Another major factor as to why America is so car-savvy is because the rest of our forms of transportation are extremely ill-constructed. It's very easy and cheap to travel all across Europe on a bus or a train because those forms of transportation are so well-oiled and efficient. You may not even need to _own_ a car in many places to get where you want to go. In America you're pretty much left with only two options for long distance: fly or drive. And chances are when you fly, you have a specific destination in mind and don't necessarily care about the journey of getting there. Which leaves driving to be the perfect option if you prefer to take the time to enjoy the journey.
Alana D Alana D Also, America dwarfs the EU in land, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. So having high speed rail systems and bus systems (which we do have decent ones, just privately owned) has no profit value, since building it would take years, and then balancing out the debt would take twice as long unless some giant advertising conspiracy kills the car, which is near impossible.
HolycrapLOL the European nations (the people) have existed far longer than the American nation has as well. in America we spanned the continent in roughly 150 years and used the most rapid form of transit to do so. changing sustaining transit from river boat to trains and for light cargo from trains to trucks and cargo planes. in Europe there has been centuries to grow as nations and it is still divided among separate nations. this is not to say that the European nations do not work together but it still has them as separate entities.
Sean Rea They do work together. The only exception is the sanctions put on russia, that's not to say that you can't easily get in and out there as a free person.
Joseph Stassup I don't think that's it, Joseph. I think it's more to do with the extremely low population density in most of America. This makes it so that you are more or less required to own a car to survive. If you already own a car, you may as well drive it when you want to go to nearby cities. That's the real reason train travel is not profitable in the U.S. Two things will change that: mellenials are eschewing the whole idea of living in suburbs, viewing them as an inefficient use of resources, socially isolating to their residents, and both a cause, and a symptom, of institutional racism. The other is self-driving cars. Who will pay $15,000 per year to own their own car when you can just call an autonomous car to your doorstep in minutes for a fifth of what a traditional taxi would cost?
As someone from a tiny island country, which if you can run a marathon, you can pretty much run across the entire island in a day, I had a pretty good culture shock when I was in the US. I love the vast amount of flat land and really enjoyed the scenery when I traveled with a friend. And when I stood infront of Lake Michigan, I googled and found that the Great Lakes combined is 340 times the size of my country.
GuyWithAnAmazingHat I think that's smaller than Greater Cairo (capital of Egypt) :D 50 km is less that quarter the distance I drive to get to my parents in Alexandria :D and BTW, your Amazing Hat is Amazing :D (I'm assuming it's a TARDIS right?)
That's because not so long ago, in Europe you needed different currency for almost every country, passing the border was troublesome at times and also almost every country has its own language. In America on the other hand, you can travel for west coast to east coast and all you have to worry about is not falling asleep while driving.
The thing with the US, is it is not only size, but the fact that each state has it's own culture, the people can be quite diverse from place to place, interests and what is big in the area in europe, most of the countries are comparably sized too some of our larger states, so going to say France from Germany, depending on the exact location, would take as long as me going down to maryland, me living in Pennsylvania not only that but it is a lot easier of a process to cross state borders, and really travel around the whole us then Europe, where you have to cross country borders Edit: It is apparently a lot easier to cross borders in Europe then I thought, so that is not an accurate point, but I also do not wish to delete it as I do not wish to pretend I was correct all along
The Croaker This is all 100% accurate except that because of the European Union it's actually super-easy to travel from one nation to another as long as you're an EU citizen.
The Croaker crossing the border between say France and Germany isn't realy that hard, I would actually say that it is as easy as crossing state borders because of Schengen Area - you don't need passport or anything like that, and as long as both countries use euro you no longer need to exchange money. I give you that it was relatively recent change so maybe europeans are needlesly reluctant to go on a roadtrip to another country.
The Croaker well you clearly know nothing. It is easy to cross boarders in Europe (unless you're trying to come into the UK). The people in America aren't diverse. It is so easy to travel round Europe. It is just better not to drive because we have better public transport system which is much cheaper, faster and more efficient generally.
Ben Welham you really think that people in america aren't diverse? then you really know nothing about this country, I will admit I thought It would be harder to cross countries then it seems it actually is so that is incorrect but still your statement is wholly incorrect about americans not being diverse
I think that the structure of non american roads play a big factor in them not being prevalent. the roads in countries like London and Germany are complex and would require a lot of planning just to get anywhere at a resonable time wheras american roads are more open and allow a more get up and go attitude
Just a correction, but "London" is a metropolitan area not a country in the sense of an independent and sovereign state. And also Germany's roadways aren't that complex compared to the ancient roadways of cities that over time have just build upon the old not just remade them more useful like NYC did.
I think road trips are characteristically American because in the U.S you can drive 300 miles and still be in U.S. in Europe driving 300 miles may get you to another country all together. It still qualifies as a road trip but it's not the same. Driving cross country in the U.S bares more significance because there is more ground to cover and depending on where you are going more to see. Making road trips more of an event or, adventure if you will
mscheezburger I think that 300 miles road trip would for many be too much of an adventure because you would need to drive to another country which many people think is a very big deal. I think that attitude will change in the future because now traveling to another country in EU is realy no more different than traveling to another city.
AndreLeBorgne yup, for example going from italy to corsica(france's island) it's just the same as going to sardegna(italy's farthest island, sure it is a long trip, but it is no "big deal" culturally talking, it would be the same as "goint to the mountains", it doesn't hold any meaning other than what you have to do there.
I think we really don't roadtrips but do like the romantic idea of it. No one really goes on roadtrips across the country anymore the way my parents did in the 70's. Everyone secretly knows after a couple of hours it sucks and unless you live in the northeast it's a whole lot of nothing for hours on end. Roadtrips died when college became the expectation. You either went to school and probably didn't have a car or worked 2 or 3 jobs with nowhere near enough time off to go on a lengthy trip.
Interesting. I, myself, will be heading over to the US from Switzerland this September for my third consecutive year of road tripping through the States. I personally love it, though I understand it's not for everyone.
Corsair Joshua (I mean he was trying to separate cars from those other forms of transportation. It wouldn't make sense to say, "Beyond freedom and individualism - which are absent for obvious reasons on planes, trains, and automobiles - when you're in a car..." He would be excluding the car from the intimacy that he talks about the car having.)
Corsair Joshua The most common definition of automobile in america=car, buses and trains and sometimes even planes. So you wouldn't say automobile for bus. Also Wikipedia says automobile refers to a car and only a car, or to a magazine. Take your pick.
Wafflical If he had said, "planes, trains, and automobiles... [Shows gif from the movie] by which, of course, I mean buses," it would have made perfect sense AND made the awesome reference he should have made.
I remember reading from an Argentinian cartoonist that what makes the USA unique among other big countries is that cities, and more importantly, job opportunities, are spread out throughout its territory rather than concentrated on a single spot as it happens in most other places. And this allows people to migrate within the USA in an unidirectional way rather than just towards the country's capital, as it happens with Argentina. So I could see the road trip as indeed a quintessential american feature given the lack of a preference or inherent direction on were you _must_ go next. There's no clear center of gravity for people's movements.
Arturo Gutierrez That's interesting I'm from the USA and it's always a strange concept for me (and probably other US Americans) that capitols are centers of commerce and culture in other countries. while here for the most part are cites for law making. Each state was given the power to establish their own capitol and each one had there own reason like militaristic strategy , geographic and population centers for easy travel, or lobbying politics. Though the majority of them did not develop into anything special. Example: New York city whose population is 8 million is not the capitol of New York state whose actual capitol is Albany which has a population of 97 thousand
Zaziuma Absolutely! I also recognized +mememolly on the very first picture and thought I was the only one... but there you are, at the very top of the comment list. Seems like the internet never forgets. :) Welcome back Molly, we've missed you. Even though it doesn't look like you are gonna make appearances all over the place yet, it's nice to see that you are alive and kickin'... :)
Once the US started building the roads, they totally ignored the railways, unlike rest of the world. Railways are easier to maintain, less wasteful, and good for the economy, and still pretty popular in Europe and Asia. If the US ever gets back to building large scale infrastructure (Railways or Hyperloop) then perhaps roads will begin to loose their charm.
***** I don't think this is likely to happen. this is not to say that it is not nice to travel by rail but point to point travel has largely been taken up by air travel. with a railway you have to plot a likely route of desired destinations an hope they remain. with the open road there is the freedom to go where you please with out being routed through places you don't wish to stop at or go through.
***** Outside of some densely populated areas (which hopefully have some form of public transport like subways or trains) roads with cars and buses are more effective at moving people because we have more freedom when determining our routes. This lets the routes change more easily as the needs of people change and to go to rural areas where running a train to every day doesn't make sense because not enough people live there to fill up a passenger train. Buses serve the same purpose as passenger trains in other countries, if people move from one area to another the bus routes can easily move with them, and it uses the same infrastructure as cars so there is little additional cost to adding a new route. What trains are used for in the US is large amounts of freight as factories and ports don't change locations very quickly making trains work well for that.
Sean Rea i think it actually is... think for example of the italian lucca comics&games, where hundreds of thousand of people come from all over italy and closer countries, what do you think the vast majority of them use? cars? well, if they are closer than... i dunno, 1 hour to the place maybe, but taking those out, most people go by train, and those from out of italy, with airplanes, when talking about outside-country vacation, pretty much everyone uses airplanes, or a ship/boat if the country can be reached from water, but cars are never used, for reaching islands and similar(unless we count using them to reach the ship or airplane obviously) some even use the train for that, but it's mainly for when you can't bring much on you.
Sean Rea Yeah, and honestly taking a train from one end of the U.S to the other wouldn't really be cost effective. It would cost just as much or more than an airline ticket and take longer to get you there.
I think a road trip is defined by the attitude you have about the trip. We called it a road trip when my family drove over the mountains to go camping, but we didn't call it a road trip when my aunt in the next state over was hospitalized and we drove over to support her.
How does Mike do this? He's not reading a script. He's just rambling articulate, well researched arguements. What is a casual conversation like with this guy? Is he like this at parties? Dang.
***** He mentions a script at the beginning of the pink shirt segment. He may not be reading from an exact script but presumably he does have talking points for reference. The better question is how can he do all that and drive a car. Now concerning parties, to quote Mike: "[Idea Channel] has been that person that starts a conversation at a party then totally just straight up walks away. Sorry, it's just they keep refilling the guacamole and you know we hafta just, sorry, I'll be right back".
