You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

For any short duration (10 days or less) trip from one side of the USA to the other, the only logical answer is by airplane. It just takes too long via any other method.

For those in Europe or other countries where you can drive or take a non-bullet train to another country in any direction in under 24 hours, the USA is HUGE! Roughly 2800 miles or 4500 kilometers from coast to coast. If you were driving alone, sleeping a normal schedule & obeying all traffic laws, you could drive from Seattle (the furthest northwest major city in the lower 48) to Miami (the furthest southeast major city in the lower 48) in roughly 3.5-4 entire days!

If you had 2 friends, each driving 8 hours, one navigating for 8 hours, and the other sleeping for 8 hours, you could do it in about 2.5 days of continual driving while stopping only for gas, food & bio-breaks.

But if I had infinite time & money? Car no question. I have more control over my itinerary and if I want to stop and check out something interesting, I can do that without being beholden to anyone else’s schedule. Maybe break it up with a train now & again to get to some places it’s not practical to drive a car through, like the American Southwest.