72 Hour Sleeper Train Across America (New York to Seattle on Amtrak)

We are riding a sleeper train for 72 hours all the way across the United States from New York City to Seattle. Then from there, we'll cross the border into Canada and ride another train all the way back 95 hours from Vancouver to Toronto, which means for over a week we are going to be eating, drinking, sleeping, and everything in between on trains. It literally sounds like someone's banging on. Along the way, we'll have the chance to see how the US Cross country journey on Amtrak compares to the Canadian journey journey on VIA Rail. This video is going to be the first half of our trip crossing the US from coast to coast. To do that, we'll need to connect two different trains. First, we board the Lakeshore Limited overnight from New York to Chicago. And after a quick deep dish pizza, we'll jump on the Empire Builder, which will take us the rest of the way to the West Coast. And of course, throughout the journey, we'll give you a full tour of our sleeper rooms.

Oh, no.

And our honest thoughts on the food. This feels kind of more like an airplane meal that they stuck in the microwave.

If you're new here, we're Karen Bate and we've gotten to experience some of the best overnight trains all over the world, including the world's longest train, the Trans Siberian. The world's most expensive train, the Orient Express. America's most scenic train, the Coast Starlight. India's most luxurious train, the Maharajas Express. Can I book a cooking class with you? Australia's longest train, the Indian Pacific. And many, many, many more. We're so excited to be adding another to our list today. And we should have come to the train station way because apparently there's a huge Amtrak lounge with free food. But it's already time to board our first train of this journey.

Once we get on this train, we are going to be spending the next seven of eight nights sleeping on a moving train.

Room aight? She's tight. Are we room A my kids? Yeah, yeah, we're here.

Drumroll, please. Welcome to our home for the next 19 hours. Oh, gosh. Looks very neat. It smells clean.

As long as you just don't look too close.

Yeah, I mean, it's clearly an old train. Like, I don't think it's gonna fall.

Whose fault?

I don't know.

Oh, we got it turned up to 85 in here. It's giving me flashbacks to Azerbaijan. It must be 100 degrees in here.

I shouldn't be complaining at all. We've been on some really rough trains.

Wake up, everybody.

How do we turn this down, we are on our way to Chicago.

Off we go.

All right, We've just left New York in the distance and now we are rolling alongside the Hudson River. And the crazy thing about this trip is we actually tried to do the same trip almost two years ago to the day. It was going to be LA to Seattle and then take the train across Canada as opposed to New York to Seattle. And we actually did the first half of that trip. We took the coast Starlight up the California coast. It was a surprisingly good experience. But then when we got to the border, it was Covid times and I had to take a test across the border into Canada and that test came back positive. I had no symptoms, but I definitely had covet. And so that trip ended up getting cut short and we didn't get to do the Canadian version of the trip. So this time we decided we'd try out a different Amtrak route and compare what it would be like to cross the US by train versus Canada by train.

Like, I think I might be the happiest person that's ever sat in the this room.

All right, we've been on board for about an hour now. I've gotten acquainted with our new little home and I've actually come to really love it, despite what I said when I first moved on. So now I'm going to give you a full tour of our room. It has been so long since I've.

Done a train tour.

Australia last year is the last train on the road, so forgive me if I'm a little rusty. A couple years ago we rode Amtrak for the first time. We booked a family room thinking that that would be the best room that gave us the most space. Turns out if you don't have a family, you probably shouldn't book family room. We'll start on this side. We have a sliding, closing, locking door with a window, which is fine cuz we can see out both sides. But if we don't want the window we have on this side we have a closet. There is duct tape on it, which is a little strange, but that's to keep it from rattling.

Like if Tara's head is here tonight, this is what's going to be happening.

Also on this side we have the attendant call button if we need anything. We have a thermostat. Don't have that on every train. And a fan.

Also the attendant call button is in English, so we accidentally push it this time.

I heard it. I didn't mean Sh.

Sh.

Oh, no, I didn't think it was not Actually doing the shake. Next to the sink, there's a sign that says ice water, which makes me think that you can drink it. They also have little cups. I just. I feel weird about drinking training water. Here. We have the only outlets that we know of so far. There's room light button.

We have a cute little trash can.

Stains.

