chump

Hopefully planning to travel East to West across the US in September. I'm going to be buying an unlimited train ticket to do the trip which is pretty cheap. Gonna carry everything in a backpack to make things easier.

My concern though is how easy it'll be to get accomodation each night as my plan is not to pre-book any accomodation. I dont want to be stuck to a particular route or timetable.

Does anyone have any experience doing this? Is it fairly easy just to turn up in a city and get a room for the night? Don't fancy sleeping rough

Thanks

Freak

One thing I will say is you MUST have accomodation arranged for your first night.....US immigration wont let you in the country (and in fact some airlines wont let you board the plane) without the address of your first nights stay.

chump

yeah ive got that covered....last thing i want to do is land after a 10 hour flight and have to sort a hotel out....

2000TLondon

There are doznes of motel chains here, and along any freeway there are absolutely hundreds of motels.

I do not know about around train stations. The train isn't a particularly popular mode of transport, as far as I can tell, and by all accounts the passenger train does not have right of way over a freight train, you can end up sitting still for hours and hours on end. So you're right not to book accomodation as you'll probably miss it anyway!!

For motel chains try google (or google local) for

Motel 6
La Quinta
Comfort Suites
Best Western
Studio 6
Red Roof Inn
Hampton Inn
Park Inn
Days Inn
Super 8 Motel

All of which may be a bit ropey, but can also be perfectly nice depending on luck of the draw!

Holiday Inn, Hilton and Marriot all have several business aimed at the lower end of the scale. You can pay between $30 and $100 a night at any of these places, I guess.

chump

thanks....i chose the train because 1) Im in no rush (ive got as long as i like) 2) its far cheaper than plane or renting a car....(can get an unlimited ticket for around £300 for a month and can go anywhere)....

so im prepared to sit through some delays....

thanks for info on hotels/motels....guess if i cant find one i'll just have to find a bench for the night

RON

Chump, most of the cheaper motels seem to have rooms empty most nights, so if you were to do a check on each ones websites, i'm sure you could print off a list with address's and phone numbers.... you might end up with quite a few pages to carry around, but it might save you sleeping on that bench!!

Ron..

ps, off to Denver fro 2 1/2 weeks soon.... driving roughly 3000 miles netween arrival and departure....!

Freak

I also would do some planning in advance- just in terms of researching possible places, say for example its a big event in town and you may struggle to find a hotel with places if you dont have a list of them.

Trains are fine over there- a hell of a lot better than the uk ones thats for sure.

chump

hi ron,

thats a good idea but the problem is that once i've landed im not planning at all where im going. Only thing i know is im ending up in San Francisco!

So i could be anywhere - any time - that would end up being a lot of paper to carry around