Quick heads up: natural parks = any place that could be considered outdoorsy. Think national parks or famous lakes like Lake Tahoe. Forest and wooded areas can also be included.
Anyways. Instead of wasting my money buying a bloated 4WD truck/SUV or even a AWD wagon like the Subaru Outback, I could just buy a roof rack for my 4 door sedan, buy or even rent a mountain bike, buy some outdoor/hiking gear and I’m all set. But then I thought of something better: how about I get rid of the car all together? If I go the car-free route, I now have to consider how I’m going to get there. While I could go cross-country on bike (and I do plan on doing that anyways), I was wondering if some quicker forms of transportation (excluding cars) could be an option. Do buses and trains go to these places? Would they allow me to take my bike? Thanks in advance!
I always just take a train there, if it’s a place worth visiting they’ll almost always have a train route passing by with a regular service throughout the day and evening.
For example if I want to visit the Peak District I just hop on a train to Edale and bam, I’m a 10 minutes walk from a bunch of different trails and things to see.
All the major national parks I’ve visited have been like this so far, if they didn’t have good transport links how would they expect anybody to visit? And they want people to visit, to spend money in the local towns/villages that house those transport links, etc.
It simply does not work that way in the USA. I live in one of the top50 cities/ urban areas by population and we have no passenger train service to anywhere but the freight trains are always rolling. We also have no subway, streetcars or L trains in the city, state, or region.