Getting around a new city: transit, taxis and your feet
The first-day system for any city on Earth: what to set up before landing, how to read a transit network fast, and when a taxi is the right answer.
Every city feels unknowable from the arrivals hall and obvious within two days. The gap between those states is a repeatable system, and it travels: set up the phone before you land, learn the transit backbone the first morning, walk the rest, and know in advance when you will just take the taxi.
Before you land
- 1 Get data sorted: an eSIM bought before the flight is the cheap, instant version of the airport SIM queue.
- 2 Download the offline map for the city, and the transit app locals actually use (the app-store reviews from residents will tell you).
- 3 Look up the airport-to-centre answer specifically. Most cities have one obviously right link: a rail line, an official bus, a flat-rate taxi. Decide it before wheels down.
- 4 Screenshot your first night's address in the local script; every driver on Earth reads their own language faster than your pronunciation.
Reading a transit system fast
- Learn the backbone first: the one or two metro or tram lines that carry the city. Every other route is a footnote to them.
- Contactless tap is increasingly the ticket: in many cities your bank card is the fare card, with daily caps that beat tourist passes. Where paper tickets survive, validate them; inspectors fine the unstamped, not the unaware.
- Day passes win when you will ride four or more times; otherwise tap and forget.
- Rush hour is a real cost. A museum that opens at nine is better reached at ten with coffee than at eight thirty with elbows.
- Bikeshare and scooters are transit too, best for the two-kilometre trips that are too far to walk and too short to tunnel.
Taxis, ride-hail and the walking default
The taxi rules are old and reliable: use the official rank or an app, insist on the meter or agree the price before moving, and treat an unsolicited driver in an arrivals hall as a tout, not a service (the classic setups). Which ride-hail app dominates changes by region, so check before you go rather than assuming yours travels. And keep the default of walking: it is the only mode that shows you the city between the dots, and in the old centres of most of the world it is also the fastest.
Common questions
- Is it better to buy a tourist transit pass or pay per ride?
- Count your likely rides. Day passes and tourist cards win at roughly four or more rides a day, but many cities now cap contactless tap-to-pay at the day-pass price automatically, which makes tapping the best of both. Check whether the cap exists before buying anything.
- How do I avoid taxi scams in a new city?
- Use the official taxi rank or a local ride-hail app, insist the meter runs or fix the price before the car moves, and ignore anyone offering a ride inside an arrivals hall. Knowing the approximate fare from a quick search removes most of the leverage a bad actor has.
- What is the best way to get from an airport to a city centre?
- Most cities have one clearly best link: a dedicated rail line, an official express bus, or a flat-rate taxi scheme. Search your specific airport before flying, since the right answer varies more between cities than any other transit question.
Tip
Drop your day's stops into a Treader day and the map shows which cluster together, which is most of the transit question answered before you ride anything.