European (Dutch) perspective here: I agree that, while trans-continental road trips are very common in Europe (it's still one of the most common modes of going on holiday I'd say), the Road Trip as an activity in and of itself is definitely not as much of a 'thing' as it appears to be in the US. It might be significant that in many languages other than English, there isn't even a word for it - driving somewhere is just seen as a means to an end rather than an activity that merits its own word. Of course that presents a bit of chicken or egg situation: is there not a word for it because it's not an important cultural phenomenon or is it not an important phenomenon because we don't have a word to talk about it? Also, one thing that may help explain the difference between the US and Europe is the integration of the highways and their surroundings: many Western-European highways (think France, Germany, the Netherlands) are constructed in such a way that they seem very 'disconnected' from the land they're passing through: they're often elevated and are lined with sound walls, fencing, or trees and look so similar to each other that they essentially become what Augé called 'non-places'. I've never been on the road in the US so I'd be interested to hear if people there have experienced this as well, but it seems like there a quite a few parts of the country where it's much easier to really feel part of the area that you're passing through, like there's more continuity between the road and what lies beyond. Am I just basing this on romanticized road movie imagery or do you guys think there's some truth in it?
Sophie Rose The roadtrip of USA is usually a very conscious plan to see sights. I'm on the east coast and I haven't been on a road trip, but if I were to I'd avoid highways because I want to see the towns. But the highways in USA, at least on the Atlantic side, aren't very disconnected from the land around it. You can see landmarks from the highway, you can enjoy the pastures and rolling hills or the urban sprawl. The romanticized movie imagery is definitely a part of it and folks that plan road trips try to make that a reality. That is why they mostly avoid highways.
Sophie Rose Another Dutch perspective here. I absolutely love roadtrips. I'm driving from Murcia to Barelona this monday for the 2nd time, attempted to go to Barcelona from the Netherlands (but my car broke down) and drove 10000 km in Australia. I only take a plane because I can't afford to go by car or because there's an ocean in between :P Anyway, for the roadtrip feeling in Europe you have to get of the highway (at least partially). I always do a bit of research to find out where the beautiful routes are and during the trip I improvise a lot. I purposely seek out 'interesting' roads; old roads, dirts roads, swerving roads into the mountains, things like that. Besides that, it's true there isn't a dutch word for instance for roadtrip, but there is 'autovakantie' (car holiday). Loads of people go on holiday by car, often dragging a long a caravan (the Dutch even have a reputation for it). If you're not just trying to go from A to B in the fastest way possible, that's a roadtrip in my book :)
Sophie Rose There is a LOT of truth in the road imagery/scenery. I took a halfway-cross-country Road Trip a couple years ago (From Virginia to Texas) and took the long way around to see all the sights. We have a lot of highways that are almost specifically built around the view- such as the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Now, the major highways will always have a bit less of a great view and can be really boring at times, but if you are going anywhere over a hour chances are you will get off those highways at some point, and really it's only bad around the east coast where trees block your views. There was also a major push for a era where road trips = money here. Route 66 and tourism and all that. I rode on Route 66 for a bit and it was kinda sad to see how many places have become just skeleton structures and are wasting away due to the dip in road trips in general- it used to be a bigger thing than it is now in the US, people were more willing to stop at anything beside the road that seemed interesting. (If you ever saw the Pixar Movie, Cars, that pretty much addresses part of it, and I was actually at the restaurant where the owner inspired one of the characters. It was good food.)
This made me think about Horatio Jackson, the first person to drive across the U.S., coast to coast. Back then cars were more of a hobby and few people though they'd be practical, since there wasn't many paved roads for them. He made a bet to prove they'd be useful. I listened to an audio book about his journey, called "Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip." I was actually on a road trip with my brother. We were on our last leg heading from Philadelphia to San Francisco. When you go from east to west, you go from everything close together to vast open spaces. It helped us to immerse in the story. My favorite thing about his story was the fact that he brought his dog on the trip. He also brought his mechanic, who was very much needed.
I'm Irish and I remember when I was a wee babie and I'd be watching a movie and a character would be taking a flight from New York to Calafornia and I'd think "why are they taking a flight when they could just drive or take a train?" That was before I realised how massive America is , especially compered to Ireland.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND EVERYBODY GO ON A ROAD TRIP. One of the best trips of my life was last summer when I did one with a few friends from New York to New Orleans, stopping in Asheville, the Great Smokey Mountains, Nashville, and Memphis.
in my opinion, what makes a road trip is not the distance or the stops, but the people you travel with. I really wouldn't consider traveling from Mobile Alabama to Atlanta Georgia by myself a road trip, just a trip to visit my family. But if I were making said trip with my Aunt, or once with her Pastor so he could attend class up there, I would consider that a road trip. If you watch any road movie, it never focuses on one person. It is either a family, or a group of two or more friends. The trip itself is part of the experience. Even your own road trip was not taken alone, but with your girlfriend. It is the shared experiences during the trip that make it a road trip.
To me, as a "European", I'm not on vacation as long as I can still speak my native language. I often drive through two or maybe three different countries to get to my holiday destination. I wouldn't call it a road trip though. I love standing in a small French towns bakery, making big had gestures and pointing at things saying "DEUHX PAAAIIN... DEUX!". Language barriers are great. xD
Road trips are fun for me because nostalgia, family tradition and being in the outdoors are powerful things. Also, boy scouts, high adventure and the promise of a vacation of sorts are good reasons to get out and drive but also do fun things once you get there.
Something I've always liked about road trips is the closeness you get with the people you're with, there aren't many other times when you'll sit in a small box with a few close friends for extended periods of time. I think it relates to the point you made about how you're always just passing through, you might find new and exciting places during the trip but you never stay for long, the only thing that stays the same over the course of a road trip are the people.
I think a very important attribute of road trips is the classical "the way is the goal" thing. I´ve had a road trip last summer through europe with some firends and though we had decided on certain citiies we wanted to see, they didnt matter as much as the travelling itself. I would say that "passing by" somewhere is also part of this idea.
I couldn't help but chuckle when you commented how seeing military vehicles on the highway was rare. I grew up in a town right next to a Marine base, and at least once a week I'd see convoys going down the I-5. It never struck me as odd until a friend from out of state mentioned we were driving next to a car with a place for a machine gun turret on top.
Gotta Agree with you, its a powerful idea, I live in Chile and last year my vacation centered on a Road Trip on the west coast, ended up driving from san francisco to Vancouver, driving through northern california, oregon and Washington states and into Canada. So yeah the road trip is more than the sum of its stops.
Here in Argentina people go on road trips all the time... I guess part of it is because there are lots of different landscapes to look at and lots of small towns and different states (in our case provinces) with different cultures each to visit...
i feel like europeans have a certain 'drive to arrive' mentality. one reason might very well be that you usually cannot go for more than thirty minutes without hitting another place to pass through, making these places less special and memorable. also, since the USA is so large, going places by car takes a long time. this certainly adds to making such trips major events.
m8 you're going out with MemeMolly who's British, which means you'll be stopping at a service station every 40 minutes to go the toilet and have a cheeky nandos, chips and macky d while you're there every idea channel episode from now until august is gonna be on the road
As a Canadian, crossing a provincial border on the Trans Canada Highway always feels like a road trip to me. Also, if I make a point to bring snacks in the car, that means it's a road trip. It means I'm going to be driving in one direction for a long time, and I'm going somewhere of significance. Having grown up in a rural area, to get almost anywhere, you have no choice but to "pass through." To get to another town an hour away, I may drive through or past 5-10 different towns or villages. While typically I wouldn't give much thought or attention to these places, at times I do, and I might stop for ice cream or drive up and down the main street of the town before getting back to the highway. I think the title of Road Trip has more to do with the manner in which you take the trip. It becomes a road trip if you are driving as *part* of your vacation or trip. When the drive itself is an element of the journey and not just a means by which to arrive at your destination, when it is given significance, then it is a road trip.
I'm a Canadian student and my home town is around 200 miles away from m'y School. I do the trip 1 or 2 times a month. It almost never fell like a roadtrip because I only use the highway and I don't stop on the way. Last week i did the same trip exept i used a country road and i stopped to eat in a small town. This time it really felt like a roadtrip.
I think it is also a way to be able to feel nomadic. We love the idea that we can just pick up our things and move around. We don't have to be stuck in the same place. A road trip is a way to go and see new things. If we weren't just passing through a town we may have missed a gold attraction that is only known to locals.
In my family, we always define a road trip as just using the car to go somewhere else spontaneously and usually to postpone responsibilities at home (like cleaning, paperwork, etc.). So even just cruising the local area looking for yard sales or and ice cream stand qualify as a road trip, if the situation is right!
I'm halfway through my road trip to the 48 states, and I agree. I've felt again and again that I'm just passing through, whether I'm in and out of a state in a day, or staying with a friend for ten days. On this trip, even if I'm momentarily stationary, it's never permanent, never putting down roots. I am becoming and embodying the sentiment, "this, too, shall pass"; I, too, shall pass (through).
I think the American idea of the road trip has its roots in manifest destiny. For a long time, the heart of the American spirit was to expand across the continent and have America stretch from coast to coast. So does that driving force of manifest destiny just disappear now that California is a state? Of course not. That spirit is still there, but now it is expressed via the experience of the vast and varied holdings of the United States. Both NYC and LA are America, as well as everything in between. But, the culture in each region is different. So, although NYC is as much America as LA, you can't really say you've experienced American culture until you've been to both places. And not just those places, but all the places in between. Just flying from NYC to LA and back again doesn't cut it, because as you said, there is no sense of "passing through." You are in NYC, and then you are in LA. Therefore, the only way to become a true American is to experience each of the varied American sub-cultures, and the best way to do that is via a road trip.
I like your definition of Road Trip. It's a road trip when it's long enough that there's a series of places you're in that still aren't the place you're going. It's when the parts in the middle are also places. I once drove from San Francisco to Las Vegas, and it was just a long drive, because I wasn't remotely "present" in any of the places in between. But when I drive the same length along CA-1 along the coast, it's a road trip, because it's littered with places that are good enough to be destinations in themselves.
I think the roadtrip is so popular here in America because the states are so big, and the cultures so different, so it doesn't seem like you're just passing the same thing over and over, and you can see so many new things.
When I was in Japan, I had a German friend ask me 'Why do Americans never travel to other countries?' It got me thinking of how limited we are geographically compared to those on other continents. It can be very expensive to buy a plane ticket to go over the ocean either way, and becomes more expensive depending which ocean you are closer to since you also have a large country to fly over. My friend had the impressions, though, that Americans had no interest in visiting Europe. I told him that it is the opposite, many would love to travel to Europe but it's not affordable to many people. If we leave the country we tend to go to Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. But even without leaving the country there are many traveling possibilities within America. Our country has been distinct geographical sites, different cities can feel like they have their own bubble culture, and you can drive for a long time without hitting any borders. With the other reasons you've mentioned, the road trip for many Americans is the only means of having a vacation in a country where we are double sided by two oceans and want to explore without breaking the bank.
I think the road trip is about exploration, but it is also about control. By exploring with my personal car, I can control pace, stops and eventual destination. There is also the practicality of driving. While it takes more time, driving is simply more economical in many cases than buying plane tickets and renting a car on the other end. Finally, there is the simple idea of tradition. My parents did road trips, so now I do them with my kids. I asked my students one time why we celebrate Thanksgiving. One student raised his hand and said, "Because we did it last year?"
