My husband and I got married earlier this year and figured we would plan a honeymoon later once wedding stress had passed. Now we’ve started planning and being in the Midwestern United States has us feeling frustrated about travel options that aren’t planes, as we do not want to use them.
I discovered the Amtrak Rail Pass yesterday and was wondering if anyone had any experience (or knows of a blog, vlog, etc) where somebody talked about their experience using the pass to do a city-hopping sort of trip/honeymoon/vacation using Amtrak, or the pass specifically. Cursory research didn’t show me anything, but I did see that the pass was on sale from $499 to $299 in January, so I am going to keep an eye out and see if they do that again. If so, it seems like a (relatively) cost-effective way to do a longer sort of trip, hitting 6 or so cities along the way.
Any perspectives welcome!
Hmm, are there actually any cities you are interested in visiting in a reasonable distance? Also keep in mind that you will be pretty much limited to the down-town area once you reach the town itself by train.
I think the big draw of these interrail train trips in Europe is that there are usually a lot of historic sites to visit in the cities, most cities are pretty walkable and that local public transport is also much better… I have a hard time to imagine this being the same in the US.
We don’t live in Chicago, but would use it as our starting point due to the rail connections. The biggest obstacle as I see it is the travel times, but I feel like it’s still within a doable range, as we don’t mind sleeping on the train. So our idea of “reasonable distance” might be questionable lol.
As far as destinations, we are interested in visiting Philadelphia, DC, NYC, and maybe Boston, which all have decent transit networks and a downtown core where we could book hotels near train stations, etc. We also aren’t afraid of using buses in cities we don’t live in, and a certain degree of transit trial and error to get around.
Some destinations are likely going to require some uber trips or other creative solutions to get around, like Niagara Falls and Cincinnati. And I have some family near Albany NY who we’d probably go to stay with for a bit, and would depend on them driving us around in the area. But aside from that, the east coast cities I’d really like to hit seem like they are the closest we could approximate to the sort of trip we wish we could take. It just seems counterproductive to take a plane to Europe to then take trains around.
All good places to visit and good public transit to get around once you are there (if you take the time to wrap your head around them). Consider adding Pittsburgh to the list too, not only is it a nice city in it’s own right but going east from Pittsburgh is the horseshoe curve which is some of the most beautiful train scenery anywhere in the world! You can even take a day in Harrisburg between Pitt and Philly to check out the state museum (walking distance from the train station!) and the state capital building which is a real looker.
Try and check out Lee’s Deli in west Philly when you come. Best cheesesteaks in the world! Even their vegetarian cheesesteaks are better than other places meat ones if you are a vegetarian. I can drown you in Philly and Harrisburg recommendations if you ask me to lol.
That’s a great and compelling case for Pittsburgh, and I think it will fit in great to the map I’m working on for this trip! Thank you for the recommendation
Image description: a screenshot from Amtrak’s website.
Page title: USA Rail Pass
Subtitle: Explore the country with the USA Rail Pass
Body text: The USA Rail Pass is your ticket to tour the country. 10 rides (segments) over 30 days to your choice of over 500 destinations. At just $499, that’s less than $50 per segment.
Craving some adventure? Hop from town to town as you travel across the country. Or, just want to spend your weekends away from home? Go from downtown to out-of-town as soon as the workday ends. Whether you’re looking to discover hidden gems or just want to visit some friends in the next city over, the USA Rail Pass makes it easy to get more getaways.
