The train ride that made me decide tourists aren’t so bad after all
The train ride that made me decide tourists aren’t so bad after all
Dodging all tourists on my Amtrak trip to D.C.
Writer’s note: This post was originally published on Medium’s “We Need to Talk” on January 22, 2020.
I dodge locals. I always have and probably always will. But on the train ride to Washington D.C., I had a tougher time declaring this unwritten travel rule.
I’d previously thought about going to D.C. before former President Barack H. Obama left office, but plane and hotel travel expenses made me shy away from the idea. Then The Root had a social media contest for participants to win free Amtrak tickets to anywhere in the United States, and I was one of the winners. I knew if I didn’t jump on this opportunity now, I’d miss out on a historical visit to the White House — one that would probably never happen again.
This was a perfect time for me to see the MLK Memorial, stroll around Pennsylvania Avenue and find out why people gushed over the Abraham Lincoln Memorial so much. I asked my mother to be my plus one, and she happily agreed. If left up to me, she would be the only person I talked to from Chicago (minus the president and the First Lady, if we’d been chosen from their White House visitor waiting list).
Recommended Read: “Cheap travel: 12 things to do in Washington DC for $10 or less”
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My hang-up with talking to tourists
No matter where you travel, there are always a group of travelers who ask you questions like, “Where are you from?” “What’s it like there?” and then give news reports about what they’ve heard. If I wanted to talk about Chicago or get an update on Chicago, I’d have stayed at home. When I travel, the goal is to talk to locals from that area and to get to know what life is like there, not home.
And sometimes you’ll get pulled into the worst conversations in the most beautiful places. I distinctly recall a couple from Chicago counting off recent murders while a group of us were sitting by a boat getting ready to parasail in Oahu’s ocean. Talk about a buzzkill.
Recommended Read: “Memories of Lahaina Hawaii and steam locomotives ~ The Sugar Cane Train was my intro to Lahaina in Maui”
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So when my mother and I stepped onto the Amtrak train, I scrambled to our quiet corner and charged my tech gear. I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the seats were and the amount of leg room I had. That didn’t stop my mother and I from hanging out in the cafe cars to stretch our legs, admire the outside view and grab a snack or two. But I could easily roll up into a ball with my journal and enjoy the ride. I had not been in an Amtrak train in well over a decade and forgot it was fun to ride.