I had never thought of a roadtrip as an idea in itself, it's a pretty interesting topic! The one thing that defines a roadtrip (for me) is the self-discovery part. When you're driving you're just getting from point A to B, but when you're on a roadtrip you're dealing with something in your life that has made you want to take a break, maybe you're chasing something, maybe you're running from something, maybe both, but you're trying to figure out something about yourself or about your life that you don't understand. That is the essential part of a roadtrip for me.
The concept of "passin' through" reminds me of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the way that it was in many ways a road trip movie without the car. And, by extension, The Odyssey is kind of a road trip as well, just on a boat.
Canada is also large, has a single currency, has a small set of predominant languages (two rather than one, but most of us also speak the second one at least a tiny bit), has distinct regional cultures and biomes, is mostly populated by immigrated populations with the attendant mindsets, and has the infrastructure and automotive culture to support road trips, but road trips still do not seem as culturally central here as in the States. Canada also indulges far less in the rhetoric of freedom, and I wonder if that's a part of it. I also wonder how much of the difference comes from the fact that Canada is more spread out than the United States. We have lower population density, so there are fewer "stops" through which to pass. Unless you are in the Maritimes, southern Ontario, or along the St. Lawrence, you have to drive quite a lot farther before you get to the next small town or city of enough size or distinctiveness to make it feel worthwhile. Perhaps? But we do still go on lots of road trips here; it just isn't as much a part of our mythology. Actually, that suggests something else: Canada seems to simply mythologize itself less than the United States does. Of course the question "Why does the United States make space in its self-mythology for the road trip?" is worth asking, but I wonder if, in order to answer it fully, you must also ask, "Why does the United States put so much creative energy into self-mythology?" (I know some Canadianists would bring up Northrop Frye's idea that Canadians still act out a garrison mentality which pits small, tight-knit, and somewhat oppressive communities against a hostile anti-human wilderness, in contrast to America's sense that they have somehow conquered the wilderness with the sole exception of the desert, against which Americans prove themselves. I don't know if I buy it, but it's worth considering.)
Christian H Us Canadians might also self-mythologize less because we have less of a sense of being *one* country. There's a great short story titled "The Canadian personality", published in 1962 by Bruce Hutchison. It's the story of an American journalist looking for "the Canadian character" by roaming across Canada. He ends up in a discussion with the narrator, who points out to him that Canada can be divided into several characters lumped into "Canada". These sub-characters are the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, Toronto (Toronto?!), the Prairies, and BC. Today I'd take out Toronto and add Newfoundland to this cast of characters. Others may split the Prairies or the Maritimes or keep Toronto. So, any Canadian roadtrip may not seem to involve going across one large territory that subtly changes, but going across several loosely connected territories that spend a lot of time thinking about how they can really be a country together. It's pretty hard to mythologize if you keep that question as part of your national identity. The US seems to have resolved it a long time ago, but Canada has not.
I love road trips. I live in Massachusetts, where my dad is from, but my mom is from California. That led to me driving cross country 5 times. It also facilitated "passin' through" all of the lower 48 states. Man we confused the AAA guy when we got maps. ... "Yeah, we need a triptik from MA to Oakland, to LA, to Miami, to Chicago, to MA." I feel it's a number of factors making this a perfect storm. ... 1. Either genetics, or just plain heritage, as most of the population came from people who traveled into the unknown, immigrating for a better life. 2. Nationalizing the roads helped expand the highways. There were highways in the US, as well as Germany, but it was the nationalizing, linking transport and funding that was the true idea that Eisenhower built. 3. Marketing. The iconic Chevy song of see the USA in your Chevrolet embodies that entire patriotic romanticism that makes people feel the need to see the rest of the country. I think another draw is the fact that we are in control of the situation. We decide if we stop or go on, what is important or appeals to us. It also has a bit of that Ikea "I did this for myself" pride in it. Ok... enough rambling. .... gotta drive.
Another very American thing, turning everything into a contest, was a big part of the very first cross country road trip: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson_Jackson
I have a severe case of wanderlust that my wife (and wallet) keep in check. Don't really know why. I just really want to know what's on the other side of that hill.
I think going on a road trip is like going for a walk: you aren't leaving for the sake of arriving someplace else, you are leaving for the sake of leaving for a while and the journey is more important than the destination.
I'm an American expat who has lived in Tokyo, Japan for around the last ten years. I would argue that a good public transport system allows for more freedom and individualism than a car ever could. In the past, perhaps a car represented these things to Americans because train stations were few and far between and trains only arrived sporadically. But in the modern day, owning and maintaining a car is a huge drag on personal finances and creates all kinds of worry and tension in an individual's life, whereas hopping on the train in Tokyo, I can go from one part of town to a few blocks down for a buck or two, or from Tokyo to Osaka for a fraction of what it would cost me in gas and toll fees if I owned a car. Train stations are so common and closely-spaced that I effectively have the same freedom of movement as if I owned a car, with a fraction of the associated costs and none of the obligation. Train timetables, also - assuming a healthy public transport system - also have trains coming frequently enough that it's no big deal to hop off at any point between your starting point and destination, allowing for those "Just passin' through" distractions typified by the classic American road trip.
Getting a visa can be difficult but once you have one you can renew it indefinitely. I would encourage anyone to spend some time abroad so if you've already got a handle on the language it's absolutely worth it. Living here, also, will give you a huge boost in your speaking ability because you'll be immersed in the language day to day.
Mike Oakland But by even having a timetable that is not your own, to me automatically makes it NOT a road trip.And a road trip is not about money, it is about just going. No destination required. No plan required. And a road trip should take days, not hours.Just hours makes it a day trip.
I agree wholeheartedly with your "passing through" concept, but w.r.t. infrastructure, I'd argue that the interstate highway system did far more to hurt the road trip than to help it. Rather, the original U.S. highway system is the quintessential piece of pavement for "passing through". The road trip is more Route 66, less I-10. The interstate highway system seems to encourage less passing through and more passing _around_. Sound insulating walls and off-ramps don't really encourage experiencing the trip as much as using the road as a conduit from point A to point B (which is exactly what Eisenhower et al. wanted, because HoJo's and the Corn Palace aren't strategic centers). The highway exit itself, which came along with the interstate, determines when and where you pause your trip and what you see there. It's a pretty unempowering arrangement. The U.S. highways used to, and in many places still do, pass right through the centers of towns. They very nearly literally defined "Main Street USA", although that does sort of invite the paradox of "which came first, the street or the city?" The U.S. highway system also coincides better with the rise of car culture in Amurika, being implemented in 1926 and likely enabling the evolution of the car from lumbering city carriage to sleek, gas-guzzling ship-o'-the-highway. We can discuss this more during our road trip from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon *after Phoenix Comic-Con which everyone should come see me and Mike at yayyy!*
a road trip for me doesn't have a clear destination, but 1. you go for fun 2. where ever you go gives you something you couldn't get at a closer destination and 3. pictures/ evidence of the journey/ souvenir
In New Zealand, our roadtrips are all about either getting home or seeing the family or heading to the perfect BBQ spot. I n the other part of the country, yes you pass by small towns or large cities but you know your destination.
I think part of what makes it a road trip and not just a drive, is going with someone. If I had to drive across the state by myself, I would probably just call it a trip, but it's part of the experience going with another person.
I've been traveling all over the US, and even some of Mexico, by car, bus, bicycle, and my thumb for more than a decade now. The road is sacred space to me. I feel qualified to speak to this one. The difference lies in intention, or even lack thereof. Being "on the road" requires a spirit that is up for anything. Many times I've taken road trips that lasted several months, but which I've only planned the first week of. The adventure is all about embracing the unknown and with such a large country Americans have plenty of unknown to explore.
Living in Alaska, almost all of my destinations are several hours away whether by car or snowmobile. Having this experience with the concept, I'd say that a roadtrip can be defined as any excursion where the destination is not the chief source of enjoyment. Whether the main source ends up being the countryside, the company you keep on a road trip, or the places you "just pass through," they are all often far more memorable than the destination itself.
I would say that a defining part of a road trip is the interaction. This being the interactions with those you are traveling with, the interactions with the country itself, or the people that inhabit said country. Road trip movies are largely about families being together, or people getting to know each other as they cover vast distances, they make numerous pit stops and meet people from across America or whichever country the film is taking place until they reach the ultimate destination.
Most of the appeal I think for me and my friends is because we grew up in a small rural area, we just want to see what else is out there, and since the continental US is such a big, car-friendly place, a road trip is a good way to experience a taste of what the world has to offer, or at least what America has.
My Great Grandma came here from Finland after her father died from a heart attack. He had the heart attack after seeing the Russian forces during the winter war. He was 26 years old. I say this because I think it's part of the American attitude. For us who came here from other parts of the world. Our family history is about dropping what we had behind, and leaving for greener pastures. My grandma had nothing left from Finland when she left, and her only few remaining family members came with. They left for greener pastures as they lost everything they ever had during the conflict.
I would, argue the best way to see America is riding on a freight train. I hopped trains all across the country for 4 years. I was surprised the American Hobo was not mentioned. I feel like the spirit of the American Hobo is an extreme example of the frontier ideal of America.
If I had to put it concisely, I would say that divide of "driving vs. road trip" is primarily determined by intent. If your goal is the destination, it's driving. If your goal is the journey, it's a road trip. That's not to say that a road trip can't be centred around arriving at a specific location, but the focus is much more on the places you visit along the way as well, on "passing through".
As a Scot I'm not familiar much with America's road trip traditions but I did love Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, so at the least I kinda get what a 'Chataqua' is. In fact I was surprised you didn't cover some of the ideas of self-discovery explored there, but perhaps that's really a different thing entirely which just happens to also be a journey.
I'd say road trip comes from an acknowledgement that the journey and the company are more important than the destination, or it is at least an equal part.
A road trip for me would be any trip (doesn't matter if undertaken by car, bike, as long as you stay on the road) undertaken for fun, to chill out or even to get away from the daily stresses, alone or accompanied by someone. It doesn't matter of the distance traveled, as long as it's not to reach a destination associated with any stressful activities. The beauty of it is to enjoy the scenery, the peace of mind it brings and the company of the people sharing the trip. It's all about living the moment. But I'm not American, so maybe it's culturally related but some of the main ideas should be similar. That said, I hope you enjoyed yours and hats off to your girlfriend for supporting you in making this video.
I've been dying to go on a road trip. If I had the time, money, and my car wasn't threatening to give out, I would love to go up the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way north. The mountains are so pretty this time of year.
TL;DR: Road trips are a bonding experience, even if by yourself. Road trips are more than just passing through to me. It is connecting with others better or yourself through a task that doesn't require much thought. When you go on a road trip by yourself, you learn more about you, and have a better self understanding. When you go with friends or family, you connect over the long roads where you talk, tourist attractions, and other things that occur on road trips.
