For Penn Staters who don't have cars, getting out of State College for spring break on a budget can be a struggle without any viable solution.

This break, my friend and I ventured to Chicago, and without a car we had only a few choices of how to get there. Our cheapest option was to rent a car for the nine-hour drive. Cost: about $200 ($100 per person), plus the price of gas. Problem: Though some companies do rent to 21 year olds, it's usually only to in-state residents. My friend and I have out-of-state driver's licenses. Plus, we would have to pay the cost of storing the car in a garage for the week.

A Greyhound bus would have cost about $200 each and taken 18 hours each way, overnight, with at least one transfer. Problem: Not worth the time spent.

And because flying out of University Park Airport is astronomically expensive, upwards of $400, we looked into the complicated combination of taking a bus to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, taking city transport to the airport and flying to Chicago. Cost: About $170 round trip, per person. Problem: None of the bus/flight schedules matched up, so we would have also had to pay for a hotel overnight.

For every option we researched, it seemed like we were either going to have to pay a lot of money, take up a lot of time or be occupied with complications. Our solution: a train, leaving from Lewistown at 4 p.m., transferring in Pittsburgh and getting to Chicago by 8 a.m. the next morning. With my AAA discount, the tickets were buy one, get one 50 percent off, coming to a total of $80 each. And we jumped the hurdle of getting to Lewistown -- a 45-minute drive just off 322 -- by catching a ride with my roommate on her way out of town. It was cheap and simple. With large seats, lounges and dining rooms, overnight trains are relatively comfortable. Little did I know, train rides across the Midwest are not at all similar to my experiences in Europe or in the megalopolis of the Middle Atlantic -- from Boston to Washington D.C. I had thought it was the best way to travel. After all, what can delay a train?

Apparently a lot. Or rather, a lot of freight trains. Though we were supposed to spend only 12 hours actually on the train, our train stopped at least six times, maybe more while we were asleep, leaving us in our seats, usually without food, for 20 hours. We were picked up 45 minutes late from Lewistown, arrived three hours late to Pittsburgh -- shortening our transfer from three hours to a half-hour and forcing us to eat dinner from vending machines -- and arrived five hours late to Chicago. All because, according to the company line, we were stuck behind multiple freight trains, which then usually became one or two derailed trains. Once we began moving again, became more freight trains.

It seemed every commercial good that needed to be shipped anywhere in the northeast got in our way. I understand that this is not completely Amtrak's fault. Unlike the line I normally travel, from Boston to Washington D.C., which runs on tracks owned by Amtrak, the train we were taking runs on tracks rented from a freight company. Therefore, in the event that an Amtrak train and a freight train run close together, the Amtrak train must pull aside and give the other train the right of way.

What I disagree with is the fact that we were not notified of this possible delay beforehand. The passenger sitting across from us said he'd taken the train to Pittsburgh many times before and was usually delayed by at least two hours.

I also think they should have given us free food and water. On the way to Pittsburgh, when we should have been eating dinner, our only option was to buy something from the food cart. As my friend so bluntly put it, he was not giving any more money to the company by purchasing something. It wasn't until we were sitting an hour outside of Chicago, 17 or so hours into the trip, that we were offered small bottles of water, a cookie and a packet of dried fruit for free. By calling customer service, we were granted a $35-credit toward our Amtrak ticket, but it doesn't really make up for the time we spent cooped up on a train. Nor do I think I'll be traveling Amtrak anytime soon.

We refunded our return tickets and used the money to fly to Philadelphia. From there, we managed to find a ride back up to school.

Then I made a promise to myself: Wherever I move after graduation, there will be a major airport nearby.