The last four years we spent our summer vacations backpacking with our children in the Sierra Nevada.
Depending on our kids’ desires, some years the focus was more on hiking and we hiked the JMT, other years the focus was more on camping and we set up base camp at a hot spring.
This year we decided to go on a totally different kind of backpacking trip. Our intent was to show our children the vastness of their country – mile by mile. At the same time we wanted to introduce them to travelling the country with a backpack on the cheap using public transport.
Amtrak offers a 15 day USA Rail Pass for $225 per child and $450 per adult. It allows for travelling 8 segments during that time. We decided to use that opportunity to travel the perimeter of the US on the following seven segments: San Jose – Seattle – Chicago – New York – Washington – New Orleans – Los Angeles – San Jose. Our trip would bring us through 26 states and DC.
Now you wonder why I post this trip report on BPL. In my mind, backpacking was instrumental for the success of our trip. We used the lessons we learned on the JMT and everyone had a backpack with around 10 lbs base weight. That allowed us to move with ease through the public transportation system from Amtrak to Metro to bus – and of course walk everywhere we wanted to go in the cities we visited. Our sleeping bags were the envy of every coach class traveler on the Amtrak trains. They made sleeping in our seats on the train so much more comfortable.
Sitting in the observation car and listening to the explanations the National Park Service “Trails & Rails” provided about all the things we saw along the route, made the rail riding part of our trip very enjoyable.
Our children met many other children on the train and played endless board games and card games – Yahtzee, Uno, Battle Ship, Sorry – you name it, we played it, while seeing the land and listening to the explanations about its history.
We saw plenty of wildlife along the way, including bald eagles, coyotes, deer, a pheasant, a turtle, an alligator, sea lions, seals, pelicans, etc. from the observation car.
We also saw old industrial sites falling apart and new suburbs rising. We saw trailer parks and mansions, historic sites and homeless encampments. Our kids now have a better understanding of the geography of the US, its different regions and their way different look and feel. Now they have vivid images of the Cascades, the Rockies, the Appalachians, of the Plains, the Bayous, the desert and everything in between.
With our backpacks we were independent, had food, clothes and sleeping bags always handy. Everything was easy for us:
waiting in train stations,
exploring cities like Chicago
or New York
was made easy with our light backpacks.
Wandering across the National Mall in Washington from memorial to memorial and museum to museum was a highlight of the trip.
I think we could easily spend a whole week there instead of the two days we had.
Our family enjoyed two days of strolling through several museums of The Smithsonian. Of course we had to visit the German-American Friendship Garden too.
Our girls learned to navigate timetables, find connections and platforms, leave the train at the right station, navigate a city map to the youth hostel or an attraction they wanted to see. They were in charge of what we saw – which meant for example that we went into the American History Museum two days in a row but not into the National Archives.
At our last stop along our trip – Los Angeles – our kids pulled a fast one on us. They decided to go to Disneyland. They knew that would be their only chance ever to go there with us, as we would never take them there as we like to spend our valuable vacation time with other things. They were hesitant, as it costs a lot of money, but hopeful. Our trip was otherwise planned on the cheap with free sleeping on the train, free museums in Washington, cheap youth hostels along the way, etc. We thought briefly about it and went with them to the “Happiest Place on Earth”. Six people with their backpacks on was clearly an unusual sight at Disneyland and was a conversation starter like in several other places along our way.
The next day we walked the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. Seeing my five ladies with their backpacks made my heart jump. They are clearly the bright shining stars in my life.
On the local train back from San Jose to Palo Alto I saw many smiling faces and walking the last two miles home to Menlo Park was done with a skip in their step.
I’m relatively sure back at school – when asked what they did during the summer – our girls will say “I went to Disneyland”. May be they will also mention that they went by train. Who knows, they might even tell that they took the train the long way – 7600 miles around the whole US to get there and 400 more miles to get home. It will take most likely several years until all the other impressions of their backpacking trip around the US via train will gain in importance and they realize what a great adventure they had.