Road trips to me feel both private and public at the same time. You're in the privacy of your own car, free to observe the landscapes rolling past you. If you're with someone else, this allows for conversation, and if you're alone, it allows for introspection. But at the same time, you're among strangers and in a completely new place. Usually for me, travelling feels really vulnerable, but in a road trip, you're able to safely observe and think inside your own little bubble. And if you want to be exposed to all of this newness like roadside attractions and such, you can do that whenever you want.
I think that the lee way for adventure is the bar. You can take a short road trip as long you give yourself the freedom to explore, and you can travel a great distance and still not be a "road trip" if there are strict time deadlines.
America seems to "own" the road trip by virtue of scale/variation found in our, (Americans') home land. There is a sort of ready made poetry built in to the vast land scape that makes up our corner of the world. The scale and variation of the 48 contiguous united states are akin to the scale of the landscapes we find so intriguing in epic scale stories, e.g, LOTR, GOT, etc. We feel like we own the road trip because our version of it feels like the biggest and the most complimentary stage by which to project our own stories and adventures on.
I think a reason America is associated with road trips is that unlike other countries we have a wide variety of landscapes and cultures that if you live in one part of the country you can't experience. Taking a road trip allows you to experience multiple facets of the country at once.
As a non-american, while growing up I always looked at roadside attractions as a very american thing with a huge cultural factor. Like the "biggest this, the smallest that, stop here for the worlds best something" etc
The way I see it, a road trip is something that takes you out of the familiar. It could be out of the city or out of the state, or it could just be something new on the other side of town. A road trip is an adventure, and an adventure's not an adventure if you've seen it all before.
At 45, I am taking my first road trip around the US after living my whole life in Florida. This trip will take a month hitting historical areas, National Parks and cities of interest. I hope it will change me for the best to see the places I only heard of. -Thanks
This episode was really timely for me because I just got back yesterday from a roadtrip with my girlfriend where I spent a lot of time thinking about the particular Americanness of the road trip (we ate burgers on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial one night and if that isn't the most 'Murican thing I've ever done I don't know what is). One thing that really struck me about the American road trip is its obsession with seeing landmarks, whether that be the weirdest collection of anatomical oddities (Mutter Museum, Philly PA), or the world's 2nd largest ball of twine (Cawker City, Kansas) or the Headless Horseman Bridge (Tarrytown, NY). We have this need to see these places that mark some sort of history or achievement that makes me think this American (if not exclusively so) need to create a national mythos. On seeing the 5000th "established in 1801" plaque on our trip, my girlfriend made a snarky comment about American's need to romanticize anything more than two minutes old because we're such a young country. I think the road trip really speaks to this compulsion America has to self-narrativize because we lack the sort of centuries-old cultural narrative that a place like Europe does.
One gets the feeling from Road Trip movies that many small town's economies are built on getting people traveling to other destinations to stop at their Town by way of odd ball attractions like weird museums and stuff like "the world's largest something or other" these oddball attractions are what make American road-trips unique from other countries
There is something psychologically comforting about "passing through" everywhere, staying nowhere, and returning to where you started from. It gives you the sense of having participated in a hundred different lives and places while, simultaneously, enabling you to live your life, at your discretion. I don't think this why most people take road trips, though. If it isn't out of financial necessity, I really believe most road trips are born out of a desire to find some inexplicable part of oneself: "I travel to discover I know not what - and because I don't know what I must find, I don't know where to go." So the trip is a traveling for the purpose, not of arriving, but of locating. Of discovery. Of awareness.
I think maybe it's defined in part by "passing through" but it's also defined in part by the destination and sense of urgency involved. Or rather, that the only truly defined goal of a road trip is 'home again' you go away to 'elsewhere' but your not done until your home, where as when you just drive your "going somewhere' and THEN your 'going home' , separately. And a roadtrip lacks a sense of urgency. You don't feel need to 'get there' in any particular rush. Something I don't feel when just "on a drive."
In talking about "passing through" you briefly mentioned presence, and I think the idea of being present is very important to the road trip. While driving you have to always be present, always watchful. It's a heightened sense of presence, as opposed to riding a bus or a plane. Of course, this heightened presence is necessary to prevent accidents, but it also leads to a heightened sense of control. I drive myself. I determine my path. I decide what is worth stopping for and where I will merely "pass through." This can be tied back in to what you said about manifest destiny and, more largely, American imperialism. In the moment I am driving I assign importance to everything I see. I determine the fate of my passengers as well. And so, while driving, I am the master of my domain. You also mentioned futuristic road trips such as Star Trek, but I think it is important to look backward in time as well. The hero's journey is one of the oldest stories in the western cannon. Think of The Odyssey. The journey is often used as a metaphor for a coming of age of sorts. A coming to a new understanding of the self or of the world. I think it's important to note the global rise of America in the postwar world when we discuss the importance of road trips in American culture. The posrwar era was a time of economic prosperity for the United States that led to the development of roads and ghe rise of the automobile, but it was also a time when America began to flourish culturally. New York became the new seat of the art world, and artist began looking for new ways of relating to the world. The abstract impressionists in particular were big into creating new mythologies for a modern, mechanized world. I think it's helpful to explore the American road trip in this light. We as a nation had this new dominance and prosperity that came out of a lot of death and violence, and I think this led to a metaphysical (existential? Idk) yearning to learn about who we are as a people and create that modern mythology. There's also something great about pushing technologies as far as they will go. Just how far can I drive? How long until my car breaks down? Just look at how quickly TH-cam went from being a simple way to share video with your friends to this entertainment megagiant. And just like the road trip TH-cam isn't uniquely American, but there is something essentially american about it. Don't know if any of this made sense, but this was a great video.
It seems to me that a road trip is distinctly (though not uniquely) American, and we could define it as a trip in an automobile, possibly an extended one, that feels more like an adventure or quest than like routine, driving-to-get-stuff-done. It can be a solitary experience, but it's more fun to do with a group. Even driving an hour up to a gig with my band can feel like a road trip simply because of the emotions running high, good company, good music, and a great time wherever we end up. It often feels like a scene from the Blues Brothers.
I think that another factor to the popularity of the road trip is the growth of the Suburb and commuting to work. Before Suburbs, people usually lived 10 minutes or less from their workplace. But when people started to move outside the cities, they had to travel longer for work. And with the natural need for adventure, going an hour or two away from your home became less adventurous. As a result, people wanted to explore the United States more. Also with the advancement of interstate, it made that possible.
It's really cool that Mike did a road trip while doing an Idea Channel episode about road trips. Hopefully he had fun on the trip and while making the video as well. I wonder how difficult the process was to put cameras in and around the car and to record a set of lines, all while doing a road trip in the car. The change of scenery is appreciated along with a topic focused more in American culture, so nice work on the interesting video compared to the normal episodes.
Mayby road trip could be argued as being a sort of non-religous/American nationalist pilgramige?Though perhaps in religous pilgramige there is more emphasis on where you are going, there is in both road trips and pilgramidge an element of 'the spirituality of the journey,' the 'its not where your going but how you get there that counts.' In other words mayby what road trips road trips is the fact that they are road trips a.k.a in a car, on the road, in contrast to other forms of pilgramige where being on foot for example would be more appropriate and what your looking at, roadside attractions, as apposed to churches or temples.
I've always looked at road trips as being leaving the place you know or live to go anywhere unfamiliar or at least unusual. When I lived in Iceland on a Navy base we would just leave the base and go into Keflavik, not even 5 minutes journey, just because it was different.
The thing i noticed when taking the same road in cars, then by bike and then by foot, it's that you don't appreciate much of the world around you in cars, because you don't really feel the fresh air, every thing move too fast. In my country we do road trip to go to someplace stay a few days and then come back, it's more a necessity than a pleasure, i love to listen to audiobooks when i take the road because on the highway there is not so much to see at my opinion . The fun things is that in train, i would love to stop when we cross a forest to appreciate the place, but we only pass through and never come back, maybe like a metaphor of life ... ?
Defining a road trip really just comes down to the personal feelings about a certain trip and the perspective of where you're driving through. For me, I've gone on drives to both a castle and a ski resort in Japan, with about a 4-5 hour commute time. Back when I lived in Canada, I would probably consider this worthy of the "road trip" title, since driving through such wide, open, and often flat sections of land makes it feel like a real trip. In Japan, these hours feel like skipping stones in a bucket for a few reasons: major highways all look the same with grey fencing and flashing light everywhere (it hardly makes you feel like you are going anywhere outside of a city); you often ARE just city hopping, sometimes without any perceivable space in between those cities; and with everything being so geographically close to each other in Japan (as opposed to Canada), day trips to entirely different prefectures is not only possible but a frequent occurrence, making these 4-5 hour drives appear less than epic. Don't get me wrong, I love taking cars or buses through Japan because the scenery is breathtaking, but I definitely don't think to myself, "this is totally a road trip!!!" when I go somewhere. I am sure that if I had been born and raised in a smaller country, maybe South Korea or even in Japan itself, I would have a very different feeling about this.
This episode proving once and for all, He can literally just to this show by the seat of his pants , with little to no planning, and half of his focus on driving a motor vehicle.
When we have friends that are considering marriage, we always recommend that they go on a road trip together first. I think it's the relationship of the people in the vehicle and spending time together.
Another major factor as to why America is so car-savvy is because the rest of our forms of transportation are extremely ill-constructed. It's very easy and cheap to travel all across Europe on a bus or a train because those forms of transportation are so well-oiled and efficient. You may not even need to _own_ a car in many places to get where you want to go.
In America you're pretty much left with only two options for long distance: fly or drive. And chances are when you fly, you have a specific destination in mind and don't necessarily care about the journey of getting there. Which leaves driving to be the perfect option if you prefer to take the time to enjoy the journey.
Alana D Alana D Also, America dwarfs the EU in land, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. So having high speed rail systems and bus systems (which we do have decent ones, just privately owned) has no profit value, since building it would take years, and then balancing out the debt would take twice as long unless some giant advertising conspiracy kills the car, which is near impossible.
Joseph Stassup Well, the continent Europe is larger than the US
HolycrapLOL the European nations (the people) have existed far longer than the American nation has as well. in America we spanned the continent in roughly 150 years and used the most rapid form of transit to do so. changing sustaining transit from river boat to trains and for light cargo from trains to trucks and cargo planes. in Europe there has been centuries to grow as nations and it is still divided among separate nations. this is not to say that the European nations do not work together but it still has them as separate entities.
Sean Rea They do work together. The only exception is the sanctions put on russia, that's not to say that you can't easily get in and out there as a free person.
Joseph Stassup I don't think that's it, Joseph. I think it's more to do with the extremely low population density in most of America. This makes it so that you are more or less required to own a car to survive. If you already own a car, you may as well drive it when you want to go to nearby cities. That's the real reason train travel is not profitable in the U.S. Two things will change that: mellenials are eschewing the whole idea of living in suburbs, viewing them as an inefficient use of resources, socially isolating to their residents, and both a cause, and a symptom, of institutional racism. The other is self-driving cars. Who will pay $15,000 per year to own their own car when you can just call an autonomous car to your doorstep in minutes for a fifth of what a traditional taxi would cost?
