How I nearly got stranded in New York…

Hello there,

Hope you’re having a brilliant day so far 🙂

Back in May, I went on a little two-week trip around the United States, having the time of my life. However, the trip nearly took a very strange turn, as I was close to being stranded in NYC – we’ll be checking out this story in today’s blog.

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My US adventure began with six days in New York, which were absolutely phenomenal. The plan for the sixth day was to spend all day in New York, then catch the 20:30 Amtrak from Penn Station, NYC, to Princeton, New Jersey, where I was going to spend the next day exploring the university.

Sounds simple so far, yeah? Well, here is where I kind of messed up…

Before I left for America, I had booked all of my accommodation and transport from state to state, to make my actual time there as seamless as possible. However, what I failed to account for, out of pure naivety and a failure to double-check, was that there could be two of the same Amtrak station, with the same name in different states.

You can probably see where this is going.

On my final day, at around 6pm, two hours or so before my Amtrak, I decided to check how much my Uber was going to cost from the station to my hotel, so that I had a rough guess in mind for when I got there later. After putting in the details, the total came to the equivalent of approximately £500-£600, which left me thinking, this can’t be right…

It turns out that there was a station called Princeton Junction, which is in Princeton, New Jersey, and there is a station called Princeton in Illinois, miles and miles away from where I was staying. When I was booking my hotel, I typed in Princeton station, ended up buying one that I thought was a bargain, but it turns out that it was for the wrong Princeton stop.

Now, bear in mind that I realised at 6pm, when my train was coming up in two hours. Panic mode instantly set in, with me thinking that I was going to be sleeping on a bench, unless I found a way out of this asap. I phoned my mam back home, where it was nearly midnight, to help calm myself down and think logically about everything.

Every Airbnb that I was messaging wasn’t replying to me, as I had left it so late – there was only one that replied, saying they were very sorry but they couldn’t make it work. They told me that I was going to Princeton the same day as the university’s graduation, so everywhere was booked up and chockablock.

I found a Travel Lodge, or something similar, that was going to cost me around £450 for one night; however, that was better than sleeping it rough! Thankfully, I messaged my old work group chat, and my former boss, Julia, managed to find somewhere that only cost me £115 for the night, including breakfast.

I told my mate Aidan the story when I got to his house at Baltimore, where he said that he would have driven to pick me up, take me back to his and would have taken me to Princeton the next day – which while summarising how lovely a person he is – was something I couldn’t have done to him. It would have meant driving for at least five hours.

I was speaking to my friend Kyle when I got to Washington, DC, and he said that he has an uncle near Princeton who would have set me up with somewhere to stay, no questions asked, but I didn’t even think of messaging him about it at the time.

Luckily, it all worked out for the best, but it reminded me to take a lot more caution when planning these things in the future. It’s certainly a mistake that I am not going to be making twice.