Sure, public transportation is a means to an end.  It gets you from Point A, your hotel, to Point B, the attraction/museum/park that you are visiting.  But for our family, taking a ride on the subway, bus, ferry, or train is not a hassle.  It is just as exciting as visiting the attraction to which we are headed.

We live in a city that only has a bus service, which we never use, so public transportation is something exciting and fun to our children.  When we travel to other places, we put rides on the available public transportation on our itinerary.

We have descended below the many museums on the Washington DC Mall to take a ride on the Metro.  We watched the London Tube scream into the station as we anticipated the excitement of one of our very first subway ride with the kids.  We zipped around Amsterdam on the GVB and the MARTA took us from our hotel to the Atlanta Braves baseball stadium.  We have taken many rides on the Europe rail system as we hopped from country to country with a quick jaunt underwater in the Chunnel!  We toured Berlin on the public bus upon recommendation from a local who said it was the best way to see the main sites cheaply.  The bus driver even announced local spots to look out for.  We took a ferry across the Rhine River to visit castles and the ferry was far more interesting to the kids than the castles!

What is your favorite mode of transportation when you are traveling?