The "Hows" behind my trip.

I’ve been back for about 2 weeks and it amazes me how quickly one can return back to “normal” life whatever that is. Before I ‘m once again inundated with work and school I want to share with you all exactly how I managed to make it work in hopes that a few of you all will consider taking that trip.

Without a doubt, I'm a rich woman in my mind, but in reality it really didn't take much money to go traipsing around the country. What it really took was a few really good friends, a desire for a little bit of adventure, an insatiable appetite and a Amtrak Rail pass. All of this was funded by my income tax return btw. I figured that I could either pay off a mere portion of my credit card bill or gather memories that I would cherish for the rest of my life. I chose the latter.

The idea of taking this trip was heavily influenced by my brother. After graduating from college in May, he decided to chase his own dream and visit Seattle. There he stayed in a youth hostel, made friends and then took the 20+ hour train ride to San Francisco. He had a blast and I was intrigued.

For $429 you can take 8 train rides anywhere in the country within 15 days. Check out the details here. I'd been plugging away at work and in culinary school for over a year and to say that I needed a little bit of excitement in my life would have been a gross understatement. I was ready to go!!!!

The route I chose to take was from NY -> DC ->Charlotte -> Atlanta -> New Orleans -> Memphis ->Chicago -> San Antonio -> Austin -> Los Angeles -> San Francisco then I flew home. I rode the train by myself, but I knew someone in each city that I visited. In the cities where my friends had families I stayed in hostels and hotels, so in total I spent $312 on housing. $150 of the $312 was spent at Le Pavilion in New Orleans where I HAD to have the Hot Coco and PB and J sandwich, so my housing costs could have been a lot lower if I weren't such a foodie.

My flight back to NY was about $120 on sale and I actually flew from LA to San Fran for $98 because by then my rail pass ran out and after over 120 hours on the train... I had had enough :-) In a good way.

I'd be lying if I didn't mention that I was a bit nervous right before I started, but I planned in advance that I would move outside of my comfort zone whenever possible, and to really observe and experience all that I could within the time frame that I had. As my brother once told me "Safe has no wonderful memories", I ran with that and made sure to rack up my share of wonderful memories :-)