Reflections on backpack travel in the States

The USA features spectacular cities with displays of huge wealth and conspicuous consumption, often side by side with layers of urban decay. There are beautiful and spectacular landscapes all around too but the presence of cars everywhere is rather irritating. Everything is designed to suit motoring needs rather than pedestrians. Much lip service is paid to global warming and the need for well publicised initiatives such as recycling while at the same time the excessive use of cars makes it all a rather pointless exercise. Public transport has been usually good and cheap but tends to be used by the old and the poor. We have enjoyed using the trains and found Amtrak to be especially excellent, if rather slow.

We both have a personal interest in public libraries and these were unfailingly well equipped (with free wifi too), spacious, up-to-date and well-used. Clearly, there is great respect for the arts and the museums and galleries were superb, beautifully designed and well funded by personal and corporate donations.

We were taken aback by the friendliness and professionalism of staff in cafes, restaurants and hotels, full marks to them for this. Unfortunately though we could not fail to notice the racial segregation in the tourism sector, with low paid service staff being mainly black in Chicago and Hispanic in California.

Hotel rooms proved to be very good value compared to British hotels. It was easy to get a room in quite a decent hotel for £50. This was broadly comparable to the cost of a private room in many of the better hostels, so we mainly stayed in hotels as they were more comfortable, although they lacked the social interaction of hostels. Eating out every day can get tiresome and food was served in huge portions. Tipping was a constant and tedious concern - were we giving too much or too little? And sales taxes tended to be added on to publicised prices therefore you might end up paying 25% extra altogether. To our relief (!) public restrooms were plentiful, clean and well-equipped.

We were constantly surprised by the pro-active approach and friendliness of local people, who sometimes stopped us and asked where we were from. A natural reaction to this might have been that this was the prelude to a scam but in fact it was always genuine and helpful. In San Francisco for example we were walking along to Ocean Beach and Seal Rocks when a gentleman who was loading up his car bounded up to us and introduced himself as Dr X and his friend as Dr Y, saying that they were two anthropologists and asking us where we heading. They gave us some useful advice about what to see in their neighbourhood and we were heartily amused that we might be seen as two interesting specimens!

A phrase we had to get used to was constantly being asked how we were doing. Does one just say we're good thanks or do we go into detail? Who knows.

American television was very poor, with adverts all the time, so a complete turn off apart from the programmes on the Public Broadcasting Service. We even managed to rewatch an episode of the British made 'Lost in Austen' one night, and occasional episodes of the American version of 'The Office' which was good. Interestingly we did notice a much higher proportion of older females on news type programmes. But is there ever a time when there isn't an American football match on TV?

We had some debates about health care funding - a topical issue - with people we met and were disconcerted by the ill-informed arguments used in the media about funding, based on scare tactics. Apparently 700,000 people are bankrupted by medical bills every year. What brought it home to us is the thought that if you had a seriously ill child and lost your job there was no guarantee of effective health care. Frightening.

We've been pleased with our equipment. Our backpacks have proved easy to carry and more functional when moving around than the ubiquitous trolley case which most travellers sport and which tend to twist at awkward moments. You may not wish to know this but we've even managed to perfect the art of visiting the restroom while keeping the backpack on! Our clothing is mainly Rohan, expensive but really good - cool/warm, easy to wash and dry overnight and non-creasing. Our Ecco trainers and sandals have been very light and comfortable too. Free wifi was almost universally available in hotels and cafes and the netbook has proved invaluable for blogging, communication, finding information, watching football, checking weather forecasts and storing and publishing photographs and video clips. On trains and in airports even though wifi was not free it was useful to charge electronic items in one of their sockets.

So all in all a wonderful experience.