I’ve noticed there’s a high correlation between vagabonding and a lack of car ownership. Very few of my traveler friends own cars. The expense (high import duties), complicated registration process and crazy traffic overseas keep most of us from buying automobiles.

Big cities in Asia and Europe often have good subway systems, making the need for a car superfluous. In particular, the Taipei MRT was the subject of an online article for Wired magazine.  Cities like Tokyo and Seoul have so many subway stations that they practically render car ownership obsolete.  Check out Urban Rail.net for subway maps around the world.

It’s natural to not have a car while living abroad for a lot of people.  I take this for granted, and I’m always reminded how unusual this is when I talk to friends who still live in the United States, where owning a car is a given.

One of the refreshing things about living abroad is that there’s less of a stigma about taking public transportation.  In America, there’s this transit snobbery, where a person is seen as poor and a pathetic loser for taking the bus.  Nowadays, high gas prices are steering more people to mass transit.

Good Magazine had an interesting article that collected great ideas for reducing traffic congestion from around the world. They don’t always involve budget-busting subway construction, either. Curitiba and Bogota are two cities with Bus Rapid Transit networks so efficient that they’ve been studied by other countries. The video of the Bogota TransMilenio is especially impressive.

That’s not to say things are totally hopeless in the states. Portland has been blazing a trail for mass transit and smart urban planning for a while now.

A good book on this topic is How to Live Well without Owning a Car, by Chris Balish. He makes a strong case for how a car-free lifestyle can improve a person’s well-being financially, emotionally and physically, while also helping the environment.