#Adventures in Adventuring: 30 Days Around the US By Rail (If I can do it, anyone can do it!)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She's crazy ... and bat shit ... and I love her for it! For reals, she hitchhiked across various African countries!!! HARDCORE!!! The girl is a whackadoodle noodle, but not at all a nerd. That is where I come in handy- I'm Lindsay's navigator on adventures. See, I show her how we get places via google maps, and she reminds me to stop tweeting and look up every once in a while. It's a match made in nerdy/non-nerdy heaven. That being saiiiddddddd ... she lives her life on the road and wants to share some of her experiences to all the nerdy folk out there that may be looking to do the same. Hit it Lindsay!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @LindsayMc

I am currently in the middle of a 30 day, cross country rail trip and it is AMAZING! Amtrak offers a USA Rail Pass that allows 30 Days of travel or 12 Segments of travel- which ever one comes first for $579. Basically, for the next thirty days, I get to choose 12 of my favorite US destinations (as long as they are DIRECTLY on an Amtrak route, which is most definitely a catch but I’ll get to that later) and go all over the country by rail.

It’s awesome. It’s incredible... and I am loving every minute of it.

Before I continue to rave about how amazing this trip is and how easy it is for anyone to do I first want to put out a little disclaimer here.

Amtrak is not known for their shining customer service. Period. Over the phone, all I can say is “Good freaking luck” and service on the train is hit or miss at best (but I will say, the ‘hits’ were actually really great employees, just few and far between.) The reason you have to deal with the frequent less than awesome customer service is well, Amtrak is the only choice for the US rail system. Oh, how allowing for zero competition in an industry (plus a hefty government subsidy) impacts customer service in a capitalistic society.

This article is meant to give you a quick intro to the amazingness that I have discovered in the Amtrak USA Rail Pass plus give you tips and tricks to make your trip even better. I would like to quickly say these tips are NOT condoned by Amtrak and they WILL save you money but if you get caught, these MAY get you kicked off the train.

PLANNING: I planned my trip around a few things. One, where do my friends live? Two, where will be interesting to see by rail (I will be spending about 1/3 of my time on a train so the scenery better be pretty.) Logistically with constraints of the pass, I also had to taken into account transit time and where are the direct routes provided by Amtrak.

While planning my trip, I spent a lot of time on the phone with various Amtrak employees trying to understand exactly what the pass entailed and how I can book trains without incurring extra fees. It would have saved me a lot of time and frustration if someone would have told me that dealing with Amtrak employees on the phone is the equivalent of dealing with an employee at the DMV. It takes forever to finally get through, they don’t care at all and most likely they don’t know about what they are talking about. Lots of misinformation, lots of attitude and some serious questioning of whether or not I even wanted to give any of my hard earned money to this company.

HOWEVER, now that I understand the Amtrak phone game, it’s not so jarring and I’ve actually gotten quite efficient at it.

AMTRAK CALL TIPS:
 Only call when you have a good book you can read while the hold advertisements play on speaker phone, know exactly what you want to ask and have back up questions and dates should the date you want be sold out and have done your research on routes, rails and times on their website before. If that sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is but just try to get what you need from an Amtrak phone operator without it...

Once you have an idea of where your friends are and where you would like to go, it’s time to plan the first leg of your trip. Just pick a direct destination, decide how many days you want to spend there and then pick a few more places. I only planned out the first half of the trip at one time. I am still in the process of planning the second half while I’m on the road.

When you call, they may tell you that you need to have all 12 segments booked at the same time, this is not true. You may book segment by segment but understand that if the limited amount of ‘USA RAIL PASS’ seats are sold out on the train for that particular date than you will have to pay an extra fee to get on that train or ride a different day. A segment is when ever you get off a train, whether you want to or not (not including technical difficulties, of course.) One segment can be all the way from Los Angeles to Seattle on the Coast Starlight which is a direct line however if you choose to get off at any other stop (say in Santa Barbara or Portland) and then still continue to Seattle, it will become two segments. That’s easy enough to understand, what gets tricky is if there is not a direct line from where you are to where you are going. Say you want to go from New Orleans to Denver because there is no direct line, you must go up to Chicago, get off and change trains in Chicago to carry on to Denver and that counts as TWO segments. With only having 12 segments to play with, you can imagine the planning and preciseness that must go into figuring out your destinations and how you are going to get there. Keeping in mind the 30 day limit as well as sell out dates, there is a lot to think about but it IS worth it.

