Lets plan a Cross Country Amtrak Trip and Meetups! (Also some extra rambles) (Patreon)

Hey Everyone,

I'm in the early stages of planning out if its possible to do a cross country trip based on an Amtrak Railpass, and with that stopping in certain cities, towns, & places to plan meetups to get to know everyone and their cities better.The entire concept for this stems from a few things, but my main thought is that social media and online communication seems to be trending towards more and more "slopified" content that breaks online communities. So the solution to this is to rebuild many of our communities and connections in-person instead.My head goes into two thoughts; the first is that I need to host more meetups. Every time I've hosted a meetup I've had a great time meeting people in person that are passionate about the things that we care about. Those people then become much more easily accessible not only to myself, but to many of the other urbanists that come to these gatherings. So we are basically community building, even if it doesn't feel like it.The Second thought, is that there should be some kind of larger group that we should build so that our movement and thoughts can be focused into a singular entity instead of just shouting into our particular voids of choice.

I appreciate Strong Towns, but I find them a bit flawed. Both from a lackluster leadership, but also from a scope perspective. Strong Towns has done immense good for Urbanism and walkability, but they've always had a blind spot for regional issues and transit (mostly because they're so neighborhood focused, which is not necessarily a bad thing).So my solution is to build something similar to Strong Towns, specifically with a Transportation focus. I'm still not sure what that exactly looks like at the moment, but starting the conversation and getting the energy to go out and make connections is the first step.

With that knowledge you can understand why I want to travel, host, and communicate with more people, especially because I know how much work some of you do in your own communities. I want to make this work, not only because I care about our causes, but also because I know that in-person connections will become increasing more important in the next few years.

Back to the original premise of this rant, I am planning a trip based on a railpass, where should I stop? Obviously I'll probably be stopping in some of the biggest hubs, like Chicago, NOLA, LA, SF, Seattle and somewhere else in the Northeast, but give me places along a route that I could stop at that are important like Cincinnati, Atlanta, Minneapolis, or one of the Texas cities. Especially if that place has people in it that are forming urbanist movements.

Timing wise if things go well, this will be in late winter. And also side thought, I'm thinking of basing a podcast around the idea of "interview while on Amtrak", how does that sound?Cheers,Alan