Rail passes and driving in Western USA

[lauren313]

Hey, any input on this will be much appreciated, thanks guys (and girls!).

My boyfriend and I are doing a round the world trip starting in September. Originally we planned on flying into New York from London and making our way across to LA using an Amtrak pass. However, we realised that there's not actually all that much we want to see between New York and California. So, we're figuring we might just fly into New York, stay for a few days (maybe get a bus or train somewhere if the fancy takes us) and then fly on to LA.

From LA, we thought about getting an Amtrak California rail pass. Has anyone ever used one of these? It confuses me slightly, this is what it says on the website: "Travel is limited to not more than four one-way journeys on a given route segment. "

Does this mean you can only use it for four journeys in total? I feel a bit lame being confused by this, but it doesn't take much!! Anyway, the pass is valid for 7 days of travel in a 21 day period, which is fine by me. It costs $159.

We also wanted to get over to Las Vegas at some stage. We figured we could get an internal flight from LA and back again, before we go onto the next leg of our journey. The cheapest I found was approx $120 pp. Then I got to thinking "maybe we could hire a car for a few days?". Car hire would cost around $160 in total for 4 days (unfortunately, we have to pay extra for being under 25).

My question really, is: What do people think of driving from LA to Vegas? Has anyone done it? I figure it would be a good way of seeing a bit more of the country, and even once the price of petrol has been taken into account, it will work out cheaper than flights. Is the drive a pleasant one?

Goodness me, I'm sorry, this is a MASSIVE post, my apologies!

Anyway, to sum up: Can anyone explain the Amtrak CA pass to me, and any thoughts on driving to Vegas? Thanks so much!!!