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Sad Rhino
Aug 23, 2014
I have all of October to myself (yay for being between jobs) and I want to see a lot of the US, preferably by rail. I'll be solo for the entire trip, which I expect to take 20-25 days.

My tentative plan for the West Coast is LA to San Francisco and SF to Portland, all by train. I'll spend three nights in each city.

Is there anywhere along this route that people would recommend visiting? A decent hostel is a must and car rental isn't an option, which limits the possibilities (possibly to zero), but I would like to do some hiking in a good national park if feasible.

After Portland, I'm planning to fly to Chicago because it's fast and the tickets are actually cheaper than the train. I want to fly out of New York, but otherwise I'm very open about where I should visit and I don't mind taking a circuitous route.

I was thinking Chicago - DC - Philly - New York or Chicago - Toronto - Boston - New York (my preferred option), but if there are any great towns or smaller cities that I should stop in then please shout.

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Sad Rhino
Aug 23, 2014
Having wasted almost all day planning this, my itinerary now looks like this:

LA - SF - Portland - Chicago - Niagara Falls - Toronto - New York. It'll be three nights everywhere, except for one night in Niagara and five nights in NYC. I've visited Boston, Philly and DC twice before, so I'm not bothered about missing them. The train between Portland and Chicago is definitely out, as Trip Advisor indicates it usually suffers substantial delays in addition to the scheduled 45 hour trip.

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010
If you want to hike, you could take a day from San Francisco and head up to Muir Woods and/or Mount Tamalpais, and as an added bonus you get to cross the Golden Gate Bridge twice.

I have no idea how to get there by public transit but I'm sure there's something from downtown SF and probably even direct.

Edit: Actually no, there is no public transit going up there except on weekends ( http://www.nps.gov/muwo/planyourvisit/index.htm ). So, if you're in SF on Saturday or Sunday then you could head up there, otherwise you're out of luck.

dee eight
Dec 18, 2002

The Spirit
of Maynard

:catdrugs:
OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) in Portland is pretty cool. You could burn most of a day there easily.

https://www.omsi.edu/

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