When I stopped owning cars, I became, almost without meaning to, an advocate for public transportation, bicycling, and pedestrian-friendly communities. Only after I began to do some research did I realize that I was part of a movement, small but growing, a pushback against the ubiquity of the car culture and the damage it has wrought. I discovered a whole body of literature on the theme of relinquishing cars and reducing the harm that they do.

I was two days and two time zones from my home in Maine. On a Wednesday morning in March, I had walked out my front door and up the street to catch the Bangor Community Connector bus to the Concord Coach station in time for the 7 o’clock bus to Boston. Now it was Friday morning, and I had an hour in Denver to find breakfast.

Writer Hank Garfield shares tales from his cross-countrytrain travel journey from Bangor, Maine to California.