As someone from a tiny island country, which if you can run a marathon, you can pretty much run across the entire island in a day, I had a pretty good culture shock when I was in the US.
I love the vast amount of flat land and really enjoyed the scenery when I traveled with a friend. And when I stood infront of Lake Michigan, I googled and found that the Great Lakes combined is 340 times the size of my country.
And what is your country?
Singapore, 50km across and has very little land and fresh water.
GuyWithAnAmazingHat I think that's smaller than Greater Cairo (capital of Egypt) :D
50 km is less that quarter the distance I drive to get to my parents in Alexandria :D
and BTW, your Amazing Hat is Amazing :D (I'm assuming it's a TARDIS right?)
Hassan Selim Haha yep, can't miss a TARDIS if you know what it is.
That's because not so long ago, in Europe you needed different currency for almost every country, passing the border was troublesome at times and also almost every country has its own language. In America on the other hand, you can travel for west coast to east coast and all you have to worry about is not falling asleep while driving.
XtrAMassivE That does make a lot of sense. Although it does add to the excitement of exploring.
XtrAMassivE the gas being at least 3 times cheaper also makes the experience more accessible...
XtrAMassivE
Anybody know if Europe has different travel metaphors? Aside from Harry Potter's connection to trains and all...
The thing with the US, is it is not only size, but the fact that each state has it's own culture, the people can be quite diverse from place to place, interests and what is big in the area
in europe, most of the countries are comparably sized too some of our larger states, so going to say France from Germany, depending on the exact location, would take as long as me going down to maryland, me living in Pennsylvania
not only that but it is a lot easier of a process to cross state borders, and really travel around the whole us then Europe, where you have to cross country borders
Edit: It is apparently a lot easier to cross borders in Europe then I thought, so that is not an accurate point, but I also do not wish to delete it as I do not wish to pretend I was correct all along
The Croaker This is all 100% accurate except that because of the European Union it's actually super-easy to travel from one nation to another as long as you're an EU citizen.
The Croaker crossing the border between say France and Germany isn't realy that hard, I would actually say that it is as easy as crossing state borders because of Schengen Area - you don't need passport or anything like that, and as long as both countries use euro you no longer need to exchange money. I give you that it was relatively recent change so maybe europeans are needlesly reluctant to go on a roadtrip to another country.
The Croaker well you clearly know nothing. It is easy to cross boarders in Europe (unless you're trying to come into the UK). The people in America aren't diverse. It is so easy to travel round Europe. It is just better not to drive because we have better public transport system which is much cheaper, faster and more efficient generally.
in the US, you literally drive across a border, no stops nothing, so... it is still easier, unless you do not have to stop or anything
Ben Welham you really think that people in america aren't diverse? then you really know nothing about this country, I will admit I thought It would be harder to cross countries then it seems it actually is so that is incorrect but still your statement is wholly incorrect about americans not being diverse
Paused at 2:49, went out, got a burger, came back and clicked play again.
Thank you America.
I love how the video of the military vihicle on the road is one which carries an anarcho-pascifist flag
I think that the structure of non american roads play a big factor in them not being prevalent. the roads in countries like London and Germany are complex and would require a lot of planning just to get anywhere at a resonable time wheras american roads are more open and allow a more get up and go attitude
Just a correction, but "London" is a metropolitan area not a country in the sense of an independent and sovereign state. And also Germany's roadways aren't that complex compared to the ancient roadways of cities that over time have just build upon the old not just remade them more useful like NYC did.
thanks for the information!
OmaceVlogs I suppose that does mean that if you get your drivers license in Europe, you'll be much more used to the roads.
I think road trips are characteristically American because in the U.S you can drive 300 miles and still be in U.S. in Europe driving 300 miles may get you to another country all together. It still qualifies as a road trip but it's not the same. Driving cross country in the U.S bares more significance because there is more ground to cover and depending on where you are going more to see. Making road trips more of an event or, adventure if you will
mscheezburger I think that 300 miles road trip would for many be too much of an adventure because you would need to drive to another country which many people think is a very big deal. I think that attitude will change in the future because now traveling to another country in EU is realy no more different than traveling to another city.
mscheezburger Canada's bigger.
mscheezburger Crossing a border is no big deal in most places of Europe. Some do it on a daily basis for work.
AndreLeBorgne yup, for example going from italy to corsica(france's island) it's just the same as going to sardegna(italy's farthest island, sure it is a long trip, but it is no "big deal" culturally talking, it would be the same as "goint to the mountains", it doesn't hold any meaning other than what you have to do there.
I think we really don't roadtrips but do like the romantic idea of it. No one really goes on roadtrips across the country anymore the way my parents did in the 70's. Everyone secretly knows after a couple of hours it sucks and unless you live in the northeast it's a whole lot of nothing for hours on end.
Roadtrips died when college became the expectation. You either went to school and probably didn't have a car or worked 2 or 3 jobs with nowhere near enough time off to go on a lengthy trip.
Interesting. I, myself, will be heading over to the US from Switzerland this September for my third consecutive year of road tripping through the States. I personally love it, though I understand it's not for everyone.
s0nnyburnett I'm liking this not because I necessarily agree with it but because there were a lot of interesting ideas to chew on here. :)
Marcel Schaer
Bring me something good to eat.
Mike said "Planes, trains and buses" instead of "Planes, trains and automobiles."
Why did I even subscribe?!
Corsair Joshua (I mean he was trying to separate cars from those other forms of transportation. It wouldn't make sense to say, "Beyond freedom and individualism - which are absent for obvious reasons on planes, trains, and automobiles - when you're in a car..." He would be excluding the car from the intimacy that he talks about the car having.)
Corsair Joshua The most common definition of automobile in america=car, buses and trains and sometimes even planes. So you wouldn't say automobile for bus. Also Wikipedia says automobile refers to a car and only a car, or to a magazine. Take your pick.
Corsair Joshua he didn't say automobiles because he is already in an automobile but i do feel your pain with the not making the reference
Corsair Joshua Because planes, trains and automobiles would make no sense.
Wafflical If he had said, "planes, trains, and automobiles... [Shows gif from the movie] by which, of course, I mean buses," it would have made perfect sense AND made the awesome reference he should have made.
I remember reading from an Argentinian cartoonist that what makes the USA unique among other big countries is that cities, and more importantly, job opportunities, are spread out throughout its territory rather than concentrated on a single spot as it happens in most other places. And this allows people to migrate within the USA in an unidirectional way rather than just towards the country's capital, as it happens with Argentina.
So I could see the road trip as indeed a quintessential american feature given the lack of a preference or inherent direction on were you _must_ go next. There's no clear center of gravity for people's movements.
Arturo Gutierrez That's interesting I'm from the USA and it's always a strange concept for me (and probably other US Americans) that capitols are centers of commerce and culture in other countries. while here for the most part are cites for law making. Each state was given the power to establish their own capitol and each one had there own reason like militaristic strategy , geographic and population centers for easy travel, or lobbying politics. Though the majority of them did not develop into anything special.
Example: New York city whose population is 8 million is not the capitol of New York state whose actual capitol is Albany which has a population of 97 thousand
Wait, is that Molly from Rocketboom? I think so!
Zaziuma yup, aka mememolly
Zaziuma Absolutely! I also recognized +mememolly on the very first picture and thought I was the only one... but there you are, at the very top of the comment list. Seems like the internet never forgets. :) Welcome back Molly, we've missed you. Even though it doesn't look like you are gonna make appearances all over the place yet, it's nice to see that you are alive and kickin'... :)
Zaziuma /the two of them are dating! NEat!
NNNNEAT
Zaziuma Molly is the BOMB!
Once the US started building the roads, they totally ignored the railways, unlike rest of the world. Railways are easier to maintain, less wasteful, and good for the economy, and still pretty popular in Europe and Asia. If the US ever gets back to building large scale infrastructure (Railways or Hyperloop) then perhaps roads will begin to loose their charm.
***** I don't think this is likely to happen. this is not to say that it is not nice to travel by rail but point to point travel has largely been taken up by air travel. with a railway you have to plot a likely route of desired destinations an hope they remain. with the open road there is the freedom to go where you please with out being routed through places you don't wish to stop at or go through.
***** Outside of some densely populated areas (which hopefully have some form of public transport like subways or trains) roads with cars and buses are more effective at moving people because we have more freedom when determining our routes. This lets the routes change more easily as the needs of people change and to go to rural areas where running a train to every day doesn't make sense because not enough people live there to fill up a passenger train. Buses serve the same purpose as passenger trains in other countries, if people move from one area to another the bus routes can easily move with them, and it uses the same infrastructure as cars so there is little additional cost to adding a new route. What trains are used for in the US is large amounts of freight as factories and ports don't change locations very quickly making trains work well for that.
Sean Rea i think it actually is... think for example of the italian lucca comics&games, where hundreds of thousand of people come from all over italy and closer countries, what do you think the vast majority of them use? cars? well, if they are closer than... i dunno, 1 hour to the place maybe, but taking those out, most people go by train, and those from out of italy, with airplanes, when talking about outside-country vacation, pretty much everyone uses airplanes, or a ship/boat if the country can be reached from water, but cars are never used, for reaching islands and similar(unless we count using them to reach the ship or airplane obviously) some even use the train for that, but it's mainly for when you can't bring much on you.
Sean Rea Yeah, and honestly taking a train from one end of the U.S to the other wouldn't really be cost effective. It would cost just as much or more than an airline ticket and take longer to get you there.
I think a road trip is defined by the attitude you have about the trip. We called it a road trip when my family drove over the mountains to go camping, but we didn't call it a road trip when my aunt in the next state over was hospitalized and we drove over to support her.
How does Mike do this? He's not reading a script. He's just rambling articulate, well researched arguements. What is a casual conversation like with this guy? Is he like this at parties? Dang.
***** He mentions a script at the beginning of the pink shirt segment. He may not be reading from an exact script but presumably he does have talking points for reference. The better question is how can he do all that and drive a car. Now concerning parties, to quote Mike: "[Idea Channel] has been that person that starts a conversation at a party then totally just straight up walks away. Sorry, it's just they keep refilling the guacamole and you know we hafta just, sorry, I'll be right back".
European (Dutch) perspective here: I agree that, while trans-continental road trips are very common in Europe (it's still one of the most common modes of going on holiday I'd say), the Road Trip as an activity in and of itself is definitely not as much of a 'thing' as it appears to be in the US. It might be significant that in many languages other than English, there isn't even a word for it - driving somewhere is just seen as a means to an end rather than an activity that merits its own word. Of course that presents a bit of chicken or egg situation: is there not a word for it because it's not an important cultural phenomenon or is it not an important phenomenon because we don't have a word to talk about it?
