Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on traveling, whether you're dreaming of a great escape or actually away and having the time of your life.

Well, every so often, somebody asks me a question which I just think is so intriguing and apozite that i

love to talk to you about what my conclusions are and james has come up with just such a question he says

i'm going to the u.s on a budget this autumn i I don't really mind where, but I'd like some good public transport

links. And what's your suggestion for a good destination and some cost-saving tips? Well,

the US is perfect in autumn, in an awful lot of places.

I love, for example, Texas and the summer heaters abated there.

So it's a great time to be exploring that kind of very distilled and intense version of America.

Of course, September, October, you could go leaf peeping in New England

because fall is arriving and the changing colours are very spectacular. But that's not what

I'm going to suggest for James because, well, leaf peeping involved going around in a rental car. These days,

that's going to cost you quite a lot of money. You can't really do it very effectively by public

transport, although I have tried. And it's a generally better idea. And certainly Texas is a largely

public transport free state, I afraid so better to go I'm

going to suggest to the west coast in and pretty much all the way down from Seattle and

indeed Vancouver in Canada if you can sort of count that as an American gateway,

all the way down to San Diego on the Mexican border.

There's generally very good, very inexpensive public transport.

And let's just talk about that.

So in terms of the flight, the sensible thing to do is get an open jaw.

And if you're going in September, best thing to do is finish in San Diego on the Mexican border

because I can guarantee the weather is going to be absolutely joyful.

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