Hello guys, I'm a lawyer (30m) , and after years of practice I decided to leave my country to try something different for my life, that's why I came to Belgium in Oct 20' to follow an advanced master's in anthropology and have the opportunity to meet interesting people and experience the European life for a bit.

The program already finished and before coming back to my country, I think I'll visit my family in Atlanta from Sept 21´to Jan/Feb 22'. Throughout those months, I'll be living with them and my only responsibility will be doing my anthropology-related thesis, meaning that I'll have lots of free time to chill, explore, and travel around the US.

Even though I have visited my family in the US many times before, the last time I went was around 10 years ago and I was kind of a kid, therefore I was only staying in my family's house and sometimes going to a restaurant or such, meaning that I'm very alien to how living in the US as an adult feels like, but I'm very -very- curious and excited about it.

In this regard, I've been thinking about backpacking and/or doing a roadtrip at least for a couple of weeks when I'm in the US (I won't have a car btw, so I'd probably do it by bus -I've heard about Greyhound, for instance-) and I would like to ask you for some advise: is it easy to backpack across the US? Could it be kinda dangerous? Which cities do you think I should backpack through? Should I avoid doing this from December afterwards because it will be too cold or something? Should I stay at random hostels or maybe use couchsurfing?

On the other hand, I could do this alone, but I would also be happy to do it with a couple of people, or, for instance, travelling alone for 2-3 weeks and then travelling with someone for some days, and then with other people for other days, etc; therefore, I would like to tell you a little bit about me to see if I could meet some like-minded people to maybe do part of this trip together (remember that I'd be living in Atlanta, but I could go by bus to other cities/states):

I'd say that I've usually been the hippiest among my "formal" friends (all of them are lawyers, and while I'll be doing this road trip they will be doing their LLM's at some Ivy Leagues - my main connection with them is intellectual), but at the same time, the normiest among my "informal" friends (they weren't able to go to college, they've had very tough life stories, they are very sensitive and reflective - my main connection with them is emotional). I'm very open minded (when it comes to culture, politics, religion, sexuality, ideologies, lifestyles, etc), respectful, normally sportive, and extremely interested in human beings. I enjoy having deep connections with people but I'm also into partying with the ones whom I feel comfortable with.

In this way, I could travel with a 20 year old goth guy full of tattoos, but also with a 70 year old female professor, as long as we're all tolerant and respect each other's space. I'd say that I'd slightly prefer to chill with someone more introverted, because even though I'm usually outgoing, I enjoy spending a lot of time alone, or just drinking with a couple of people and talking about life (and our lives) for hours.

If this resonate with you and you might have some free days from September onwards, let me know, and I'm also open to receive any kind of advice on how to do this trip across the US and which cities I should visit. My IG is: jd_p_ , in case you wanna reach me there. Thanks!