Some tips:
Get a pass. 14 days at $499,or one of the others. They give you a number of segments but it is hard to use them all.
You can bring anything on the train. i BRING A TALLER THAN REGULAR ROLLING ICE CHEST. YES A LARGE ONE. Also two thick blankets and your own comfy pillow. In addition to your regular luggage, which you check. Bring food, beer etc in the ice chests.
They give you seats, like on a bus, but you have free reign of the train. If traveling double, DO NOT SIT TOGETHER! Make sur3e you get seats across the aisle from each other. Both with the ice chests, blankets, pillow set up. The seats have these weird reclining legs that dont stay up, the sag. Not confortable. Use the ice chest to prop the leg up so it lays flat. If you dont have a seat mate you can use the ice chest to prop both seats up. Very comfy.
If you have a seatmate or get bored you can sleep in the viewing car too. Be sure to tell the engineer your destination so he doesn't wake you up. In the seats he marks it, in the viewing car it is mandatory that you tell them or every stop they will axk.
There are these couch like things with three seats and one seat turned at an angle. There is a triangle space that makes that couch uncomfortable. use your blankets to fill that in. Now youve got a pretty comfy 7 foot long spot.
I take photots and use one blanket to blovk glare in the viewing car. At night the blanket, pillow from AMTRAK dont cut it (But get em anyway, you will use them for height adjustment etc.
I try to ht hotels every so often and see the sights. Most stations are right downtown.
I usually try to stay on the outskirts and take transit to a cheaper hotel, Why everything rolls or is stowed in a locker at the station.
I try to eat only one meal from the dining car per day. They are not cheap (LA< SF Prices) but are pretty damn good. The KC steaks delectible. There is a snakc bar as well, with sandwiches and hot dogs and sodas but that stuff I bring wihth me. Bar too, but I dont do that, It is a lot of fun there though, usually, but not always at the bottom of the viewing car.
See my lower post for more info...
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