Two Weeks, Four Time Zones, One Train Seat: My Cross-Country Amtrak Adventure
The epic journey that taught me about America, humanity, and myself, and why I could never do it again in my thirties
2017-08-25
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The epic journey that taught me about America, humanity, and myself, and why I could never do it again in my thirties
Some experiences define you. They become the stories you tell at dinner parties, the adventures that friends ask you to recount again and again, the journeys that fundamentally shift how you see the world. My two-week cross-country Amtrak odyssey was one of those experiences, and quite possibly the last great adventure of my twenties that I definitely couldn't (and wouldn't) attempt in my thirties.
The idea was simultaneously brilliant and insane: circumnavigate the entire United States by train, sleeping in my seat every night, carrying everything I needed in a single backpack, and disconnecting from the digital world for two weeks. No hotels, no flights, no rental cars: just me, Amtrak, and whatever America wanted to show me through those ever-changing train windows.
Looking back, I'm amazed I thought this was a reasonable thing to do. Two weeks of sleeping in a train seat? At 27, it seemed like an adventure. At 37, it sounds like a form of torture specifically designed to destroy my spine and my sanity.
My journey took me through nearly every major American landscape and culture:
Each transition was gradual yet dramatic. You don't fly over America's geographic diversity: you experience it slowly, watching the landscape morph from desert to forest to plains to mountains over the course of hours and days.
If there's one thing this journey taught me, it's that Americans are endlessly fascinating when you take the time to actually listen to them. The dining car became my university, and my fellow passengers were the professors.
There was:
Every meal, every conversation in the observation car, every chance encounter became a masterclass in American diversity. These weren't the curated interactions of social media or the superficial exchanges of air travel. These were real people with real stories, sharing space and time with a stranger on a train.
Perhaps the most profound aspect of the journey was the forced disconnection from the digital world. In 2017, being truly offline for two weeks was already becoming a radical act. No constant notifications, no social media updates, no ability to instantly Google every random thought.
The first few days were difficult. My brain kept reaching for distractions that weren't there. But gradually, something magical happened -I rediscovered the pleasure of sustained attention. I read entire books. I wrote pages of observations in my journal. I had conversations that lasted for hours. I watched landscapes change with the patience of someone who had nowhere else to be.
This forced digital sabbatical became one of the unexpected gifts of the journey.
Let me be clear about something: sleeping in a train seat for two weeks is not comfortable. By day three, my back was protesting. By day seven, I was fantasizing about horizontal surfaces. By day fourteen, I was walking like someone who'd been camping for a month.
But at 27, discomfort felt like part of the adventure. The physical challenges were proof that I was really doing something, really pushing boundaries. Now, in my thirties, the idea of voluntarily choosing discomfort for two weeks sounds less like adventure and more like self-imposed suffering.
This shift in perspective isn't about becoming soft: it's about understanding the value of comfort, the importance of sleep, and the recognition that some adventures are best attempted when your body can bounce back faster than your wisdom would prevent you from starting.
This journey became the foundation for many of the insights I later compiled into my book "Don't Cook Bacon Naked and Other Life Lessons": a collection of observations about life, adventure, and the occasionally painful process of figuring things out.
Some key realizations from the rails:
The physical discomfort of sleeping in that seat for two weeks was real, but it was also finite. The stories, insights, and personal growth from the experience have enriched my life for years.
Geographically, the country is impossibly vast: hours of train travel that barely register as movement on a map. But culturally, the connections between people across vast distances make it feel intimate and interconnected.
Without constant digital stimulation, your mind starts to wander in wonderful ways. Ideas percolate, creativity emerges, and you remember what it feels like to think without immediately seeking external validation or distraction.
I could tell you about the cities I visited during brief layovers, but those aren't the memories that stick. It's the conversations, the landscapes, the long hours of contemplation that transformed the experience.
Many of the observations that became "Don't Cook Bacon Naked and Other Life Lessons" emerged during those long train hours. When you're forced to sit with your thoughts for days on end, patterns emerge. Life lessons crystallize. The absurdities and profundities of human existence become clear in ways they never do during the rush of normal life.
The title itself came from a train conversation with an elderly farmer who was full of practical wisdom delivered with perfect comedic timing. "Don't cook bacon naked," he told me matter-of-factly, "learned that one the hard way when I was about your age." It was the kind of advice that's simultaneously obvious and profound: the perfect metaphor for the life lessons we only learn through experience.
This journey showed me an America that doesn't exist in headlines or social media feeds. It's the America of:
This isn't to romanticize or ignore America's complexities and challenges, but rather to acknowledge that the country contains multitudes, and you can only discover those multitudes by slowing down enough to actually see them.
The honest truth is that I'm too old for this particular adventure now. Not too old for adventure in general, but too old for:
But this isn't a loss: it's evolution. The adventures of my thirties are different: more comfortable, better planned, often shared with people I love. They may not test my physical limits in the same way, but they're rich with different kinds of discovery.
Years later, this train journey remains one of the defining experiences of my twenties. It taught me about:
Most importantly, it provided the raw material for countless stories, insights, and eventually, a book that tries to capture some of the wisdom that emerges when you're brave enough (or foolish enough) to step outside your comfort zone for an extended period.
If you're in your twenties and considering a similar journey, I have one piece of advice: do it. Do it before you get too comfortable, too established, too practical. Do it while discomfort still feels like adventure.
If you're in your thirties or beyond and considering it, I have different advice: modify the plan. Book sleeper cars. Plan for comfort. Remember that the goal is the experience, not the suffering.
The train will still show you America. The conversations will still be profound. The disconnection will still be valuable. You'll just sleep better along the way.
You can view the complete visual story of this cross-country rail adventure on my Flickr album. Each photo captures a different moment from this transformative journey across America.
And if you enjoyed this story, you might enjoy my book "Don't Cook Bacon Naked and Other Life Lessons", which expands on many of the insights and observations that emerged during those long, contemplative hours on the rails.
Some adventures are meant to be done once, at exactly the right moment in your life. This train journey was mine: a perfect storm of youth, curiosity, and just enough foolishness to think that sleeping in a train seat for two weeks sounded like a good idea. I'm grateful I did it, and equally grateful I don't have to do it again.