Hi, I often do solo traveling as people in my family don't like traveling much & because I used to live/study alone abroad. I don't really like solo traveling as I get bored or feel lonely.
I remember when I used a train to get from Bratislava to Prague a Slovak guy started talking to me and we talked all the way to Prague. Talked about his GF, how life's in SK vs CZ etc. Even recommended me a book. I felt like in some old time movie where you can actually enjoy traveling solo and feel less alone because you can find someone to have a conversation with. I didn't even move from my seat and year I barely felt the trip. I'm usually tired on such long trips and can't stand still.
I've also taken a bus (coach) between the same cities and over there people were silent. It's like in a bus/plane people are less social but on a train they suddenly are more open to engaging with strangers.

In 2022 I took a bus between cities in my country but after the cramped ride and having to wait for a WC stop in a gas/petrol station I decided to go back by train instead. Well what do you know a guy sits on the seats opposite of me and we also engaged in a conversation about life, his wife, work etc. People barely spoke to strangers on the bus getting there, unless it was to their relatives/friends. Same destinations, same distance, same nationalities involved even, just a different mode of transport, however such a different behavior! Am I the only one that has noticed this?

I've found planes to be more akin buses. I've rarely gotten someone sitting next to me engage in a conversation on a plane.

Looking back to my travels I've had more engaging conversations with strangers on trains despite having used planes and buses more so far. What gives?
Maybe most planes and buses having really cramped seats compared to trains and people usually being more packed has to do something with this? In a train you have the perception of more space somehow and like you can escape so somehow you're more lax or what? While sometimes I find some people annoying I'd rather have someone try to engage than the soulless, weird silence and pretending-to-be-sleeping that goes on planes and buses. It's so awkward to me, I'd rather drive and be completely alone than having someone in mere centimeters away from me pretend me and the third passenger next to them are invisible. And yet when I take a bus/plane I do just the same and want to be left alone. But not so in a train where I'm open for small talk unless I'm very tired. What's your experience about this?

"While sometimes I find some people annoying I'd rather have someone try to engage than the soulless, weird silence and pretending-to-be-sleeping that goes on planes and buses. It's so awkward to me, I'd rather drive and be completely alone than having someone in mere centimeters away from me pretend me and the third passenger next to them are invisible. And yet when I take a bus/plane I do just the same and want to be left alone"

I want to be left alone.
I didn't buy a ticket for entertainment. I bought it for transportation.
Nothing "awkward" about it for me.

My theory is that people are packed like sardines in the planes. When you're packed in a very tight place you're less likely to be relaxed enough to lax up and try to talk to others. Or to enjoy anyone else engaging you.
BTW I believe anyone over 5'7" is too tall for air companies apparently these days. Buses are the same or worse, hence why people there avoid strangers like on planes. Trains offer the most leg space and space in general from all three and subconsciously we must realize it's so much easier to just remove yourself from annoying neighbors if so you wish compared to in a plane and even a bus. In planes and most buses you generally have to suffer in silence if you don't like the people next to you, especially the fully packed low cost lines like those of Wizz or Ryan Air as there are no free seats where you can move to.
I guess planes are just not suited for pleasant slow travel where the trip and not the destination is part of the fun. And don't get me started on the airports, they spike your stress levels even more than the planes themselves. I'm done with flying for any distance of 1000 or less miles for this reason, too much stress for nothing. now if I lived on an island or have to go further away of course I'll suffer the annoyances in silence.

I am never “pretending” to be asleep. I am usually exhausted and either actually sleeping or try to, especially on long flights.

I think the reason more guys are chatting you up is because of the movie 'Before Sunrise', lol. If you haven't seen it, you should as you've nearly lived it twice. (It is actually based on a real-life meeting by the director and a woman he met. Unfortunately, the woman passed away before the film was released.)

I think for the reasons you've sited that people are in a different 'mode' when traveling by train. If you're on a plane, it's about the destination. If you're on a bus, it's about the destination but you didn't/couldn't fly. If you're on a train, it's slower and so is your pace. You're not there to zoom by things, but to take them in as you travel. Hence taking in the people you're traveling with becomes part of the journey.

I'm actually a guy myself lol so it's not that I think. Btw the first time I used the Vienna subway a local girl sat on a sat opposite of me, looking my way. She gave me flirty looks and smiles. I guess many people in Central Europe naturally are drawn to me for some reason. That has never happened to me in the Munich or London subways. So Vienna really has flirty vibes.

You're right about the pace in trains. People on planes are so stressed and I get too stressed there too. I will prefer slow travel from now on as I discovered I come back annoyed from my plane trips. Every single time. I guess it's not for me.

I am genuinely a friendly person however, sometimes I just don't want to engage. I have had some awful train experiences where I was lectured on what I do for a living so I have learned not to share it again. One mother on a train in France got very weird when her young daughter maybe 4 yrs old tried talking to me. I don't speak French but know a few words. When she found out I wasn't nationally French, she didn't want me speaking to her daughter. I am French descendent but by many many generations so her loss.

It so strange how that happens in different cities--nothing for me in the states or London's tube, but Paris metro--oh la la! There were little petite ones eyeing me up and down and smiling so nicely--even when I was holding my now wife's hand! Crazy as I've never experienced anything like that before. Who knows if it's changed now though as that was a decade ago.