There's even another closet on this side. I just noticed there's a ladder in here. If you'll follow me to this. Whoops. Falling apart here above the seat, we have a few more controls. The first one is this knob that says speaker volume. It doesn't seem to work because no matter what I do, it's still very, very quiet. I can hardly hear the guy next to it. We have some light controls. We have a reading light on this side and sailing light.

The seat is pretty comfortable. This is obviously going to be my bed tonight. They like the top bunk. When we boarded, they gave us our dining menu. They told us that we could have our dinner in the room, like room service. Or we could go to the dining car and have our dinner. So I think we'll do that. So we can see a different part of the train. These windows are the highlight of the room. We're picking up some space. We have this fun little, like, bonus chair.

There's a. There's this little foot latch.

It looked like it was something I wasn't supposed to pressed. Ow.

Oh.

Oh. I thought this was the bottom. This chair is really fun because this way we both get a window seat. And this is one of my favorite parts. The drain table. Golly, It's a thousand pounds. And we can sit across from each other and have our coffee in the morning or play checkers. I mean chess.

Comment below. Chess or checkerboard? And are they the same? Because I actually don't know. I feel like if you want to seem more sophisticated, you say chess. If you want to sound like five year old, you say checkers.

We're losing it.

This is just like Australia. I don't know what's happening right now. Just wait till she gets to the bathroom and talks about her water shoes. Didn't know you traveled with water shoes, Grandpa.

You ready for this? Behind this door, we have our own toilet. And drumroll, please.

Shower.

It's very small. Like, imagine the size of an airplane bathroom. And that's about what you have.

There's a wet bath, though. If someone showers, the floor will get wet.

Be sure to bring your shower.

You had to have watched a lot of our past videos to be able to Appreciate this one. I don't know what's with all the inside jokes.

I brought my water shoes, so that'll be great. For some reason we have toilet paper in these little plastic bags.

It's toilet paper without the roll, so it takes up less space and you.

Can take a shower and all of your toilet paper doesn't get wet.

Sorry, this is really bothering me. They also provide it washcloths, whatever the medium sized washcloths are called. The ones that you dry your hands on. Hand towels, hand tow and hold on, I'm doing a scene here. Okay, I really have two feet and three body towels. Is that what you call those three towel towels?

I actually think the layout of the room is amazing. There's a lot of really great things. It's just old. The state of this tray table, the random caulking to hold together the room, the scuffs down here, the duct tape, the questionable cleanliness.

It literally sounds like someone's banging on.

Time for dinner. Not sure which way the dining car is, but we'll try this way.

Press.

Press harder. Oh, wow. Very loud. How convenient. It was just the very next train car over and the sun is setting over the Hudson river right now.

I remember being really impressed by the dining car on the train on the west coast as car definitely feels way newer than the roofs. It has like old school diner vibes, but in a good way.

Apparently one beverage is included with their meal, so.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Oh, my gosh, it's so hot. Two layers, double aluminum. I hate to compare too much, but the dining experience on our last Amtrak train was really lovely. Like, I think we had real plates. This feels kind of more like an airplane meal.

We're flying economy right now in Canada. We'll be in business class.

We're very much having an economy experience.

Whoa.

Okay, I'm about to take back everything I said. We got the kofta kebabs, plant based, protein spiced basmati rice, curried cauliflower, chickpeas, peppers, raisins, cashews, scallions. It also came with a little side salad and a warm piece of bread.

Hot.

Oh, my gosh. 10 out of 10. This has to be the best thing on the menu. It's better than the tortellini I got.

Albany.

We're stumped here for like an hour, so we thought we'd get out, stretch our legs. It's been a long three hours.

It is cold and all absolutely freezing.

Oh, gosh. Painfully cold. Like, I feel like I'm doing a polar plunge in the Air. You want me to go back on now?

Yeah, let's do it.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, got it.

You may go up in the station and make purchases upstairs. Once we depart, there will be a cafe car all the way up front, but it will be open up on announcement only. It is not open. Not open. Cafe car is not open until we get the opening announcement. Close the door. Once you're done with the restroom, do not put paper towels down the toilet. The back seats in front of you are not trash receptacles. Do not use them as such. That was a lot of rules. Kind of felt like I was back to school again.

