Ten American road trips

In the spring of 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, accompanied by Jefferson’s enslaved chef James Hemings, took a road trip. In six weeks, they covered more than 900 miles, travelling through New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut before returning across Long Island. Suffering from various physical ailments and exhausted by the political travails of the day, they sought “health, recreation, and curiosity.” Madison said as long as they were together they could “never be out of their way.” Decades later, he recalled that the trip made them “immediate companions.”

Few rites of passage are as venerated in American culture as the road trip, the journey of discovery to places unfamiliar or unknown. Here are ten noteworthy ones in literature and film in chronological order:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Mark Twain knew about travel! In his famous novel, we follow Huck and Jim as they stream down the Mississippi in a biracial journey of discovery and escape. The trip gets a bit complicated in the novel’s third act, but, on the journey, they prove their manhood and confess their feelings for one another. Jim discovers he is free and Huck realizes the road is the only place for him. At the end, Huck continues his travels as he lights out for the Territory.

2. It Happened One Night (1934)

In this classic screwball comedy, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert find themselves together on a bus heading to New York from Florida. They hitchhike and encounter all kinds of difficulties as they fall in love, even though Colbert is married to a charlatan. Of course, they end up together. The film swept the key Academy Awards categories̶—and it did something else. In one scene, Clark Gable takes off his shirt to reveal he is wearing nothing beneath it. As a result, T-shirt sales in America plummeted.

3. The Grapes of Wrath (book 1939; film 1940)

In John Steinbeck’s stirring novel, the Joad family, victims of the dust bowl and ruthless bankers, are forced to flee their Oklahoma home and head to California. They travel along the legendary Route 66, where they experience cruelty and kindness as they make their way to what they think will be the promised land. Unfortunately, it isn’t paradise, and at the end Tom Joad commits himself to forever travelling the country and serving as an agent of justice. “I’ll be everywhere,” he states.

4. On The Road (1957)

Jack Kerouac’s novel is the one everyone thinks of when it comes to road trips. Much of the book focuses on the travels of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty. It is a tale of friendship and discovery, written in a stream of consciousness that matches the improvisational genius of jazz, which is a current that runs through the book. The novel has influenced generations of creative artists. Paradise says it best: “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

5. Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962)

John Steinbeck makes this list twice. In 1960, aging and feeling that he had lost the feel for America, he embarked on a 10,000-mile journey across the nation, accompanied by his French poodle Charley. Part travelogue, part fiction, he wrote about the people he met. He gloried in the gifts of nature at Yellowstone and agonized over scenes of racial violence in New Orleans. In the end, he was uncertain what he found, and he lamented the loss of an older America. “The more I inspected this American image, the less sure I became of what it is.”

6. Easy Rider (1969)

The film follows Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) as they travel by motorcycle from Los Angeles to New Orleans. The pair sold cocaine to finance their trip, and drugs, from marijuana to LSD, are part of their journey. In their travels, they experience life in a commune and befriend a lawyer (Jack Nicholson). But they face hostility (the lawyer is murdered) and, in the end, they are also killed. The movie defined an era where the rebellion of youth came to the forefront and the soundtrack forever linked rock ‘n’ roll to the journey on the road.

7. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)

Robert Pirsig’s book became a surprise bestseller, despite being rejected initially by dozens of publishers. It tells the fictionalized autobiographical story of a motorcycle trip he took with his son from Minnesota to California. Along the way, the narrative contemplates various philosophical and psychological issues. What the travelers found was inward, not outward. “Sometimes,” Pirsig writes, “it’s a little better to travel than arrive.”

8. Rain Man (1988)

Awkward pairings are elemental in road narratives. Few are as different as the brothers Charlie and Ray, portrayed by Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. One is an upscale collectibles dealer and the other is an institutionalized autistic savant. On their car journey from Cincinnati to Los Angeles, Charlie copes with the regimented habits of his brother and comes to appreciate and understand him. In Las Vegas, Ray uses his mathematical abilities to count cards and win big at blackjack. In the end, Ray returns to the institution where he lives, and Charlie promises to see him again, having come to appreciate his brother and realize he wants him in his life.

9. Thelma and Louise (1991)

What starts as a girls’ weekend away becomes a one-way road trip to eternity. Geena Davis (Thelma) and Susan Sarandon (Louise), looking to escape from a domineering husband and deadening job, plan a weekend at a cabin. But after a stop at a roadhouse where Thelma is nearly raped and Louise kills her attacker, the women go on the lam. Along the way, their friendship and confidence grow, but they reach a point of no return as authorities bear down on them. They gas the engine and head toward a gorge. The film leaves the two of them in still frame, forever suspended in mid-air, pointed upward, out and away.

10. The Road (2006)

In this famous post-apocalyptic work, Cormac McCarthy tells the story of a loving father and his young son journeying across a forbidding landscape. There is danger and horror everywhere and the pair struggle to survive. They strive to reach water, and do. But the father dies and the son is left to carry on with another family, who discover him. Father and son had “set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire.” If each is the other’s world entire, it matters not where you are on the road.

^{Feature image: Photo by Jaro Bielik on Unsplash.}