Rail and Bus around the US

cousin_borat

Quote: "we plan to go down to seattle, the portland, then san fran, then las vegas, then denver , st.louis, memphis, nashville, washington, new jersey, new york, boston, maybe maine"

My friend intends to do this by bus/rail over two months with his girlfriend!! To be honest I think it's madness. Has anyone ever done this by bus and/or Amtrak in the US.

el tel

By bus would be horrendous, especially over such distances. Train would be less so but I'd only take it between certain destinations. Travelling by road between some of these places would be hugely boring after a while too. In my experience driving in the US can be very mundane/samey when out in the boondocks, especially when cooped up in a bus/train with no opportunities to stop where you feel like.

BuffyBot

Well, unless they *really* like public transport, I wouldn't recommend it. Most of the two months will be spent travelling. He may be seriously underestimating the distances between places!

Linoge

Internal flights can be cheap enough. America is of course home to the great Southwest Airlines, the company that started it all!

b3t4

Last year a friend of mine and myself travelled from New York to New Orleans with Amtrak and one thing I'll say is NEVER again.

It was lots of fun and I will remember it forever but it took AGES. Also, if everyone here thinks Irish Rail are bad they have no idea how bad this lot were. We were delayed for hours at some stages. This isn't too pleasant when your train was meant to be leaving and 2am in the morning and it gets detailed till 8am in the morning.

Amtrak do not own the train tracks but lease them from the freight people. This means that they do not get priority on the tracks. If a freight train is coming the amtrak train has to slow down or stop till the frieght train has passed. Also, they have a problem with heat and sometimes the train has to slow down or stop till the tracks are cool enough to pass over. As well some train drivers love the horn on the train and blow it for everything even at nightime.

Some tips:

1.If they are thinking of doing this they would be best to bring ear plugs as trying to sleep when a mother with three kids sits behind you isn't the easiest thing in the world. The seats are quite comfortable and recline back quite a bit. There is also a foot rest thing that comes up under your legs so you truly lie down which is nice.
2. Bring one of those air pillow things that you can blow up. They do give out pillows but I found the air pillow great.
3. If they intend to take a number of trains with Amtrak get them to add up the price of all the tickets and see if it would be cheaper for them to get a Pass of some sort. More info at http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/Page/Collection_Page&cid=1081442674004&c=Page&ssid=65

I hope your friends have fun,
A.

Gandhi

The North-East section they mentioned between DC to Boston could realistically be done by train or bus, especially if they are stopping at some or all of the major cities along the line: DC->Baltimore->Philadelphia->New York->Boston.

You can save serious cash using the "Chinatown Express" buses between those cities. These are Chinese-run buses that run between the Chinatowns of the various cities, if you don't mind watching a movie in Chinese on the way up. I've used New Century Travel ( http://www.2000coach.com/ ) between Philly and NYC and they've been grand.

The rest of the journey, the distances are enormous. They would be better off getting some cheap flights.

Ruu_Old

Dont know about the buses but I love Amtrak, very comfortable and if you want you can get a "sleeper" carriage, basically a bed in there for you

dermot_sheehan

The U.S. is best seen by car, any of them have a full licence and over 21? Remember even when you get to the cities by train/bus, it would be pretty difficult to get around (with exceptions of NY, chicago and a few others).

U.S. is best done roadtrip style.