I'm connected and tracked WI fi right now. It says unsecured network, which expose all unencrypted network traffic.

It is great that Amtrak has WI fi so that we can get a little work done. And later on tonight as we're going to sleep, we can watch some shows. But it's also great that we have surfshark, which is a VPN, which stands for Virtual Private Network. And it encrypts all the data sent between our computer and the Internet so that as we're connecting to these unsecure WI FI networks, we're protected from hackers and other people who want to do malicious things to us. We've been using it now for the last three years as we've been traveling the world and we've never once had.

An issue, which is actually pretty amazing if you think about it.

But that's the necessary boring part of a vpn. It's never fun to pay for something that's boring and necessary. But the good news is there is entertainment value to this as well, because a VPN can also be used to change the virtual location of your computer and get to access access to a completely new content library. So pretend tonight that we're in another country and we want to watch the show that we've been binging recently, which is TED Lasso. It would be super easy to change the virtual location of our computer back to the US and still be able to watch TED Lasso. If you don't already have a VPN, we obviously highly recommend Surf Shark. Plus it's the only VPN that offers one account for unlimited devices and they offer a 30 day money back guarantee, so there is no risk to try it out. To get started, just click the link in the description below. And I'm whispering because we just had.

Some neighbors move in in Albany, so we're trying to be respectful.

Our room attendant should be by Any minute to convert the couch into beds.

All right, guys, come on in. Then I can put the bed down for you guys. Come on in.

All right.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Bet Test.

Oh, it's actually not too bad. Bottom bunk is gigantic.

Huge, actually. It's like the size of a double bed. And I want to cut with a strap that will keep me safe.

Looks like they added this pad on top of the chair. Put a sheet, then another sheet, and then this blanket.

Oh, no.

No. It's very curly.

Why does. Oh, God.

Oh, it's on my pillow.

All right, quick tour around the top bunk. I've got all the same light controls as we have downstairs. A little cubby if I want to hold, like, a cell phone or a bottle of water or something. And then also my own climate control. It's also cool having windows from the top bunk and tons of headroom even sitting straight up.

Are we too tired for Ted Lasso, or do you want to come over and watch it with me tomorrow?

Just for a minute? We have seven nights.

Just one episode.

Seven nights.

Just a half episode. I used to hop on a train and just not even think about sleep. Like, maybe we just used to exhaust ourselves, like, so much that we could just sleep anywhere.

Good night. See you in the morning. Ready for the light to go off.

There we go. Oh, the exit glows.

Good morning. Solid six out of ten sleep. We just passed through Toledo, Ohio, and we should be in Chicago in about two hours.

I found coffee.

Not sure how I feel about this big bottom bed. It's very hard if you want to do anything besides sleep.

How'd you sleep?

Not bad. Literally just, like, hit a rail and the whole train would just be like.

Wow, this is reminding me so much of the bike trip.

I know.

We probably biked by this exact point.

Breakfast time.

There was a lot more offer for breakfast. I could have got an omelette or a breakfast sandwich or a lot of other unhealthy things like pancakes. But keeping it light because we are headed to. That's what it was like trying to sleep last night. We are heading to Chicago, which is home of the deep dish pizza, which I've never had, so I went with another coffee.

It's not bad.

I'm scared. I can't get it.

All right.

To be fair, it was a long night. Changing my score to a 4 out of 10.

Time to get up. We got pizza to eat.

We ended up being about an hour and a half delayed, but 20 hours later, we finally made it to Chicago. And I think we still have time for a deep dish pizza and to see the bean, first we just have to figure out where to store our luggage.

So we thought we were going to have to pay $10 to store each of our bags, which would have been fine, but turns out if you have a sleeper car, not only do you get access to the lounge, but you also get to store your bags in there for free. So we're completely free. Now we are on our way to find deep dish pizza because somehow we have been to 106 countries, but never Chicago.

Chicago is kind of epic. The whole city feels like it's just built around this river. So you can literally just ride a boat through the middle of the city.

It's amazing. It's like the Venice of the usa.

I'm sure if you're a native of Chicago, this is a very divisive topic, but we absolutely ask Instagram last night while we were on the train and Lose was the most recommended. What were the final two pizza restaurants?

