Steve Boggan followed a $10 note around the US. The people who pocketed it – from the couple clearing repossessed houses to the merchant banker – tell the story of the country's faltering economic recovery

What do you do if you want to test the mood of a country as it emerges from the deepest recession for almost a century? You can delve into banking reports or believe what you hear from politicians. You can spend endless hours with academics and accountants. Or you can take the advice Bob Woodward was given by his Watergate source Deep Throat: "Follow the money."

Four years ago, this magazine asked whether I might track a £10 note for as long as I could. For seven days and nights I followed the same note around London, down through Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and Hampshire – meeting cocaine sniffers, gamblers, City boys and Polish immigrants as it passed through their hands before it was finally banked in Thame, Oxfordshire. The people I met along the way revealed much about work and play, attitudes to money, the economic boost provided by immigration and the diminishing power of paper compared with plastic.

What, I wondered, would I find out if I were to set off from the geographical centre of the continental US and follow a $10 bill for 30 days and 30 nights? Was it possible?

I approach Lebanon, Kansas, on US Highway 36, some 210 miles west of Kansas City as the sun sinks on Friday 1 October. The drive is greener and the landscape more undulating than I had expected – perhaps I was thinking of the Kansas dust bowl of John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath – but now it is flat with ripe fields of corn, soya and wheat. Somewhere in this town, population 303, is Rick Chapin, the man to whom I am going to give a $10 bill to get the ball rolling.

Two miles outside Lebanon is a small monument declaring this the centre of the US (according to 1918 calculations) and next to it is a church measuring about 6ft x 10ft. Two years ago, somebody crashed their car into the church and demolished it. I learned that Rick, a 55-year-old construction worker, had rebuilt the church, complete with enough seats for eight worshippers. So he is the man for me.

I find Rick's house on Pine Street and hand over the bill, IA74407937A, at 7.30pm. Rick's wife Kay, a 52-year-old intensive care nurse, finds me a bed for the night in their lodge next door and insists I dine with them on venison shot by Rick, washed down with Kay's elderberry wine.

Lebanon is a farming community suffering the effects of what economists call rural flight, but is doing its best to fight back. It comprises a grid of about 12 streets surrounded by farmland, and this is what used to provide jobs for young people as they left school. But these days there is little for them to do and few return after studying at college.

As a result, many of the houses in the town are empty and run-down. Those that are occupied are immaculate and lovingly tended, and there is a ripple of excitement at the moment because two families from California are considering moving there. And why not? You can pick up a three-bedroom house for less than $20,000.

There is only one shop in town, LaDows, and this doubles as a greengrocer, general store, butcher, hardware store, video library and cafe. It is the heart of the town and the place where, on 2 October, just after 11am, Rick buys an early lunch for Kay and their 18-year-old daughter Christina.

The shop owner, Randall LaDow, puts the bill into the cash register and at 1.03pm it is given in change for a $20 bill spent on bread rolls by Paul Coleman, a 52-year-old Briton – and Falklands veteran – who has lived in the US for 21 years. Paul, a trucker, and his American wife, Susan, have lived in Lebanon for eight years and they love it. "It's my little piece of paradise," Paul says. "I have a lovely two-bedroom house which cost $10,000, I have enough work, good deer-hunting and fishing, and great friends. What more could a man want?"

One of the oldest active farmers is 70-year-old Ernie Schlatter. He lets me cut soya with him in his combine harvester on Sunday afternoon. It cost him $250,000. "I can do in an hour with this what it used to take 10 of us all day to do," Ernie says. "That means there's less work for everyone. I was farming with my son for 10 years, but he's recently given up and has gone into the medical profession. It's a common story, and it's very sad."

From left: Rick and Kay Chapin, Paul Coleman, Nicole Kilgore with son Kadden.

On Monday 4 October Paul has a load of soya to take to Hays, Kansas, 110 miles west. Lebanon farmers have the choice of selling their crops to the local Midway co-operative or to one in Hays; the Hays price is higher, so Paul is busy every day.

He drops his load at 9.05am and dips into the Golden Ox Truck Stop off Interstate-70. Here he buys a Pepsi and hands IA74407937A to cashier Chuck Patel. In turn, Chuck gives it in change to a woman standing behind me with a $100 bill.

