Amtrak offers something called the “USA Rail Pass”, which is what I used for almost all of my train trip. It’s a bit like the Eurail Pass, except not as good. I mean, this is Amtrak we’re talking about: a federally-owned enterprise that is incredibly slow, boasting a sad and aged fleet, and chronically financially unstable. But still, for $500 (as of Oct 2021, $300 when it was on sale), the pass allows you to go as far as you want, even if it contains a bunch of caveats, including:

- You only get 30 days to use it, from the start of your first ‘segment’


- You only get 10 segments (e.g. riding from Chicago to San Francisco would count as one segment, but Chicago to Denver, spending a day in Denver, then continuing from Denver to San Francisco counts as two). 


- It’s coach class only, and you can’t upgrade to sleeper on it. 

I still found it to be great value, especially if you have the 30 days to really enjoy it, as I did. The next question was: where am I going to go? There’s a certain art and craft to getting the most out of the rail pass, while meeting one’s specific trip goals and constraints. Here’s how I planned my route: 

First, I read a bunch of appetite-whetting articles (for example) about the most iconic and scenic Amtrak routes. Each train route gets its own old-fashioned name, like the “Lake Shore Limited” and the “Empire Builder.” One route that was repeatedly recommended was the California Zephyr, which runs between Chicago and San Francisco. Another one that I’d previously heard about and wanted to ride is the Empire Builder, which runs from Chicago to Seattle. And finally, other aficionados had recommended the Coast Starlight, which runs along the west coast. There were a number of other appealing sounding routes, such as the Sunset Limited, which runs horizontally along the country’s south between LA and New Orleans. But after much hemming and hawing, I ultimately decided to build my trip around riding the Zephyr to San Francisco, the Starlight up the west coast, and the Empire Builder back east.



Here are some of the major Amtrak routes on offer. Image source: Amtrak-Track A Train

Next, I thought about friends I wanted to see and cities/places I wanted to stop in. I created a spreadsheet to sketch out an itinerary, between days spent overnight on the train versus staying in cities. I reached out to my brother and friends to see if they were interested in joining me for parts of my trip, as well as to those in the cities I’d be stopping at. Hope and I had been talking about going back to Seattle to get more closure--we’d left in the middle of covid in January 2021--and so she agreed to take time off work to fly in and meet me there. We’d then planned to take the Empire Builder to Glacier National Park together, so that she could experience a long-distance train ride herself, and we could visit another park (a favorite pastime of ours).


Here's the final planned route I ultimately decided upon. Google Map

For some reason, I anchored on the idea of completing an entire loop on the Rail Pass. Based on this arbitrary rule I imposed on myself, I quickly found that I was forced to ration out how many days I planned to spend in, say, Denver versus San Francisco, while still maintaining enough time to rush home. Another rule I (gratefully) set myself was no more than one night sleeping on the train in a row. Ultimately, I ended up purchasing my Durham to DC roundtrip separately, in order to be less rushed - this extended my final planned trip length to 35 days.


Later on, I met other passengers traveling on the rail pass, and we compared our itineraries. Some were riding the train basically non-stop, going as far as they could with minimal time spent stopping in between. Multiple nights in coach class sounded awful to me, and stopping to enjoy the places we were traveling through was just as important to me as the journey itself. Others mixed train routes with car rentals, buses and other modes of transit. Others took the train one way and then flew back home. This is wise, as you don’t have to cram as much traveling into your 30 days in order to make it back.

Planning my trip took me many hours and plenty of effort, but for the planner in me, it was also quite fun. If you're planning a longer vacation or sabbatical yourself, and are looking to travel on a budget, I strongly recommend looking into the USA Rail Pass!