Yeah, I think I would like trains too once I'm able to travel to enjoy it. Right now, I'm rushing from one place to the next and just getting sleep and whatnot. But I do end up chatting up quite a few people on flights. I've met a guy who's a defense consultant that worked at the Pentagon on 9-11, a guy who's friends had yachts and a lot of money, car enthusiasts like me, and even a young lady who's dad passed away from the same type of ALS my mom did and who also hadn't had time to grieve his passing. Most of the times, it's nothing, but I've gotten a lot of phone numbers and met some great people. I guess it's about how open one is to possibilities. I'm sure I've also been so zonked out that I never noticed anything.

Oh wow, that's so arrogant. I'd stop talking with someone if they went that far, probably move seats if in a train.

Very sweet the kid saw something in you--and that probably threatened the parent and probably wasn't the first time. No reflection on you.

I was once on a flight - from Riga to Belgrade I believe - where the couple behind me talked for the ENTIRE flight. It was extremely annoying. On planes I read, or sleep if I'm in business class. On trains I mostly want to watch the scenery, although crossing Siberia the scenery didn't change much and that train was pretty social. One reason I like solo travel is because I find concentrating on a travel companion gets between me and the place I'm visiting. If you insist on talking to me after I've been clear I'm not interested I'm liable to get rude.

She sounds like a b-word, really. Sorry about that! Some people are like that. The good thing with trains is you can remove youself and sit further apart. That's not so easily done on a plane or a bus in my experience. Especially in a fully packed FlixBus or the likes it feels like you're stuck forever with an unpleasant/rude neighbor.

i wasn't able to move my seat on the train as it was packed full. I was with someone else and we had to sit apart and how I ended up with the young child and her parents. I couldn't move my seat after the mother got all in a tiff. So I just sat there silently until we reached the final destination which wasn't too far away.

I know not all people are like that but some people I have encountered on German trains weren't so nice either. I once was on a train where the seating was messed up as none of the seats were marked assigned. We ended up in car where the temperature was over 100F/37C as we got yelled at when trying to sit in other seats with a normal temperature in the dead of winter so with heaving clothing on. Probably just a onetime incident but a lasting one so I now only book with assigned seating.

Tell me about it. This year I had a trip to Bavaria. Saw lots of cities and towns and traveled a lot with trains. Before that I've been to Dresden. Didn't like the vibe of the people. I didn't even feel they're worth bothering to speak at all to. When my train passed into Austria I felt much nicer.

With so many places where I've felt more welcomed I will probably never go back to Germany except passing through on a sleeper train on my way by train to Demark or Southern Sweden. And an individual sleeper at that to avoid having to mingle with them. Ironically I have only good experiences with German tourists in my or other countries. Somehow they act nicer when outside their home country.

It does not matter the form of transportation. You need to be sensitive. Some people are open to conversation. Some people would rather be left alone. Do you speak German?

Really?
I wonder what gene that behavioral trait is located in?

On long trips via train or plane, I ALWAYS pull out my Bose headphones -- regardless of whether or not I am playing music or watching movie, it works beautifully. I usually just smile at my fellow passengers in my 30 sq inches of personal space, and usually do not start conversations beyond that. When we bus into NYC so many people are regular commuters, they never wish to talk, same on commuter trains -- and fine with me. If there are little children, I sometimes comment on them positively. If such children are kicking my seat, I turn around and mention this to their oblivious parents.

^I don't think it's a gene, Germans must be conditioned to be reserved in public, it must be cultural.
They say Scandinavians are the same. But I see a marked difference based on videos from trains or buses in Scandinavia. They're reserved in an aloof kind of way but rarely look like they're angry or sad. While way too many Germans, I mean those I saw in trains seemed to be reserved from a more negative point of view, at least that's how they came off to me. Kinda... depressed or like hating life (maybe they hate commuting on public transit and are more homebodies?).
I don't expect American, Latin-, Balkan- or Slavic-like talking between strangers on trains in Germany but I didn't like the way too many people seemed so annoyed. The strange thing is the only Germans that weren't like that but were lax in trains were the elderly. The ones below 40 are the annoyed/tense kind usually.

The even shyer and more reserved Scandinavians are less in-your-face about hating being around strangers so to say. Nor are the Austrians. I doubt anyone would make the same demonstration of "you infringed on my personal space!" as that girl on the Munich metro. There was like a meter and a half between us, not like I did anything wrong. I though that overreaction so rude I cancelled my planned things for Munich and stayed just 20 minutes max. Will never return to that city/country ever. I dislike people with such tense energy. To give another example, people in Vienna would actually go out their way to remove their luggage from the train's corridor if they even noticed that I needed to pass by, I didn't need to say anything. So I of course smiled and said "Danke!" to the guy. A completely different behavior. In Germany I had to specifically beg them to do that and yet they expected me to read their minds. And we're comparing Bavaria with Austria here so I'd say the similarities between Austrians and Germans are greatly exaggerated.

Maybe it's just my experience and Germany's just not my cup of tea.

Youre entitled to your opinion. I disagree.

Mine is to avoid cultural and national stereotypes and see people as individuals. I find it’s an easier way to relate and begin a conversation.

Have a nice day.