I did something similar when I was younger.
Bought them greyhound weekly passes and just took off. You can go anywhere they travels and has like a week to do it. Got to see the west to east route. Stopped at a bunch of cities to explore. Went from south to north then from mn back to cali. 3 different sessions
met a lot of interesting people. Too much stories to share. People who sat in the back are sketchy like kaydoo cooking his pipe behind me or how about ins hoping on board and saw an illegal mexican ran into the desert scenery or how about this one other kaydoo hoping that the bus would stop at place where food stamp was taken. Like he would buy a loaf of bread and ham and that's his meal for the trip.
Too many stories I tell ya. Even fell in love with a few young solo riders but it was all in my head.