First of all, how exciting, Stephen Munson! And congrats on finishing up a book!
I’ve never traveled two months on a train (I hope to soon!), so please take my words with a grain os salt, but $5k might be tough. Let’s see if we can do it.
Let’s break it down:
-You can get a 45-day rail pass for $899 that let’s you have 18 train segments.
If you upgrade to a sleeper each night that can reach $5k real fast. What I would recommend is stopping overnight somewhere and crashing w/ a friend/hostel/Motel 6 etc. to keep the price point low.
If you do get a sleeper you get free meals, but if not, one of the cool things about Amtrak is that you can bring your own food onto the train.
I think this would put you at about 5k. The biggest thing I recommend is trying to avoid too many nights sleeping in coach on the train. It catches up to you!
Good luck!