Lose or Pod Quads?

Okay, so between the two Lose. Giordano's, though, is number one for me. I'm a stuffed pizza guy. I'm not a deep dish.

That's what this sign makes me want to do.

That's a good sign.

It kind of sounds like Illuminati.

All right, let's go eat some pizza.

That's a ball.

Oh, my gosh. This place is packed in such a vibe. I think we might have over ordered.

Whoa. This is the best looking bruschetta I've ever seen in my entire life.

I'm glad you're doing this for me.

Wow, look at that cheek.

We got the Lou because we figured if they named the pizza after the guy who started it, it was probably pretty good. It's buttery crust. Then they put the cheese first directly on the crust, then the topping, then the tomato sauce and chunky tomatoes on the very top. So it's like the opposite of a normal pizza from what I understand. And according to the Internet, back in 1943, there were a group of Italians living here in Chicago at a place called Unas. And they claim to have invented Chicago style deep dish pizzas. One of those guys was Lou. And then one day Lou was like, I don't want to live here anymore. I'm gonna move to the suburbs. So he moved out of town and started his own pizza place.

Oh, yeah. It lives up to the hype how long we've done. I'd also like to mention that this is a Small. Supposed to feed two people. The bruschetta was just as good, if not better than the pizza to the bean.

And now we have less than an hour to see the bean and catch our train, which Google Maps says is.

40 minute walk all on foot. We will not take a taxi.

Oh.

It is very windy in Chicago today. Which reminds me that Kara taught me something this morning. I thought Chicago got its nickname from the weather. The Windy City. Turns out out it's the people.

The people are windy.

I. I think it meant like arrogant.

But it is windy.

It is actually physically windy. What the heck? They closed off the bean. That's like, are you sure?

Paris closing off the Eiffel Tower. It's like duct taped on the bottom.

It's actually.

What the up over there. Let me get your picture with the bean. Wow.

Love that.

I really wanted the classic tourist picture.

It's bigger than I thought though.

It's pretty big.

All right, let's go to Seattle.

Thank you, sir.

At Union Station in Chicago is an incredible building.

Literally, as soon as we walked into the lounge, they called us the boy. I've been super impressed with the Amtrak lounges on this trip. Great snacks, lots of seats.

Wow. So this train is called the Empire Builder, and it has to be one of the most iconic trains in the entire Amtrak fleet.

Having somewhere to store your luggage that's not in the room is a game changer. All right. Our last train was only one story tall and on this journey we're gonna be up top. This one has the coffee station, Kara's kind of train.

Wow.

It's very different.

It's way better.

Is it?

We literally left right on time to the minute. I feel like we could stay here and just tour all the restaurants for like a month.

Otherwise, sit back, relax, enjoy your ride, and as always, thank you for choosing Amtrak. Okay, K did the last tour, so I'm going to try to do this one just to switch it up a little bit. Yes. That light is flickering every time we go over a bump. That will not drive me crazy for the next 48 hours. The room is actually buried somewhere. I think the floor layout is exactly the same. We're just missing some space above. It's definitely shorter because this is a double decker train. We're losing the space up top where we stored the bags and also some of the headroom that I'm going to get on the top bunk. I'm definitely not going to be able to sit up up here tonight like I was able to last night.

Oopsie.

Hey, daddy.

So simple layout. We've got a closet over here which, wow, Cara has already stuffed with all of her winter clothes. Similar size sink, mirror, giant cabinet, A coffee stain, A little more space. A real roll of toilet paper this time. Like, it actually has cardboard in the middle of it. Trash can. Biggest upgrade in this room is the seat. It's leather. It looks way nicer, way newer. This headrest kind of reminds me of, like, what you would see on a Delta airplane. They just kind of forgot to update the top. Looks like a child ate that deep dish pizza that we had earlier today and then just took their hands and went.

Let's see something positive.

Let's continue. Negative.

Come around this way.

The biggest drawback to this room over the last one is that we don't have two rows of windows, but we are on the upper deck. So when you sit down, you're a perfect eye level, and you have amazing views. Do we have. No. How are we gonna play chess?

Oh, no, we can see it.

