Tourist Spends Almost 200 Hours Traveling Over 6,000 Miles Across the United States by Train (Exclusive)

Chloé Höglund travels the world by practice, preferring to look out her window at rolling hills somewhat than miles of clouds.

Most lately, she took a practice journey throughout the United States, beginning and ending in New York Metropolis.

Usually, Höglund and her husband journey collectively and doc it on their YouTube channel and Instagram web page. However when the New Zealand-based content material creator determined she needed to go to the U.S., she needed to go alone, as her husband needed to work.

“It is one thing I had mapped out for most likely two years, determining which routes to take, how I’d break it up right into a sequence, after which all of it got here to life,” Höglund tells PEOPLE.

“I knew I needed to take a spherical journey, however to map it out, it took plenty of hours sitting in entrance of my pc to have a look at the totally different routes. I needed to spend as a lot time on the trains as attainable and canopy as many corners of the nation as I might.” 

In the finish, she spent near 200 hours touring over 6,000 miles throughout the nation, beginning in New York Metropolis, then going to Chicago, and from Chicago to Seattle, Seattle to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to New Orleans, and eventually ending her final leg of the journey from New Orleans again to New York Metropolis. 

The journey itself was damaged up into a number of legs, with Höglund hoping to see as a lot of the nation as attainable. Whereas she had been to the U.S. earlier than, it was her first time in the Pacific Northwest and Washington ended up being one in all her favourite states.

“I used to be glued to my window. It was the most gorgeous surroundings I would ever seen. I did not need to hop off,” she shares. “I simply needed to take a practice journey round Washington. It was simply stunning. Mountains, bridges, rivers, bushes all over the place, and it was nonetheless fairly snowy, and it was simply magical.” 

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When she began her YouTube channel together with her husband, she anticipated that they might do most of their touring collectively. Nevertheless, they rapidly realized that would not be attainable resulting from his work schedule, and Höglund did not need to miss out on journeys and adventures. So, she linked with a neighborhood of different solo ladies vacationers.

“Once I booked my first California Zephyr, throughout the U.S., it felt extraordinarily liberating. It won’t be a giant deal to many, however for ladies, it’s extremely scary to even take into consideration going at it alone,” Höglund shares.

“Solo feminine journey is gaining popularity, and girls are realizing, ‘I can do that alone, even when I’ve a accomplice, and it does not imply I am unable to nonetheless have the pleasure of doing what I need in my very own time, and have the confidence to do this.’ ”

Regardless of getting used to touring alone, Höglund nonetheless experiences social anxiousness, “the worry of being alone and having to speak to folks,” and has opened up about it in her sequence of movies about her journey.

 “Sitting with all kinds of various folks, making conversations was one in all my greatest fears, and opening up about that, my viewers associated to that,” she says. “I did not notice how many individuals shared the similar sentiment. I am joyful I shared that.”

“Probably the most optimistic half is that I grew my confidence via touring alone and stepping exterior that consolation zone, speaking to folks, displaying myself it is not that scary, and you are able to do something.” 

Her recommendation for these trying to embark on a practice journey is to “discover a YouTube video on it first so what to anticipate.” 

As an illustration, she found a secret viewing room positioned in the again of one in all the trains, which few folks knew about, on-line earlier than embarking on her large journey. There, she was capable of get pleasure from gorgeous views in a quiet house of the practice that remained hidden from most vacationers. 

Whereas most individuals want attending to their vacation spot as rapidly as attainable, Höglund encourages them to decelerate a bit and “embrace boredom.” 

“It isn’t typically you simply sit down and watch the world go by. Life goes by method too quick, and we do not typically get an opportunity to sit down down and really feel time cross,” she says. “As of late, we’re speeding from one place to the subsequent appointment to the subsequent scrolling on our telephones, so it is good to take the day trip, and often on a practice, I strive not to hook up with WiFi and attempt to do as little work as I can, as a result of I need to really feel that point passing by as slowly as attainable.” 

Whereas it is unclear the place Höglund will journey subsequent, her journey to the States will all the time maintain a particular place in her coronary heart.

“I am stunned at how extremely pleasant and welcoming everybody was and the way embraced I used to be right here,” she says. “I felt like coming residence, and the majority of the practice employees had been great.”

“As a solo feminine from New Zealand, I felt I could not have been welcomed with greater open arms, and that stunned me.”