Our $10 bill is one of 1.6bn in circulation. Printed on paper made from 75% cotton and 25% linen, they have an average life of 18 months and feature an image of Alexander Hamilton, the first US secretary of the treasury. Hamilton is one of only two people to be featured who was not a president. The other is Benjamin Franklin, who is on the $100 bill. The first was issued in 1861.

According to the latest figures from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which is part of the US treasury department, 345,600,000 $10 bills were printed in 2009. This is down from the previous year's figure of 1,094,400,000 – a demonstration of how, at the height of the recession, in 2008, the government was, literally, printing money.

Nicole Kilgore, 29, has just bought fuel and has been given IA74407937A as part of her change. She is travelling 260 miles to Harrisonville, Missouri, with her four-year-old son, Kadden. This is the worst part; explaining to people what you are trying to do and asking if you can follow them.

"Sure," Nicole says. "Sounds like fun."

Nicole, 29, has a boyfriend, Jeramie, 37, and they have set up a business in their home town of Fort Collins, Colorado, which clears out repossessed properties and businesses. Around 1.5m homes have been repossessed in America this year alone.

"The kinds of places we do need a lot of work – the last one was an asphalt business so you can imagine the mess," Nicole says. "If you let the bank do it, they'll hit you with a bill for around $10,000, but we do it for payment in kind with whatever families can spare. At the last place, we found photos of their kids growing up, antiques and the original land grant for the property signed by President Taft in 1861. There were things the owner's wife's father had worn – his navy cap from world war two, his shoes and some medals. The wife came and saw it all and just sat down and cried. It broke my heart, but I think having those things might have made the experience a little bit more bearable."

Nicole is visiting her sister Candace and her future father-in-law, Ray Holman. We drive to Ray's farm in Harrisonville and he says I can stay in a trailer parked in a barn. It is luxurious. The bill, with one or two detours, has travelled 442.5 miles.

The next day, Nicole gives the $10 bill to Ray as payment for some ribs. He wakes me at 6am because he is driving to see a business contact in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a journey of 440 miles.

At 63, Ray has had the idea of setting up a 9,000-acre country retreat for underprivileged children. It will be a not-for-profit operation, but he will need $15m in investment to get it off the ground. He has drawn up a business plan and wants to see what his friend Clarence Hicks, a former Exxon executive in his 80s, thinks about it.

Clarence lives comfortably near a lake on the outskirts of Hot Springs, Bill Clinton's home town. There is a sign outside his front door that reads: "No Trespassing. Violators Will Be Shot. Survivors Will Be Shot Again." He is inscrutable and doesn't say anything about Ray's business plan, but he does offer me his trailer to sleep in. Ray paces back and forth but doesn't spend any money until he is about to leave on 6 October.

We visit downtown Hot Springs and learn that it used to be the favourite watering hole of gangsters from Al Capone to Bonnie and Clyde. There was illegal gambling here for more than 100 years and a complete refusal to become involved in prohibition. There are pretty restaurants, antique shops and several theatre productions – including one starring Jerry Van Dyke, Dick's brother.

Ray says he wants to buy his wife Patti a present, so we go into the Golden Leaves Bookstore, which stocks titles such as The Fluoride Deception, Deciphering The Signs Of God and a DVD called The Reptilian Agenda: Amazing Confirmation That A Reptilian Extraterrestrial Race Has Controlled The World For Thousands Of Years. Ray buys some vanilla-scented joss sticks and says: "I'm really sorry about leaving you here."

At the till, Byron France takes IA74407937A and Ray says goodbye. I'm afraid the next recipient will be a crystal-wearing hippy. Instead, it is Elisabeth Fox, a special constable from Ontario in Canada. She is on holiday with her friend Lin, and they have found the only two sane books in the shop – on cookery.

They receive the $10 bill in change and we join their husbands, Elmer and Grant, for a drink at Lucky's Bar & Grill over the road.

"So, what's the scam?" asks Elisabeth.

From left: Hot Springs rockers Crash Meadows with Dean Agus on acoustic guitar, construction worker Ron Zoller at football star Marc Bulger’s mansion, Syd Rodway and waitress Deneva Elvins at Cyrano’s Cafe. Deneva uses the $10 at a farmers’ market to buy an apple pie, made from fruit grown by Paul Huning.

