Friday 22 October 2010

Coming to the USA

In early 2011, I'm planning to travel across the USA with my partner, researching an article on atheism in America. If you live in the US, you may be able to help me in one of two ways.

First, I'd very much like to meet anyone who is willing to talk about any interesting experience of being an atheist outside of the country's more cosmopolitan cities. Anecdotally, I've heard that it can be difficult in ways Europeans find hard to imagine.

Second, it's going to be a long trip, so I'm looking at ways to stop it bankrupting me. I'm hoping that some universities, colleges, atheist or secular groups, book stores etc might be interested in me giving a talk or seminar, or leading a discussion in return for lodging and/or a contribution to my travel expenses. (An honorarium would be even nicer, of course!)

The route we're following is dictated by Amtrak (we have our reasons!). So I'm looking for people and individuals at or near one of the stations we'll be passing through. Here's the list, in geographical order, broken down into the main segments:

BOSTON - Providence - New London - New Haven - Bridgeport - Stamford - New Rochelle - NEW YORK

NEW YORK - Newark - Metropark - New Brunswick - Princeton Junction - Trenton - PHILADELPHIA - Wilmington - Newark - Aberdeen - BALTIMORE - BWI Airport - New Carrollton - WASHINGTON DC

WASHINGTON DC - Alexandria - Manassas - Culpepper - Charlottesville - Staunton - Clifton Forge - White Sulphur - Alderson - Hinton - Prince - Thurmond - Montgomery - Charleston - Huntington - Ashland - South Portsmouth - Maysville - CINCINNATI - Hamilton - Connersville - INDIANAPOLIS - Louisville - Crawfordsville - Lafayette - Rensselaer - Dyer - CHICAGO

CHICAGO - Joliet - Pontiac - Bloomington-Normal - Lincoln - Springfield - Alton - ST LOUIS

ST LOUIS - Poplar Bluff - Walnut Ridge - Little Rock - Malvern - Arkadelphia - Texarkana - Marshall - Long View - Mineola - DALLAS - FORT WORTH

FORT WORTH - Cleburne - McGregor - Temple - Taylor - Austin - San Marcos - SAN ANTONIO

SAN ANTONIO - Del Rio - Sanderson - Alpine - El Paso - Deming - Deming - Lordsburg - Benson - PHOENIX - TUCSON

TUCSON - Maicopa - Yuma - Palm Springs - Ontario - Pomona - LOS ANGELES

Then any number of possibilities along California's extensive rail network.

If you can help in any way, please email me. You can create my email address by putting my first name in front of my first and last name dot com, no spaces. So if my name were Annoying Spammer, the email would be annoying@annoyingspammer.com