Oh, nice. It actually is here. It's just texture registered. That's funny. Definitely be getting some work done there over the next two days. Best of all, we have a bonus outlet. It really confused me why they wouldn't put the outlets by the desk on the last train, but at least we have one over here this time. Same chair set up like this can fold back against the wall. And then also a very similar bathroom. Also somewhere to store your luggage up here or something to hit your head on. Depends on how you look at it. Very similar bathroom setup. About the size of an airplane bathroom. If you'll come inside a little bit, you can see that instead of using the duct tape on the closet, this time they used it on the shower. We're now 24 hours without a shower, so we will definitely be testing this one out. I am actually very excited for the next 48 hours. There is something really relaxing to me about being stuck somewhere, if that makes sense. Like, I see how you could think it's crazy that we like this kind of stuff, but like. Like, our life is so go, go, go. That being forced to sit in the same place for 48 hours is actually pretty nice.

Especially when even though we're in the same place for 48 hours, we're actually moving. It's very productive. Like, I love waking up and being in a new place than when I went to sleep. Downtown Milwaukee.

Just made our way to the observation car. I assume it gets its name from all of the windows, which I use right now because we're at the Milwaukee train station. But I think this is going to be a great office for the afternoon.

All right. First meal on the empire builder. And I feel like there's just automatically a totally different vibe to this train because we're going to be on this train for two full days. Like if this is terrible, that kind of like says a lot about our next 48 hours.

As I was saying, I was a bit nervous, but we already are in better shape than last night. We have like semi real plate but real class.

Cheers.

Feels fancier. We're both starting with the mixed salad with a little bit of brie. For our main we both got the bolognese with a plant based meat sauce.

Very good. I'm loving the Italian theme of our day. I also had like five espressos. Last but not least, we got a chocolate mousse tart.

Oh wow.

Bedtime.

Are the top ones always smaller?

It's only 9:15. All right, see you in the morning. Hopefully sleep score is better than a six. I promise this mattress is harder tonight. Quite as much room up here. I thought a very tall guy and I'm still nowhere close to being able to sit up up in this bed.

This is great.

Good morning. Last night was better. I Give like a 7 out of 10.

It.

Looks like it's just been brutally cold here. Here with like no snow. So I just pulled up Google maps on my phone to see where we were and we've passed through Rugby, North Dakota. There's a little icon that says that it is the geographical center of North America. So I guess we're halfway.

I'm scared for breakfast. I ordered the breakfast quesadilla with potatoes. Pretty excited.

Good stuff.

Great views of North Dakota.

Wow. Welcome to North Dakota. So we just stopped in Manat, North Dakota for what they call a fresh air break, which is anytime the train stops long enough for us to get off and get a little fresh air.

They just said manot and I just felt like that sounded so wrong cuz it spelled just like pinot. So I've been looking at it.

I said I'm having a hard time skiing and I've did that for 50 years. What am I going to do on a snowboard? You know we were both wrong. Yeah, it's my not.

No, me not.

No my not.

You were saying my not earlier.

Oh, me not. Oh, maybe I was right. Then we were asking that guy back there how you say the name of the town that we're in. And then it was like all those memes and like Shorts that you see about how midwestern people. Looks like you got a dead branch over there. Yes, I do. I'll take care of that for you. Seriously, don't worry about it. No, I insist. That guy embodied all of it. The accent. Meeting that man made it worth the stop.

Well, I learned something on this train ride today. I did not realize how much oil there is in North Dakota. We've passed tons of tanker trains, big storage facilities, and drilling equipment. I think if you just popped me on this train and made me look out the window and guess where I was, I would have said Texas. As soon as I stepped outside and it was this cold, I would have known I was wrong.

Time for my first Amtrak shower. Nate actually showered on our California Amtrak a couple years ago, and the shower.

Just run out of water.

Didn't go so well. I have high hopes for.

For this one, though.

Step one, close and secure shower curtain. Step two, remove or adjust shower head. Step three, adjust water temperature. Okay. Obviously, I'm gonna put it on all the way hot.

Okay, wish me luck.

While Cara's in the shower, I wanted to show you a little bit of the engineering that I did last night to make this room a bit little, little quieter. First, I learned that these used toe warmers. That car I wore yesterday in Chicago actually really helped to dampen the banging that was going on between these two walls. And then this is the handle that turns the water on and off and just sounded like a bell that was constantly ringing. But. But the kleenex fixed that. So I think both of those things contributed to our slightly better sleep last night.

