What travel book should I take on cross country trip?

[Law638]

What essential book i.e. atlas, should I take on my round trip cross country trip?

 

[Maglev]

I would print or download the Route Guides for the trains on which you will be traveling. They used to put these in the rooms, but these haven't been updated in a while.

http://testsite.itworksdc.com/amtrakconnect-acela/route-guides.php

 

[niemi24s]

This is a good one...

...that may help calm a restless child.

 

[denmarks]

Sonrisa Publications has route guides for the Empire Builder and California Zephyr that you can follow along the way. It even has the train schedule at each stop. It shows every city and track along the way. Very detailed.
http://www.djcooley.com/

 

[BoulderCO]

Much as I used to love and use road atlases, today you will be better served by Google or Apple Maps on your phone. They show the tracks and are much more versatile (and less awkward to carry) than paper maps. If you will be traveling in an area without cell coverage, you can download the map(s) for your travel area in advance at no cost.

 

[George Harris]

Get the Lonely Planet books for where ever you are going to be visiting. They can be very useful in getting local information, and also have information by people who have visited the place. (These things are most useful in visiting foreign countries, and helpful on the front end if you are going to be staying / living / working there for a while.)

 

[Ziv]

I have always felt that Xenophon's Anabasis was a rather good way of looking at any cross county journey.
Travel isn't always crumpets and crudités...
LOL!

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

I always liked Paul Theroux's travel stories, although I don't recall he ever did one about traveling across the US. Although he mentions traveling from Boston down to Laredo TX on his trip North to South through the Americas but that is not the main focus of the book (The Old Patagonian Express)

 

[me_little_me]

The thickest, softest book you can find so you can sit on it and watch the scenery instead of burying your head in a book.

 

[MARC Rider]

I always liked Paul Theroux's travel stories, although I don't recall he ever did one about traveling across the US. Although he mentions traveling from Boston down to Laredo TX on his trip North to South through the Americas but that is not the main focus of the book (The Old Patagonian Express)

Paul Theroux did a trip through the American South, but it was a road trip, not a train trip. I guess he wanted to get to places that you can't get to by train. His most recent book, On the Plain of Snakes, was a road trip down to the Mexican border, traveling along the border from California to Texas, and then a trek deep into Mexico culminating in a Zapatista convention in Chiapas, all driving his own car. He had some adventures, nothing really too hair-raising, but he reported on some of the things the cartels and corrupt officials were doing, and that stuff was pretty hair raising.

 

[flitcraft]

There are a series of older guidebooks, the Flashing Yellow Series, written by Eva Hoffman, for many of the LD routes, that have both information and photos of the places that you pass by on the train. They are a bit out of date, but much of the information is still valid, and understanding the historical significance of places adds a lot to a train trip. You can order them through the Railrunners website and get either spiral bound paper copies or download PDFs for a reasonable fee. I have found them to be really valuable aids on a LD train trip.