Riding The Rails Out West Part 1 - How The Adventure Started
It all started when I found an article on the internet about Amtrak's top five most scenic train routes. I don't even remember how I stumbled upon the article, but after reading I started checking prices out of curiosity. I checked travel for different dates and I could see that presently prices were at about their lowest. I probably had a combination of being the off-season and bad weather on some of the routes to thank for the lower prices.
At first I was only looking at one route, the route that looked to be the most scenic, taking the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle and back. It ate away at me all the next day, should I do it? I should know by now to not fight it, just to give in, because in the end I'll end up doing it anyway.
I had decided if I did go I would get a roomette on the train. It's more expensive than traveling coach, but with a roomette you are guaranteed a window seat, a bed, shower, privacy and you get three free meals a day in the dining car. If I traveled coach I would have to pay for all my meals, so I would be saving about $30 a day which I figured into the price difference of traveling coach vs. getting a roomette.
Now was a really good time for me to do this and if I missed that window then the next time I have the opportunity in a few weeks ticket prices will be more expensive. I'm still procrastinating, but at the same time I'm also planning encase I do go. I could take a Greyhound bus to St. Louis or Jefferson City to catch and Amtrak train to Chicago, but that would cost almost twice as much as just taking the bus all the way to Chicago. Greyhound also has midweek savings where on Tuesdays and Wednesdays you save up to 40%. I just read the article late Monday night, it was now Tuesday and if I was going to save on the Greyhound ticket I would need to leave the next day.
I checked the ticket prices on Amtrak again for the day I would leave on and I had they had sold out of everything reasonable from Chicago to Seattle. The only thing they had left was the larger rooms at over $1,000 and no way could I afford that!
I looked at alternate routes and saw I could go from Chicago to Sacramento California on the California Zephyr, which was also listed as one of the most scenic routes. From Sacramento I could then take the Coast Starlight to Seattle, again another one of Amtrak's most scenic routes. Then from Seattle I could take the Empire Builder back to Chicago. It would be a little more expensive to take this long way round, so I decided to go coach instead of getting a roomette.
Seattle is a super expensive city! I couldn't find a hotel room for less than $200 a night anywhere near the train station. The only thing I could find nearby was a hostel a couple blocks away. Being a travel junky I have heard a lot about hostels, but they aren't really common in the U.S. like they are in other parts of the world. Since this the only option I could afford I was willing to give it a try. For where I'm from it still was not cheap!!! If I wanted just a bed in a room with three other strangers it was about $40 a night. If I wanted a private room to myself, but still had to share a bathroom and shower with everyone else on that floor it was almost $80 a night. Around here you can get a really nice motel room for that price and sometimes even cheaper!
Wednesday came and I had the trip planned out. The Greyhound website said you can have one carry on bag which weighs less than 25 pounds. Come to find out they don't really check, as long as it is reasonably sized. But I was really stressed out packing it, trying to make sure I kept it under 25 pounds. I even went to Wal-mart and bought a luggage scale to weight it. The scale turned out to be a piece of junk, I don't think it was accurate at all. The hostel I was staying at said they had laundry facilities there so I could pack less clothes and wash everything mid-trip.
Everything I was taking needed to be able to fit in my backpack anyway. Public transportation can get expensive quickly so most of the places I was going I planned on walking. When you are walking everywhere you don't want to be dragging a bunch of luggage. You also can't really go into attractions, shops and restaurants dragging a suitcase along.
I took my camcorder, camera, laptop, chargers, a plastic bag of toiletries, socks, underwear and t-shirts. If you roll up your t-shirts and underwear they take up a lot less space than if you fold them as a lot of people do. When you roll them they also tend to wrinkle less.
I ended up not using my camcorder a whole lot, mostly because the shape of the charger kept it from plugging into the outlet on the train. My laptop I brought along just to download video and photos too if I needed to free up space in my camera.
After packing Wednesday morning I bought my tickets on Amtrak and Greyhound, booked my room at the hostel and got on the bus to Chicago three hours later.
Part 2 Coming Soon.....
At first I was only looking at one route, the route that looked to be the most scenic, taking the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle and back. It ate away at me all the next day, should I do it? I should know by now to not fight it, just to give in, because in the end I'll end up doing it anyway.
I had decided if I did go I would get a roomette on the train. It's more expensive than traveling coach, but with a roomette you are guaranteed a window seat, a bed, shower, privacy and you get three free meals a day in the dining car. If I traveled coach I would have to pay for all my meals, so I would be saving about $30 a day which I figured into the price difference of traveling coach vs. getting a roomette.
Now was a really good time for me to do this and if I missed that window then the next time I have the opportunity in a few weeks ticket prices will be more expensive. I'm still procrastinating, but at the same time I'm also planning encase I do go. I could take a Greyhound bus to St. Louis or Jefferson City to catch and Amtrak train to Chicago, but that would cost almost twice as much as just taking the bus all the way to Chicago. Greyhound also has midweek savings where on Tuesdays and Wednesdays you save up to 40%. I just read the article late Monday night, it was now Tuesday and if I was going to save on the Greyhound ticket I would need to leave the next day.
I checked the ticket prices on Amtrak again for the day I would leave on and I had they had sold out of everything reasonable from Chicago to Seattle. The only thing they had left was the larger rooms at over $1,000 and no way could I afford that!
I looked at alternate routes and saw I could go from Chicago to Sacramento California on the California Zephyr, which was also listed as one of the most scenic routes. From Sacramento I could then take the Coast Starlight to Seattle, again another one of Amtrak's most scenic routes. Then from Seattle I could take the Empire Builder back to Chicago. It would be a little more expensive to take this long way round, so I decided to go coach instead of getting a roomette.
Seattle is a super expensive city! I couldn't find a hotel room for less than $200 a night anywhere near the train station. The only thing I could find nearby was a hostel a couple blocks away. Being a travel junky I have heard a lot about hostels, but they aren't really common in the U.S. like they are in other parts of the world. Since this the only option I could afford I was willing to give it a try. For where I'm from it still was not cheap!!! If I wanted just a bed in a room with three other strangers it was about $40 a night. If I wanted a private room to myself, but still had to share a bathroom and shower with everyone else on that floor it was almost $80 a night. Around here you can get a really nice motel room for that price and sometimes even cheaper!
Wednesday came and I had the trip planned out. The Greyhound website said you can have one carry on bag which weighs less than 25 pounds. Come to find out they don't really check, as long as it is reasonably sized. But I was really stressed out packing it, trying to make sure I kept it under 25 pounds. I even went to Wal-mart and bought a luggage scale to weight it. The scale turned out to be a piece of junk, I don't think it was accurate at all. The hostel I was staying at said they had laundry facilities there so I could pack less clothes and wash everything mid-trip.
Everything I was taking needed to be able to fit in my backpack anyway. Public transportation can get expensive quickly so most of the places I was going I planned on walking. When you are walking everywhere you don't want to be dragging a bunch of luggage. You also can't really go into attractions, shops and restaurants dragging a suitcase along.
I took my camcorder, camera, laptop, chargers, a plastic bag of toiletries, socks, underwear and t-shirts. If you roll up your t-shirts and underwear they take up a lot less space than if you fold them as a lot of people do. When you roll them they also tend to wrinkle less.
I ended up not using my camcorder a whole lot, mostly because the shape of the charger kept it from plugging into the outlet on the train. My laptop I brought along just to download video and photos too if I needed to free up space in my camera.
After packing Wednesday morning I bought my tickets on Amtrak and Greyhound, booked my room at the hostel and got on the bus to Chicago three hours later.
Part 2 Coming Soon.....
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