Whoa, baby. That was all awesome. It was so hot. I never had to push the button every 30 seconds. I didn't push the button at all. I actually tried, and the button just doesn't even work.

Constant hot water.

Constant hot water. Decent pressure. Never ran out of hot water. Like, usually at the end, you know, you can kind of feel it trickling off. No, it was great. I only ran into the wall, like, twice. I mean, I'd give it like an 8 out of 10.

Well, we ended up sitting with some new friends for lunch, and we didn't want to disturb their meal time, but we both got the loaded baked potato with vegan chili. I'm pretty sure we had the same thing on the California train, and it was just as good as I remember it being.

At this point in the journey, I have plenty of time to kill, so let me give you a quick tour around our carriage and show you how it's laid out. I'll start at the back and work my way to the front. Front. So we are currently on the upper deck. And there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 rooms just like ours. This is where there's free coffee from 6 to 11. There are 10 roomettes which are the smaller rooms which basically just have two seats and a top bunk inside. Down the stairs there's a place to store all of our luggage. And on the back half we have two restrooms. Not bad. A little bigger than the one we have in our room. Then on this side you have the showers. Fresh towels. This is like a laundry bag for the dirty towels. And as you can see, quite a bit more space in the shared showers than there is in the one in our room. Also free soap, body wash, lotion, shampoo and conditioner. That is a family room like the one that we stayed on on the coast. Starlight. Another family room. And then four more roommates.

We made it to Montana and it's snowing here.

This is amazing. I don't love being cold, but if it's going to be cold it might as well be snowing. That makes it so much more fun. Okay, that's enough fresh air. I ran out so fast I didn't even grab my coat.

Cheers.

He's a solitary having a little happy hour. Since we weren't last minute.

I'm also watching Trek Tritty's video about vill which is the train that we're getting on next to go back across Canada. And let's just say it looks like we saved the best for last. This is going to be epic.

The I mask for Kara's idea. But she does things I want to do all the time. So I figured I could do some things that she wants to do. I feel like I definitely get better at this deal.

Dirty socks. Just because they are dirty doesn't mean they don't deserve to have a friend.

He's right. After all, we're all mates with a sh.

Foreign.

Good morning. It is only 6:30, but on this trip our bodies have crossed time zones three times already. So technically mine thinks it's 9:30, but I'm glad it woke me up because the views this morning are absolutely incredible. We've left the flat barren land of North Dakota and mostly Montana behind and we have woken up up to these big beautiful glowing mountains.

How'd you sleep?

I don't know if I'm sleeping better or if I'm just getting used to it.

So we are currently passing by Levensworth, Washington, which I've heard so much about because it's like a German themed town, which has always sounded a little corny to me and I never had a desire to visit. But apparently, apparently these are the mountains that it's surrounded by. It is now on my bucket list.

As much as I don't want this to end, I am very, very, very excited to go to Canada and check out the beer. Al. I have a feeling it's gonna be weather.

I don't know. I cannot believe that it's almost over. I feel like I was looking forward to being bored. I just feel like, oh my goodness, we're still on this train. What are we gonna do? And I never got there. I could easily do another day. Two, three on the train.

Seattle.

72 hours later. We have made it across the country. We have a few hours to spend here in Seattle before we catch a bus that's going to take us across the border to Vancouver where we'll spend the night. And then tomorrow we get on another train in less than 24 hours.

Hours.

It's going to take us all the way back across Canada. But I think the next one's going to be a little more fun.

I didn't even know what I was missing on Amtrak train.

Travel does not get better than this.

What? Where? Where? On the tree. On the end of the tree.

The end. Tree.

The end. I never see it. I never saw it. I never saw it.

I've never been so sad.

I've never been here before.

So excited. We weren't even moving. I just fell.

It looks rich and strong and dense.

Just like I like my.

Pictures of people taking pictures. Welcome to the grossest place in all of Seattle. We did not come here on purpose. All the walls are covered in gum, cigarettes, wrappers. This is all gum. She's usually a better dancer than that. I promise.

Is that a reenactment of me today?