Also, one thing that may help explain the difference between the US and Europe is the integration of the highways and their surroundings: many Western-European highways (think France, Germany, the Netherlands) are constructed in such a way that they seem very 'disconnected' from the land they're passing through: they're often elevated and are lined with sound walls, fencing, or trees and look so similar to each other that they essentially become what Augé called 'non-places'. I've never been on the road in the US so I'd be interested to hear if people there have experienced this as well, but it seems like there a quite a few parts of the country where it's much easier to really feel part of the area that you're passing through, like there's more continuity between the road and what lies beyond. Am I just basing this on romanticized road movie imagery or do you guys think there's some truth in it?
Sophie Rose The roadtrip of USA is usually a very conscious plan to see sights. I'm on the east coast and I haven't been on a road trip, but if I were to I'd avoid highways because I want to see the towns.
But the highways in USA, at least on the Atlantic side, aren't very disconnected from the land around it. You can see landmarks from the highway, you can enjoy the pastures and rolling hills or the urban sprawl.
The romanticized movie imagery is definitely a part of it and folks that plan road trips try to make that a reality. That is why they mostly avoid highways.
Sophie Rose Another Dutch perspective here. I absolutely love roadtrips. I'm driving from Murcia to Barelona this monday for the 2nd time, attempted to go to Barcelona from the Netherlands (but my car broke down) and drove 10000 km in Australia. I only take a plane because I can't afford to go by car or because there's an ocean in between :P
Anyway, for the roadtrip feeling in Europe you have to get of the highway (at least partially). I always do a bit of research to find out where the beautiful routes are and during the trip I improvise a lot. I purposely seek out 'interesting' roads; old roads, dirts roads, swerving roads into the mountains, things like that.
Besides that, it's true there isn't a dutch word for instance for roadtrip, but there is 'autovakantie' (car holiday). Loads of people go on holiday by car, often dragging a long a caravan (the Dutch even have a reputation for it). If you're not just trying to go from A to B in the fastest way possible, that's a roadtrip in my book :)
Sophie Rose There is a LOT of truth in the road imagery/scenery. I took a halfway-cross-country Road Trip a couple years ago (From Virginia to Texas) and took the long way around to see all the sights. We have a lot of highways that are almost specifically built around the view- such as the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Now, the major highways will always have a bit less of a great view and can be really boring at times, but if you are going anywhere over a hour chances are you will get off those highways at some point, and really it's only bad around the east coast where trees block your views.
There was also a major push for a era where road trips = money here. Route 66 and tourism and all that. I rode on Route 66 for a bit and it was kinda sad to see how many places have become just skeleton structures and are wasting away due to the dip in road trips in general- it used to be a bigger thing than it is now in the US, people were more willing to stop at anything beside the road that seemed interesting. (If you ever saw the Pixar Movie, Cars, that pretty much addresses part of it, and I was actually at the restaurant where the owner inspired one of the characters. It was good food.)
Quick thanks for the rare filming-while-driving video that doesn't make me think I'm about to see a vlogger die.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a great book documenting both a physical road trip and a metaphysical voyage of discovery.
This made me think about Horatio Jackson, the first person to drive across the U.S., coast to coast. Back then cars were more of a hobby and few people though they'd be practical, since there wasn't many paved roads for them. He made a bet to prove they'd be useful. I listened to an audio book about his journey, called "Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip." I was actually on a road trip with my brother. We were on our last leg heading from Philadelphia to San Francisco. When you go from east to west, you go from everything close together to vast open spaces. It helped us to immerse in the story. My favorite thing about his story was the fact that he brought his dog on the trip. He also brought his mechanic, who was very much needed.
I'm Irish and I remember when I was a wee babie and I'd be watching a movie and a character would be taking a flight from New York to Calafornia and I'd think "why are they taking a flight when they could just drive or take a train?" That was before I realised how massive America is , especially compered to Ireland.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND EVERYBODY GO ON A ROAD TRIP.
One of the best trips of my life was last summer when I did one with a few friends from New York to New Orleans, stopping in Asheville, the Great Smokey Mountains, Nashville, and Memphis.
in my opinion, what makes a road trip is not the distance or the stops, but the people you travel with. I really wouldn't consider traveling from Mobile Alabama to Atlanta Georgia by myself a road trip, just a trip to visit my family. But if I were making said trip with my Aunt, or once with her Pastor so he could attend class up there, I would consider that a road trip.
If you watch any road movie, it never focuses on one person. It is either a family, or a group of two or more friends. The trip itself is part of the experience. Even your own road trip was not taken alone, but with your girlfriend. It is the shared experiences during the trip that make it a road trip.
To me, as a "European", I'm not on vacation as long as I can still speak my native language. I often drive through two or maybe three different countries to get to my holiday destination. I wouldn't call it a road trip though.
I love standing in a small French towns bakery, making big had gestures and pointing at things saying "DEUHX PAAAIIN... DEUX!". Language barriers are great. xD
And then the young people switch to English
Road trips are fun for me because nostalgia, family tradition and being in the outdoors are powerful things. Also, boy scouts, high adventure and the promise of a vacation of sorts are good reasons to get out and drive but also do fun things once you get there.
Something I've always liked about road trips is the closeness you get with the people you're with, there aren't many other times when you'll sit in a small box with a few close friends for extended periods of time.
I think it relates to the point you made about how you're always just passing through, you might find new and exciting places during the trip but you never stay for long, the only thing that stays the same over the course of a road trip are the people.
And remember, kids. Never drive while speaking about pop culture. Only Mike could do it, he is a professional.
I don't know why I love this channel but I think it's basically a great conversation.
Worst part of road trips- coming home
I think a very important attribute of road trips is the classical "the way is the goal" thing. I´ve had a road trip last summer through europe with some firends and though we had decided on certain citiies we wanted to see, they didnt matter as much as the travelling itself. I would say that "passing by" somewhere is also part of this idea.
It makes me so happy when someone mentions Louisville in a thing and they pronounce it the way we pronounce it.
I couldn't help but chuckle when you commented how seeing military vehicles on the highway was rare. I grew up in a town right next to a Marine base, and at least once a week I'd see convoys going down the I-5. It never struck me as odd until a friend from out of state mentioned we were driving next to a car with a place for a machine gun turret on top.
Gotta Agree with you, its a powerful idea, I live in Chile and last year my vacation centered on a Road Trip on the west coast, ended up driving from san francisco to Vancouver, driving through northern california, oregon and Washington states and into Canada. So yeah the road trip is more than the sum of its stops.
Here in Argentina people go on road trips all the time...
I guess part of it is because there are lots of different landscapes to look at and lots of small towns and different states (in our case provinces) with different cultures each to visit...
I can finally understand what he's saying ! :)
This is the speed he should always use when he speaks !
i feel like europeans have a certain 'drive to arrive' mentality.
one reason might very well be that you usually cannot go for more than thirty minutes without hitting another place to pass through, making these places less special and memorable.
also, since the USA is so large, going places by car takes a long time. this certainly adds to making such trips major events.
m8 you're going out with MemeMolly who's British, which means you'll be stopping at a service station every 40 minutes to go the toilet and have a cheeky nandos, chips and macky d while you're there
every idea channel episode from now until august is gonna be on the road
Christopher Robin How cheeky do you like your nandos?
1.)cheeky
2.)cheekier
3.)cheeky girls singing the cheeky song
4.)Ed Milliband raving in Ibiza
That is incredibly cheeky lad, I hope you can cope with the sheer level of cheek you ledge
haha you're mad Will, absolutely mental m8 me and my m8s just named a custom fifa character after you, you ledge :^) !!!!
As a Canadian, crossing a provincial border on the Trans Canada Highway always feels like a road trip to me. Also, if I make a point to bring snacks in the car, that means it's a road trip. It means I'm going to be driving in one direction for a long time, and I'm going somewhere of significance.
Having grown up in a rural area, to get almost anywhere, you have no choice but to "pass through." To get to another town an hour away, I may drive through or past 5-10 different towns or villages. While typically I wouldn't give much thought or attention to these places, at times I do, and I might stop for ice cream or drive up and down the main street of the town before getting back to the highway.
I think the title of Road Trip has more to do with the manner in which you take the trip. It becomes a road trip if you are driving as *part* of your vacation or trip. When the drive itself is an element of the journey and not just a means by which to arrive at your destination, when it is given significance, then it is a road trip.
I'm a Canadian student and my home town is around 200 miles away from m'y School. I do the trip 1 or 2 times a month. It almost never fell like a roadtrip because I only use the highway and I don't stop on the way. Last week i did the same trip exept i used a country road and i stopped to eat in a small town. This time it really felt like a roadtrip.
I think it is also a way to be able to feel nomadic. We love the idea that we can just pick up our things and move around. We don't have to be stuck in the same place. A road trip is a way to go and see new things. If we weren't just passing through a town we may have missed a gold attraction that is only known to locals.
In my family, we always define a road trip as just using the car to go somewhere else spontaneously and usually to postpone responsibilities at home (like cleaning, paperwork, etc.). So even just cruising the local area looking for yard sales or and ice cream stand qualify as a road trip, if the situation is right!
I'm halfway through my road trip to the 48 states, and I agree. I've felt again and again that I'm just passing through, whether I'm in and out of a state in a day, or staying with a friend for ten days. On this trip, even if I'm momentarily stationary, it's never permanent, never putting down roots. I am becoming and embodying the sentiment, "this, too, shall pass"; I, too, shall pass (through).
I think the American idea of the road trip has its roots in manifest destiny. For a long time, the heart of the American spirit was to expand across the continent and have America stretch from coast to coast. So does that driving force of manifest destiny just disappear now that California is a state? Of course not. That spirit is still there, but now it is expressed via the experience of the vast and varied holdings of the United States. Both NYC and LA are America, as well as everything in between. But, the culture in each region is different. So, although NYC is as much America as LA, you can't really say you've experienced American culture until you've been to both places. And not just those places, but all the places in between. Just flying from NYC to LA and back again doesn't cut it, because as you said, there is no sense of "passing through." You are in NYC, and then you are in LA. Therefore, the only way to become a true American is to experience each of the varied American sub-cultures, and the best way to do that is via a road trip.
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ALL THE PEOPLE FROM ALL AROUND THE WORLD LOVE A GOOD ROAD TRIP
it started with the camels in the middle east way back
I like your definition of Road Trip. It's a road trip when it's long enough that there's a series of places you're in that still aren't the place you're going. It's when the parts in the middle are also places. I once drove from San Francisco to Las Vegas, and it was just a long drive, because I wasn't remotely "present" in any of the places in between. But when I drive the same length along CA-1 along the coast, it's a road trip, because it's littered with places that are good enough to be destinations in themselves.
I think the roadtrip is so popular here in America because the states are so big, and the cultures so different, so it doesn't seem like you're just passing the same thing over and over, and you can see so many new things.
