Dasda

“Are you crazy?” If I heard that question once, I heard it a hundred times in the months leading up to my vacation. From the reaction of my friends and colleagues you would think I was organising a trek through the Amazon jungle by myself, and not a five-week tour of the USA! The point that they all seemed to think incredible was that I was going alone despite the fact that I’d prepared my trip so that I was actually “alone” very little of the time.

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It took me about 8 months to prepare for the trip. I wanted it to be the trip of a lifetime. Something I would remember for the rest of my life. I bought a large book about places to visit in the USA, collected a large number of travel brochures, and contacted the appropriate US State Embassies in London. The information flooded in and I pored over it eagerly. One rainy Saturday afternoon I sat on the floor and made a list of all the places I wanted to visit, then laid out a large map and ringed where these places were. I read the travel brochures cover to cover and finally decided my itinerary.

My plan was to fly from Newcastle to Florida, (via Amsterdam because it meant missing that traveller’s nightmare of an airport Heathrow), where I would join an organised tour of the Southern States of the US. This included visiting such beautiful places as St. Augustine, Savannah, Natchez, and also musical Meccas such as Memphis and Nashville, eventually ending the tour in New Orleans. From there I would take the Amtrak train from New Orleans to New York. After a few days in New York, which I would spend with a friend who lived near there, I would join a second...