North America on a Hostel Budget: City-to-City Without a Car

North America is not a rail continent, plan accordingly

Anyone arriving expecting a European-style rail network will be disappointed fast. Amtrak exists, it's comfortable, and it is slow and expensive relative to flying. The trick to doing North America without a car is picking a handful of cities that are both hostel-friendly and reasonably connected, rather than trying to cover the continent's geography, which is enormous and mostly built for driving.

Fly into New York JFK or Newark (EWR), since fares here are consistently the cheapest transatlantic or transpacific entry point. HI New York City on the Upper West Side runs 55 to 75 USD a night depending on season, which sounds steep against Southeast Asia but is genuinely the going rate and the hostel is well run, safe, and close to the 1 train.

The Northeast Corridor by Amtrak

From New York Penn Station, the Northeast Regional to Washington DC Union Station takes about three and a half hours and costs 50 to 90 USD if booked two weeks ahead. HI Washington DC on 11th Street is a reliable 40 USD dorm bed within walking distance of the Mall. This corridor, unusually for the US, actually functions like a proper train line, with frequent departures and on-time performance that would be unremarkable in Europe but feels novel here.

Continue north instead of south if your priority is Canada: the Adirondack service from New York to Montreal takes about ten hours along the Hudson and Lake Champlain, and while it's slower than flying, it's one of the more scenic rail journeys on the continent. M Montreal Hostel in the Plateau runs around 35 CAD a night.

The West Coast, flown rather than driven

1. Fly, don't Greyhound, between coasts. A one-way flight from New York to San Francisco or Los Angeles on a budget fare (Spirit, Frontier, or JetBlue on sale) is often under 150 USD and takes six hours; the bus takes three days and doesn't save meaningful money once you count meals.
2. Base in San Francisco. HI San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf and the Downtown branch both run 45 to 60 USD and are the two most reliable hostels in a city where short-term rental crackdowns have thinned out cheap options generally.
3. Use the Coast Starlight for the coastal leg. If you have three extra days, the Coast Starlight from Seattle to Los Angeles via Sacramento and Santa Barbara is one of the great scenic train rides in the US, even though a plane covers the same ground in a fraction of the time.
4. End in Los Angeles or Seattle depending on flights home. USA Hostels Hollywood runs about 40 USD a night and is the most sociable option in LA; in Seattle, the HI Seattle at the Market sits right above Pike Place and costs a similar amount.

Vancouver and the border question

If your route bends up into Canada, Vancouver is worth the detour: fly Seattle to Vancouver (YVR) in under an hour, or take the Amtrak Cascades train, which crosses the border overland in about four hours including the customs stop. HI Vancouver Downtown runs 35 to 45 CAD and is close enough to Gastown and Granville Island to walk everywhere.

Fly home out of Vancouver (YVR), Seattle (SEA), or Los Angeles (LAX), whichever has the better fare back to your origin; all three have strong long-haul connections and none charges the premium that smaller North American airports do.

A continent best done in pieces

The honest takeaway is that North America doesn't reward the continuous overland style of travel that works in Europe or Southeast Asia. Budget your money for flights between anchor cities, spend it on hostels that are actually worth the higher nightly rate, and don't feel obligated to fill in the gaps with long bus rides just for the sake of saying you did it overland. Some places are better seen as a series of city trips loosely stitched together, and this continent is one of them.