When I was in Japan, I had a German friend ask me 'Why do Americans never travel to other countries?' It got me thinking of how limited we are geographically compared to those on other continents. It can be very expensive to buy a plane ticket to go over the ocean either way, and becomes more expensive depending which ocean you are closer to since you also have a large country to fly over. My friend had the impressions, though, that Americans had no interest in visiting Europe. I told him that it is the opposite, many would love to travel to Europe but it's not affordable to many people. If we leave the country we tend to go to Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean.
But even without leaving the country there are many traveling possibilities within America. Our country has been distinct geographical sites, different cities can feel like they have their own bubble culture, and you can drive for a long time without hitting any borders. With the other reasons you've mentioned, the road trip for many Americans is the only means of having a vacation in a country where we are double sided by two oceans and want to explore without breaking the bank.
I think the road trip is about exploration, but it is also about control. By exploring with my personal car, I can control pace, stops and eventual destination. There is also the practicality of driving. While it takes more time, driving is simply more economical in many cases than buying plane tickets and renting a car on the other end. Finally, there is the simple idea of tradition. My parents did road trips, so now I do them with my kids. I asked my students one time why we celebrate Thanksgiving. One student raised his hand and said, "Because we did it last year?"
I had never thought of a roadtrip as an idea in itself, it's a pretty interesting topic!
The one thing that defines a roadtrip (for me) is the self-discovery part. When you're driving you're just getting from point A to B, but when you're on a roadtrip you're dealing with something in your life that has made you want to take a break, maybe you're chasing something, maybe you're running from something, maybe both, but you're trying to figure out something about yourself or about your life that you don't understand. That is the essential part of a roadtrip for me.
The concept of "passin' through" reminds me of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the way that it was in many ways a road trip movie without the car. And, by extension, The Odyssey is kind of a road trip as well, just on a boat.
Canada is also large, has a single currency, has a small set of predominant languages (two rather than one, but most of us also speak the second one at least a tiny bit), has distinct regional cultures and biomes, is mostly populated by immigrated populations with the attendant mindsets, and has the infrastructure and automotive culture to support road trips, but road trips still do not seem as culturally central here as in the States. Canada also indulges far less in the rhetoric of freedom, and I wonder if that's a part of it. I also wonder how much of the difference comes from the fact that Canada is more spread out than the United States. We have lower population density, so there are fewer "stops" through which to pass. Unless you are in the Maritimes, southern Ontario, or along the St. Lawrence, you have to drive quite a lot farther before you get to the next small town or city of enough size or distinctiveness to make it feel worthwhile. Perhaps? But we do still go on lots of road trips here; it just isn't as much a part of our mythology.
Actually, that suggests something else: Canada seems to simply mythologize itself less than the United States does. Of course the question "Why does the United States make space in its self-mythology for the road trip?" is worth asking, but I wonder if, in order to answer it fully, you must also ask, "Why does the United States put so much creative energy into self-mythology?"
(I know some Canadianists would bring up Northrop Frye's idea that Canadians still act out a garrison mentality which pits small, tight-knit, and somewhat oppressive communities against a hostile anti-human wilderness, in contrast to America's sense that they have somehow conquered the wilderness with the sole exception of the desert, against which Americans prove themselves. I don't know if I buy it, but it's worth considering.)
Christian H Us Canadians might also self-mythologize less because we have less of a sense of being *one* country.
There's a great short story titled "The Canadian personality", published in 1962 by Bruce Hutchison. It's the story of an American journalist looking for "the Canadian character" by roaming across Canada. He ends up in a discussion with the narrator, who points out to him that Canada can be divided into several characters lumped into "Canada". These sub-characters are the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, Toronto (Toronto?!), the Prairies, and BC. Today I'd take out Toronto and add Newfoundland to this cast of characters. Others may split the Prairies or the Maritimes or keep Toronto.
So, any Canadian roadtrip may not seem to involve going across one large territory that subtly changes, but going across several loosely connected territories that spend a lot of time thinking about how they can really be a country together. It's pretty hard to mythologize if you keep that question as part of your national identity. The US seems to have resolved it a long time ago, but Canada has not.
I personally have always seen a drive as something that happens in one day. A road trip is something that has more than one day.
I love road trips. I live in Massachusetts, where my dad is from, but my mom is from California. That led to me driving cross country 5 times. It also facilitated "passin' through" all of the lower 48 states. Man we confused the AAA guy when we got maps. ...
"Yeah, we need a triptik from MA to Oakland, to LA, to Miami, to Chicago, to MA."
I feel it's a number of factors making this a perfect storm. ...
1. Either genetics, or just plain heritage, as most of the population came from people who traveled into the unknown, immigrating for a better life.
2. Nationalizing the roads helped expand the highways. There were highways in the US, as well as Germany, but it was the nationalizing, linking transport and funding that was the true idea that Eisenhower built.
3. Marketing. The iconic Chevy song of see the USA in your Chevrolet embodies that entire patriotic romanticism that makes people feel the need to see the rest of the country.
I think another draw is the fact that we are in control of the situation. We decide if we stop or go on, what is important or appeals to us. It also has a bit of that Ikea "I did this for myself" pride in it.
Ok... enough rambling. .... gotta drive.
Another very American thing, turning everything into a contest, was a big part of the very first cross country road trip: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson_Jackson
I have a severe case of wanderlust that my wife (and wallet) keep in check. Don't really know why. I just really want to know what's on the other side of that hill.
I think going on a road trip is like going for a walk: you aren't leaving for the sake of arriving someplace else, you are leaving for the sake of leaving for a while and the journey is more important than the destination.
I'm an American expat who has lived in Tokyo, Japan for around the last ten years. I would argue that a good public transport system allows for more freedom and individualism than a car ever could. In the past, perhaps a car represented these things to Americans because train stations were few and far between and trains only arrived sporadically. But in the modern day, owning and maintaining a car is a huge drag on personal finances and creates all kinds of worry and tension in an individual's life, whereas hopping on the train in Tokyo, I can go from one part of town to a few blocks down for a buck or two, or from Tokyo to Osaka for a fraction of what it would cost me in gas and toll fees if I owned a car. Train stations are so common and closely-spaced that I effectively have the same freedom of movement as if I owned a car, with a fraction of the associated costs and none of the obligation. Train timetables, also - assuming a healthy public transport system - also have trains coming frequently enough that it's no big deal to hop off at any point between your starting point and destination, allowing for those "Just passin' through" distractions typified by the classic American road trip.
Getting a visa can be difficult but once you have one you can renew it indefinitely. I would encourage anyone to spend some time abroad so if you've already got a handle on the language it's absolutely worth it. Living here, also, will give you a huge boost in your speaking ability because you'll be immersed in the language day to day.
Mike Oakland But by even having a timetable that is not your own, to me automatically makes it NOT a road trip.And a road trip is not about money, it is about just going. No destination required. No plan required. And a road trip should take days, not hours.Just hours makes it a day trip.
I agree wholeheartedly with your "passing through" concept, but w.r.t. infrastructure, I'd argue that the interstate highway system did far more to hurt the road trip than to help it. Rather, the original U.S. highway system is the quintessential piece of pavement for "passing through". The road trip is more Route 66, less I-10.
The interstate highway system seems to encourage less passing through and more passing _around_. Sound insulating walls and off-ramps don't really encourage experiencing the trip as much as using the road as a conduit from point A to point B (which is exactly what Eisenhower et al. wanted, because HoJo's and the Corn Palace aren't strategic centers). The highway exit itself, which came along with the interstate, determines when and where you pause your trip and what you see there. It's a pretty unempowering arrangement.
The U.S. highways used to, and in many places still do, pass right through the centers of towns. They very nearly literally defined "Main Street USA", although that does sort of invite the paradox of "which came first, the street or the city?" The U.S. highway system also coincides better with the rise of car culture in Amurika, being implemented in 1926 and likely enabling the evolution of the car from lumbering city carriage to sleek, gas-guzzling ship-o'-the-highway.
We can discuss this more during our road trip from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon *after Phoenix Comic-Con which everyone should come see me and Mike at yayyy!*
a road trip for me doesn't have a clear destination, but 1. you go for fun 2. where ever you go gives you something you couldn't get at a closer destination and 3. pictures/ evidence of the journey/ souvenir
In New Zealand, our roadtrips are all about either getting home or seeing the family or heading to the perfect BBQ spot. I n the other part of the country, yes you pass by small towns or large cities but you know your destination.
I think part of what makes it a road trip and not just a drive, is going with someone. If I had to drive across the state by myself, I would probably just call it a trip, but it's part of the experience going with another person.
I've been traveling all over the US, and even some of Mexico, by car, bus, bicycle, and my thumb for more than a decade now. The road is sacred space to me. I feel qualified to speak to this one.
The difference lies in intention, or even lack thereof. Being "on the road" requires a spirit that is up for anything. Many times I've taken road trips that lasted several months, but which I've only planned the first week of. The adventure is all about embracing the unknown and with such a large country Americans have plenty of unknown to explore.
Living in Alaska, almost all of my destinations are several hours away whether by car or snowmobile. Having this experience with the concept, I'd say that a roadtrip can be defined as any excursion where the destination is not the chief source of enjoyment. Whether the main source ends up being the countryside, the company you keep on a road trip, or the places you "just pass through," they are all often far more memorable than the destination itself.
I would say that a defining part of a road trip is the interaction. This being the interactions with those you are traveling with, the interactions with the country itself, or the people that inhabit said country. Road trip movies are largely about families being together, or people getting to know each other as they cover vast distances, they make numerous pit stops and meet people from across America or whichever country the film is taking place until they reach the ultimate destination.
I'm ready for another road trip now.
Most of the appeal I think for me and my friends is because we grew up in a small rural area, we just want to see what else is out there, and since the continental US is such a big, car-friendly place, a road trip is a good way to experience a taste of what the world has to offer, or at least what America has.
My Great Grandma came here from Finland after her father died from a heart attack. He had the heart attack after seeing the Russian forces during the winter war. He was 26 years old.
I say this because I think it's part of the American attitude. For us who came here from other parts of the world. Our family history is about dropping what we had behind, and leaving for greener pastures. My grandma had nothing left from Finland when she left, and her only few remaining family members came with. They left for greener pastures as they lost everything they ever had during the conflict.
I would, argue the best way to see America is riding on a freight train. I hopped trains all across the country for 4 years. I was surprised the American Hobo was not mentioned. I feel like the spirit of the American Hobo is an extreme example of the frontier ideal of America.
Based on that definition, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of America's great road trip stories.
If I had to put it concisely, I would say that divide of "driving vs. road trip" is primarily determined by intent. If your goal is the destination, it's driving. If your goal is the journey, it's a road trip.
That's not to say that a road trip can't be centred around arriving at a specific location, but the focus is much more on the places you visit along the way as well, on "passing through".