They pay bartender, KK Snyder, with IA74407937A at 12.50pm, but it is a very slow day at the bar. People come and go and pay with plastic, and it isn't until closing time that the bill moves, given in payment to that night's entertainers – singer Dean Agus and guitarist Wayne Scott. It is doled out in Dean's share and he is going straight home.

I am living out of the boot of a car. I look dishevelled and suspect I don't smell too fresh by now. I am travelling with just four changes of everything. But knowing that Dean is going home, I find a motel, wash my clothes and hope he won't spend the money early in the morning.

The next day, 7 October, I meet 36-year-old Dean as he is preparing for another gig, this time on a stage underneath a sheer rock face that hangs behind Rolando's Mexican bar on Central Avenue. Dean has his own blues/rock band, Crash Meadows, with his brother, Medo, bass player Daniel Keith and drummer Hampton Taliaferro. As children, Dean and Medo were brought with their parents from Macedonia by an American church group who wanted to give them a head start in life. Dean made the most of the opportunity. He is a crowd-stopping singer. When I meet him, he is attempting a reconciliation with his ex-wife, Stephenie; they divorced several years ago and the songs he's written since are laced with regret.

That night, Dean doesn't spend any money. Performers get free food and drink. He just goes home again and I return to my damp clothes. The following two nights follow a pattern; Dean with Crash Meadows at Lucky's Bar & Grill. The crowds are excited – Crash Meadows are Hot Springs celebrities. The music is sensational, the drinks are flowing.

"Because times have been tight, weekends are good," Dean says. "That might sound strange, but it just means folk can't afford to come out during the week. They save up for that one good night. People need to let off steam."

On 8 October, Dean says he has to mail the $10 to a friend in Caseyville, Illinois, just over the Mississippi from St Louis, as payment for his membership of a fantasy football league. This fills me with dread, so I offer to send the money recorded and tracked by UPS. It costs $44 to send a $10 bill. It is supposed to arrive at the home of Ron Zoller on Saturday 9 October, but it doesn't.

Dean persuades me to stay at his home as there is no mail delivery on Sunday. I agree but don't sleep. The bill is lost. I decide to leave for Caseyville, a journey of about 340 miles, first thing the next day. But before I go, Dean and Stephenie come bounding into my room with great news. "Hey, Steve," Dean says. "Could you help us to get married again – in Paris?"

Yes, I say. Just as soon as I find this $10 bill.

I sleep in a sleazy motel on the outskirts of St Louis. The next morning, 11 October, I call Ron Zoller, introduce myself and ask whether the bill has arrived. It has not. I imagine driving my rental car into the Mississippi.

UPS assure me that they know where the envelope containing the bill is; there was a rookie postie on Saturday and he got lost. At 9.30am, the letter arrives and we're back in business.

For the past four years Ron, a 43-year-old construction worker, has been renovating a mansion belonging to Marc Bulger, a famous American football quarterback, and he hopes the job will stretch out for life. Formerly occupied by the family that brought Budweiser to America, the pile comes with 15 acres and a lake, a beautiful secret tucked away off a main highway on the outskirts of St Louis.

One of the reasons Zoller enjoys his work is because of his boss. Bulger, a former St Louis Rams quarterback and now second-string with the Baltimore Ravens, probably earns more than most stars in the Premiership, but he is a modest family man who makes headlines for the right reasons.

"If we have to do any heavy work, suddenly there's Marc beside us helping out," grins Ron. Somehow I can't see Wayne Rooney mucking in with a lump hammer.

"I won't talk about the recession," Ron says. "I have work, so I refuse to take part in it." Bad times have dragged on for so long that this is something I hear again and again. People are bored with the financial crisis.

Over the next few days the bill bounces around St Louis. Ron uses it to buy a CD by a local singer called Erin Bode. Erin's husband Syd Rodway spends it during lunch at Cyrano's Cafe in Webster Groves. Waitress Deneva Elvins, 25, is given it as a tip and spends it the next day on an apple pie at a farmers' market.

The apple grower is 54-year-old Paul Huning and I follow him to his orchard 60 miles away in Union, Missouri. He doesn't spend the bill for a couple of days, then he takes his children, Benjamin, four, and Julia, seven, to the Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit, Missouri, where he buys a book called A Field Guide To The Grasses, Hedges And Rushes Of The United States. The money is handed over to park staff Bob Bryan and Judith Hunt.