TRAVELING: Traveling by train ROCKS! Watching the US whiz by as I sit comfortably in a loveseat style chair in the Observation Car of the train, life does not suck. Traveling by rail gives access to places unavailable by road and places I would have never had the opportunity to see so easily. Just in the first half of my trip, I saw dolphins playing in the Pacific Ocean, watched the beginning construction of a US Rocket on a military base and took about 1,000 photos as we traveled through Glacier National Park. The views have been stellar... so much so, it took me this long even after being on a train for 75+ hours to be able to stop looking out the window to write this. Honestly, those are some amazing views.

I’m finding that the layouts of most trains are all pretty much the same. There is an Arcade Car (which harbors four games from the ’70’s that no one plays so it became my personal ‘talk really animated because I’m so excited to be here’ car) an Observation Car which is a long car of windows to enjoy those views I mentioned earlier, a Cafe which is under the Observation Car, a Dining Car and some kind of weird but pretty awesome Dressing Rooms which are located by the Bathrooms under almost all of the Coachclass Cars. Being able to get up and walk around makes transit completely manageable... however being able to get drunk makes it downright fun.

You heard me, you are allowed to get drunk on Amtrak (kinda) and that helps the 30+ hour trip from LA to Seattle seem absolutely not so bad. What is bad though, is the railway robbery of $7 per 12 ounce beer. Buuuulllllllsssshhhhiiiiiiittt.

I solved that problem by bringing my own booze which is ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED but I’ll take my chances of getting kicked off the train rather than pay that amount of money (or worse yet, stay sober.) I packed a handle of the cheapest bottle of vodka that I could find and poured it in to water bottles on the train. Easy enough plus, if you’re the only member of this captive audience to BYOB, you make a lot of friends really quick. No need to be worried about drinking alone as it seems, most of the ‘kids’ (college students, grad students, backpackers like me) all seem to hang out in the Observation Car and it’s a pretty social atmosphere. You can buy chasers from the Cafe Car which I recommend over bringing your own chasers and just asking the Cafe Car for cups of ice. You are allowed to ask for ice or hot water for free however, they begin to catch on after the 10th or 15th cup and they are the ones who will report your ass. Soda and juice are obnoxiously expensive ($2 for a half can) however, if you’re the one who brought the booze, I think it’s fair to ask your new drinking buddies to pick up that part of the tab.

It’s a surprisingly fun crew that rides Amtrak and the Observation Car turns into a traveling bar at night. Just watch your back with the staff, apparently BYOBing on Amtrak is a pretty serious offense because they make a lot of money off those $7 beers (no shit) and if anyone offers you to smoke pot or a cigarette in the bathrooms, DON’T DO IT. That shit will get you kicked off the train in a heart beat. Just wait for the Designated Smoking Breaks (you can find them in the little booklet on the train) or bring a pot brownie, you little pothead, you (they say there are drug dogs at Amtrak stations, I have yet to see one but I’ll admit I haven’t exactly been looking.)

Speaking of free hot water and ice, I brought packets of instant coffee and I saw guys have stacks of Cups of Noodles for long trips which seems really smart.

Those are just a few of my experiences and tips I’ve come up with along my 30 day trip and I’m not even half way through yet! If you want to check out see photos and videos of my crazy-amazing adventure, check me out on Mobli. I have been documenting my entire trip almost in real time on their site, Zombie Pub Crawls, yoga in the Sears (now called Willis) Tower SkyBox, trolling it up in Seattle and all :)

Thanks for reading! Happy Travels!

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