this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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The US was built with trains, it's a shame you all seemed to have abandoned them falling behind countries with much smaller GDP's . I'd love to do the Am track one day looks like a great way to see it all.
I have wanted to AmTrak the country for like 18 years now. The thing is it's just not an appealing experience for the cost. A trip from Florida to California would take 120 hrs/4.25 days one-way. That means that someone would need to take 9 days for a round trip if things match up perfectly. The other thing is that tickets can be quite expensive. The same trip is ~$550 one way. So, we'd have someone spending 7 vacation days and $1100 on transportation alone to sit on a train in coach for nearly the entire time without even getting to see their destination. Say you wanted to stay a week in California. There go another 5 vacation days for a total of 12 vacation days spent, with about half of them spent on a train in coach. You'd also have to add in the costs of staying and touring California, which can be fairly cheap if you know someone there or very expensive if you don't.
Very few people in the US have the time off and the financial means to make this an appealing trip.
They used to have a decently priced unlimited ticket that you could use to see the country during summer break. Get on/off the train whenever/wherever you want.