I expect to be stuck at the reserve's visitor centre for days, but I am pleasantly surprised. Along come 32-year-olds Nathan and Jennifer Walker, from Washington, Missouri, with their children, Lucas, six, and Allison, four, to have some family portraits taken by photographer Sarah Lough.

From left: The Walker family being photographed by Sarah Lough, Susie Thierbach hands change to Darrell Mikulencak, Adam Antonucci tips bar manager Megan Schneider, Megan and Jim climb to their tree house, and the bucks stop with Glenn Waddell, who won the note from Megan in a bet on World Series baseball.

The following day the Walkers tell me they plan to take their kids to a funfair and petting farm at an orchard – another orchard – in Marthasville, 20 miles away. It is now Day 17. I am worn out.

After passing through the hands of orchard owners Susie and Otto Thierbach, local country singer Paula Morriss and Otto's mother Laverda at the till, the bill is given in change to Darrell Mikulencak, a financial adviser from Chicago.

"You don't want me to have it," he says. "I'm flying to Chicago tomorrow." I throw my rucksack into the car and start driving. The distance is about 380 miles and by the time I arrive the mileage on the car since Lebanon is over 2,000 miles.

Darrell, 39, works for a large merchant bank. "The crash was terrible," he says. "I had clients who were wiped out overnight. When times were good, they took credit for their investments, but when it all went wrong they held me personally responsible. There were times when I was afraid for my personal safety."

He is very busy and prefers plastic to cash. We go for a drink on Day 18; but he pays with a card and I leave a tip in cash. On Day 21 we go out for a drink again. This time I pay with plastic and he leaves the $10 as a tip for bartender Adam Antonucci at Trace Bar in Wrigleyville. The following night, Adam leaves it as a tip for 24-year-old Megan Schneider, manager of the Firkin & Pheasant on Diversey Parkway.

"Can't talk now," she shouts over the noise of the bar, "and I won't be spending it tomorrow [Saturday]. Preparing for a trip. Going to Michigan Sunday. Hunting deer. Bows and arrows..."

Did she say bows and arrows?

Megan and her father, Jim, a 65-year-old Vietnam veteran from Taylor, on the outskirts of Detroit, have a shack on 40 acres of land in Morley, Michigan, 20 miles from Big Rapids in the middle of nowhere. When they get to the shack on the night of Sunday 24 October, they find that it has been ransacked. There is a lot of poverty in the area and crime is up.

The next day is spent with the police. I finally see Megan on Day 26 and she hasn't spent the money – they brought everything they needed with them.

On Day 27 Megan and Jim invite me to stay and hunt with them. The shack has no toilet, electricity or running water, but it has a night-time generator, a chilly outhouse built over a deep hole and a brilliantly warm kerosene boiler.

Bow hunting for deer is a skilled pastime and involves lots of camouflage, patience, compound bows costing up to $1,000 and a comfy cushion. The cushion is for when you climb into a tree house and sit quietly during the two hours between dusk and darkness. Megan and Jim are excellent shots, but bow hunting is about more than that; sometimes they don't see deer at all, and when they do, they don't shoot does or fawns. That would lead to a fall in the local population. On average, they kill about one a year each which, as a family, they eat.

I spend three wonderful days and nights in their company before Megan ruins everything on Day 29 by losing a bet to Glenn Waddell, 64, over a baseball World Series game. Glenn is another hunter who is returning to Detroit on 30 October. I follow 220 miles and wonder if he is planning to go out for Halloween, but he doesn't. The following day is the same story. Glenn stays at home.

He is an ox of a man who used to work at Ford's Rouge plant in Dearborn, once the largest industrial complex in the world. He calls me over to his house in Southgate.

"We had a good thing going at Ford's until we blew it," he tells me. "The unions became too powerful and our cars weren't as good as the Japanese." Then he winks. "But now we're on the up," he says. "We're making good cars and Detroit is growing again." Glenn pauses and smiles. "Here," he says. "Give me 10 bucks and take your money back."

It is just before 5pm on 31 October – two hours 30 minutes short of the deadline – and IA74407937A is suddenly back in my hands. There is still time to spend it and add to its journey. But after 30 days and almost 3,000 miles through Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, I think I'll just put it in my pocket.

• This article was amended on 23 December 2010. The original referred to Lebanon, Kansas, on US Highway 81. This has been corrected.