Virtuous English AcademyTransport & Travel — A2 English Vocabulary
This A2 vocabulary list gathers 30 elementary English words about transport & travel — airports, journeys and getting around the world. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using transport & travel words in English
The hard part of travel vocabulary is not the nouns — platform, suitcase, passenger are learned once and stay learned. It is that English splits one idea across four words that most languages cover with one. Travel, trip, journey and voyage are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong one is the clearest signal that a sentence was translated rather than thought in English. The prepositions that go with vehicles are the second trap, and they are worth memorising as fixed phrases.
What to watch out for
Travel, trip and journey divide the work
Travel is normally a verb or an uncountable noun about the activity in general: I love travel, I travel for work. A trip is the whole thing, there and back, and it has a purpose: a business trip, a day trip. A journey is the getting there — the hours actually spent moving: a three-hour journey. So you go on a trip to Rome, and the journey takes four hours.
on the train, but in the car
Anything you can stand up and walk about in takes on: on the bus, on the train, on the plane, on a ship. Anything you sit down into takes in: in the car, in a taxi. The same split explains get on the bus against get in the car. And on foot is the fixed phrase for walking — never by foot, although every other means takes by: by train, by plane.
Luggage cannot be counted, and abroad takes no preposition
You cannot say a luggage or two luggages. Use a piece of luggage, or the countable word suitcase, or bags. Separately, abroad is already an adverb and needs nothing in front of it: I am going abroad, never going to abroad. The same is true of home, which is why flying home and flying abroad both work with no preposition at all.
Words learners mix up
Two tables. The first is the language of leaving and getting there, where English changes the word class and the preposition together; the second is what you need when the plan stops working, which is exactly when you have least time to think.
Arrive and depart, as verbs and as nouns
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| arrive | To reach a place. It never takes to — use in for a country or city and at for a station, an airport or a building. | We arrive in Berlin at nine. |
| depart | The formal verb for leaving, used on boards and in announcements. The place you leave takes from. | The 08:15 departs from platform two. |
| arrival | The noun. Also the hall you walk into at an airport, where the sign is plural: Arrivals. | Meet me in arrivals after passport control. |
| departure | The noun for leaving, and the board that lists everything going out today. | Check the departure board for your gate. |
The preposition after arrive is the one to drill: arrive to London is wrong however natural it feels, and the choice between in and at follows the size of the place rather than anything you can hear. In speech, people say leave far more than depart — the train leaves at six — so keep depart for what you read on the screen and hear over the loudspeaker.
When the plan stops working
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| reserve | To arrange in advance that something is kept for you — a seat, a room, a table. The noun is a reservation. | I reserved two seats by the window. |
| cancel | To stop something arranged from happening at all. British spelling doubles the l: cancelled. | They cancelled the last two flights. |
| delay | A wait before something that will still happen. Noun and verb, and normally given with a length of time. | There is a forty-minute delay. |
| fare | The money you pay to travel. Not the ticket, and not the price of the ticket — the amount itself. | The single fare to the airport is nine pounds. |
A cancelled train is not coming and a delayed one is coming late, which is the difference between waiting and finding another route. Reserve is the word on signs and websites, but British speakers say book in conversation: I booked a table, the hotel is fully booked. And fare sounds identical to fair, which is an unrelated word entirely.
Collocations that sound natural
Almost everything said at a station or an airport is one of a small number of fixed pairs. Learn them as whole blocks — changing a single word in them is what makes a sentence sound translated.
flight
catch a flightmiss your flighta direct flightbook a flighta connecting flight
You catch a flight and you miss it, and the same two verbs work for a train or a bus. Take a flight is fine as well, but lose a flight is not English.
luggage
hand luggagelost luggagecheck in your luggageexcess luggage
Hand luggage is the bag that stays with you; everything else goes in the hold. Americans call the same thing a carry-on.
passport
a valid passportrenew your passportpassport controlshow your passport
The desk where an officer checks it is passport control, and the verb for the queue is go through: we went through passport control in ten minutes.
delay
a two-hour delaya slight delaya long delaycause a delay
The length goes in front with a hyphen and no plural: a two-hour delay, never a two-hours delay. English does the same in a five-minute walk.
destination
your final destinationa popular destinationreach your destinationa holiday destination
journey
a long journeythe journey homebreak your journeyHave a safe journey!
Have a safe journey and Safe travels are what people actually say to somebody leaving. Anything built round good luck sounds as though the journey is dangerous.
Where each word belongs
All six are correct English. Three are British words with an American twin you will meet online, one belongs to signs rather than to speech, and one is far rarer than learners expect.
- motorwayBritishThe fast road between cities. Americans say highway or freeway. British ones carry a letter and a number — the M25 — and the preposition is on: we were on the motorway for two hours.
- transportBritishBritain says public transport; America says transportation. It is uncountable in this sense, so there is no transports, and in conversation people rarely use the word at all — they ask How did you get here?
- harbourBritish spellingAmerican English writes harbor. A harbour is the sheltered water where boats sit; a port is the whole town or facility that ships trade through. Fishing villages have harbours, cities have ports.
- voyageRare · old-fashionedA long journey by sea, or through space. It now sounds historical or poetic, so your flight to Rome is not a voyage. Keep it for ships and use trip or journey for anything you did this year.
- reserveWriting · signsYou will see reserved on a seat and reserve online on a website, but speakers say book. Both are correct; only one of them sounds natural out loud.
- explorePositive · slightly grandGoing somewhere unknown to find out what is there, which fits a city you have never visited: we spent the day exploring the old town. For an ordinary wander, the everyday phrase is look around.
Sentences to try
Four frames that carry the prepositions above. Replace the places with real ones from your last journey and say each sentence aloud.
- Our flight to Madrid had a two-hour delay.
- The train leaves from platform nine.
- I went abroad for the first time last year.
- How long is the journey from the airport?
Questions about transport & travel vocabulary
What is the difference between trip, journey and travel?
Travel is the general activity and is usually a verb or an uncountable noun — air travel is cheap now. A trip is one complete visit somewhere and back, named by its purpose: a school trip, a weekend trip. A journey is only the moving part, the time spent between the two places: the journey home took three hours. A trip can contain several journeys, which is why Have a good trip and Have a good journey are both correct but mean slightly different things.
Do I say "on the bus" or "in the bus"?
On the bus. English uses on for public transport you can walk around inside — buses, trains, planes and ships — and in for private vehicles you sit down into, mainly cars and taxis. That is why you get on the train but get in the car. In the bus is not impossible, but it means physically inside the metal box, usually in contrast to being outside it, and it is not what you want when you are telling somebody where you are.
Is luggage countable in English?
No. Luggage is uncountable, so it takes no a, no plural -s and a singular verb: My luggage is heavy. If you need to count, switch to a countable word — two suitcases, three bags — or use the unit phrase a piece of luggage. Baggage works exactly the same way. This catches out a great many learners, because the word looks plural and most languages count it happily.