on their own. I rather like how they take you through a city. But they’re traffic and they’re driven by the hideously underpaid so appalling delays are routine; you can’t count on even a ballpark arrival time. And more than half the time, there’s no bog. And when there is, it doesn’t have good ventilation, so you make people smell your shit, and while like most people I *believe* my shit don’t stink, my common sense informs me that in fact, it certainly do.