As a Scot I'm not familiar much with America's road trip traditions but I did love Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, so at the least I kinda get what a 'Chataqua' is. In fact I was surprised you didn't cover some of the ideas of self-discovery explored there, but perhaps that's really a different thing entirely which just happens to also be a journey.
I'd say road trip comes from an acknowledgement that the journey and the company are more important than the destination, or it is at least an equal part.
A road trip for me would be any trip (doesn't matter if undertaken by car, bike, as long as you stay on the road) undertaken for fun, to chill out or even to get away from the daily stresses, alone or accompanied by someone. It doesn't matter of the distance traveled, as long as it's not to reach a destination associated with any stressful activities. The beauty of it is to enjoy the scenery, the peace of mind it brings and the company of the people sharing the trip. It's all about living the moment. But I'm not American, so maybe it's culturally related but some of the main ideas should be similar.
That said, I hope you enjoyed yours and hats off to your girlfriend for supporting you in making this video.
I've been dying to go on a road trip. If I had the time, money, and my car wasn't threatening to give out, I would love to go up the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way north. The mountains are so pretty this time of year.
The fact you have roads must be part of the reason you like road trips. (Greetings from Russia!)
TL;DR: Road trips are a bonding experience, even if by yourself.
Road trips are more than just passing through to me. It is connecting with others better or yourself through a task that doesn't require much thought. When you go on a road trip by yourself, you learn more about you, and have a better self understanding. When you go with friends or family, you connect over the long roads where you talk, tourist attractions, and other things that occur on road trips.
Road trips to me feel both private and public at the same time. You're in the privacy of your own car, free to observe the landscapes rolling past you. If you're with someone else, this allows for conversation, and if you're alone, it allows for introspection. But at the same time, you're among strangers and in a completely new place.
Usually for me, travelling feels really vulnerable, but in a road trip, you're able to safely observe and think inside your own little bubble. And if you want to be exposed to all of this newness like roadside attractions and such, you can do that whenever you want.
I think that the lee way for adventure is the bar. You can take a short road trip as long you give yourself the freedom to explore, and you can travel a great distance and still not be a "road trip" if there are strict time deadlines.
America seems to "own" the road trip by virtue of scale/variation found in our, (Americans') home land. There is a sort of ready made poetry built in to the vast land scape that makes up our corner of the world. The scale and variation of the 48 contiguous united states are akin to the scale of the landscapes we find so intriguing in epic scale stories, e.g, LOTR, GOT, etc. We feel like we own the road trip because our version of it feels like the biggest and the most complimentary stage by which to project our own stories and adventures on.
That typedrummer thing is awesome. I tried putting in some of my favourite quotes from books and a big chunk of Lorem Ipsum text.
I think a reason America is associated with road trips is that unlike other countries we have a wide variety of landscapes and cultures that if you live in one part of the country you can't experience. Taking a road trip allows you to experience multiple facets of the country at once.
As a non-american, while growing up I always looked at roadside attractions as a very american thing with a huge cultural factor. Like the "biggest this, the smallest that, stop here for the worlds best something" etc
The way I see it, a road trip is something that takes you out of the familiar. It could be out of the city or out of the state, or it could just be something new on the other side of town. A road trip is an adventure, and an adventure's not an adventure if you've seen it all before.
Now I want to go on another road trip. Have fun!
At 45, I am taking my first road trip around the US after living my whole life in Florida. This trip will take a month hitting historical areas, National Parks and cities of interest. I hope it will change me for the best to see the places I only heard of. -Thanks
This episode was really timely for me because I just got back yesterday from a roadtrip with my girlfriend where I spent a lot of time thinking about the particular Americanness of the road trip (we ate burgers on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial one night and if that isn't the most 'Murican thing I've ever done I don't know what is).
One thing that really struck me about the American road trip is its obsession with seeing landmarks, whether that be the weirdest collection of anatomical oddities (Mutter Museum, Philly PA), or the world's 2nd largest ball of twine (Cawker City, Kansas) or the Headless Horseman Bridge (Tarrytown, NY). We have this need to see these places that mark some sort of history or achievement that makes me think this American (if not exclusively so) need to create a national mythos. On seeing the 5000th "established in 1801" plaque on our trip, my girlfriend made a snarky comment about American's need to romanticize anything more than two minutes old because we're such a young country. I think the road trip really speaks to this compulsion America has to self-narrativize because we lack the sort of centuries-old cultural narrative that a place like Europe does.
One gets the feeling from Road Trip movies that many small town's economies are built on getting people traveling to other destinations to stop at their Town by way of odd ball attractions like weird museums and stuff like "the world's largest something or other" these oddball attractions are what make American road-trips unique from other countries
There is something psychologically comforting about "passing through" everywhere, staying nowhere, and returning to where you started from. It gives you the sense of having participated in a hundred different lives and places while, simultaneously, enabling you to live your life, at your discretion. I don't think this why most people take road trips, though. If it isn't out of financial necessity, I really believe most road trips are born out of a desire to find some inexplicable part of oneself: "I travel to discover I know not what - and because I don't know what I must find, I don't know where to go." So the trip is a traveling for the purpose, not of arriving, but of locating. Of discovery. Of awareness.
I think maybe it's defined in part by "passing through" but it's also defined in part by the destination and sense of urgency involved. Or rather, that the only truly defined goal of a road trip is 'home again' you go away to 'elsewhere' but your not done until your home, where as when you just drive your "going somewhere' and THEN your 'going home' , separately. And a roadtrip lacks a sense of urgency. You don't feel need to 'get there' in any particular rush. Something I don't feel when just "on a drive."
In talking about "passing through" you briefly mentioned presence, and I think the idea of being present is very important to the road trip. While driving you have to always be present, always watchful. It's a heightened sense of presence, as opposed to riding a bus or a plane. Of course, this heightened presence is necessary to prevent accidents, but it also leads to a heightened sense of control. I drive myself. I determine my path. I decide what is worth stopping for and where I will merely "pass through." This can be tied back in to what you said about manifest destiny and, more largely, American imperialism. In the moment I am driving I assign importance to everything I see. I determine the fate of my passengers as well. And so, while driving, I am the master of my domain.
You also mentioned futuristic road trips such as Star Trek, but I think it is important to look backward in time as well. The hero's journey is one of the oldest stories in the western cannon. Think of The Odyssey. The journey is often used as a metaphor for a coming of age of sorts. A coming to a new understanding of the self or of the world. I think it's important to note the global rise of America in the postwar world when we discuss the importance of road trips in American culture. The posrwar era was a time of economic prosperity for the United States that led to the development of roads and ghe rise of the automobile, but it was also a time when America began to flourish culturally. New York became the new seat of the art world, and artist began looking for new ways of relating to the world. The abstract impressionists in particular were big into creating new mythologies for a modern, mechanized world. I think it's helpful to explore the American road trip in this light. We as a nation had this new dominance and prosperity that came out of a lot of death and violence, and I think this led to a metaphysical (existential? Idk) yearning to learn about who we are as a people and create that modern mythology.
There's also something great about pushing technologies as far as they will go. Just how far can I drive? How long until my car breaks down? Just look at how quickly TH-cam went from being a simple way to share video with your friends to this entertainment megagiant. And just like the road trip TH-cam isn't uniquely American, but there is something essentially american about it.
Don't know if any of this made sense, but this was a great video.
It seems to me that a road trip is distinctly (though not uniquely) American, and we could define it as a trip in an automobile, possibly an extended one, that feels more like an adventure or quest than like routine, driving-to-get-stuff-done. It can be a solitary experience, but it's more fun to do with a group. Even driving an hour up to a gig with my band can feel like a road trip simply because of the emotions running high, good company, good music, and a great time wherever we end up. It often feels like a scene from the Blues Brothers.
I think that another factor to the popularity of the road trip is the growth of the Suburb and commuting to work. Before Suburbs, people usually lived 10 minutes or less from their workplace. But when people started to move outside the cities, they had to travel longer for work. And with the natural need for adventure, going an hour or two away from your home became less adventurous. As a result, people wanted to explore the United States more. Also with the advancement of interstate, it made that possible.
You need to make a full episode with your cowboy voice it is amazing.
It's really cool that Mike did a road trip while doing an Idea Channel episode about road trips. Hopefully he had fun on the trip and while making the video as well. I wonder how difficult the process was to put cameras in and around the car and to record a set of lines, all while doing a road trip in the car. The change of scenery is appreciated along with a topic focused more in American culture, so nice work on the interesting video compared to the normal episodes.
Mike, Native Nashvillian here. I hope you enjoy your visit. If you need any food recommendations, I can help.
Mayby road trip could be argued as being a sort of non-religous/American nationalist pilgramige?Though perhaps in religous pilgramige there is more emphasis on where you are going, there is in both road trips and pilgramidge an element of 'the spirituality of the journey,' the 'its not where your going but how you get there that counts.' In other words mayby what road trips road trips is the fact that they are road trips a.k.a in a car, on the road, in contrast to other forms of pilgramige where being on foot for example would be more appropriate and what your looking at, roadside attractions, as apposed to churches or temples.
I've always looked at road trips as being leaving the place you know or live to go anywhere unfamiliar or at least unusual. When I lived in Iceland on a Navy base we would just leave the base and go into Keflavik, not even 5 minutes journey, just because it was different.
The thing i noticed when taking the same road in cars, then by bike and then by foot, it's that you don't appreciate much of the world around you in cars, because you don't really feel the fresh air, every thing move too fast. In my country we do road trip to go to someplace stay a few days and then come back, it's more a necessity than a pleasure, i love to listen to audiobooks when i take the road because on the highway there is not so much to see at my opinion . The fun things is that in train, i would love to stop when we cross a forest to appreciate the place, but we only pass through and never come back, maybe like a metaphor of life ... ?
Defining a road trip really just comes down to the personal feelings about a certain trip and the perspective of where you're driving through.
For me, I've gone on drives to both a castle and a ski resort in Japan, with about a 4-5 hour commute time. Back when I lived in Canada, I would probably consider this worthy of the "road trip" title, since driving through such wide, open, and often flat sections of land makes it feel like a real trip. In Japan, these hours feel like skipping stones in a bucket for a few reasons: major highways all look the same with grey fencing and flashing light everywhere (it hardly makes you feel like you are going anywhere outside of a city); you often ARE just city hopping, sometimes without any perceivable space in between those cities; and with everything being so geographically close to each other in Japan (as opposed to Canada), day trips to entirely different prefectures is not only possible but a frequent occurrence, making these 4-5 hour drives appear less than epic.
Don't get me wrong, I love taking cars or buses through Japan because the scenery is breathtaking, but I definitely don't think to myself, "this is totally a road trip!!!" when I go somewhere. I am sure that if I had been born and raised in a smaller country, maybe South Korea or even in Japan itself, I would have a very different feeling about this.
This episode proving once and for all, He can literally just to this show by the seat of his pants , with little to no planning, and half of his focus on driving a motor vehicle.
When we have friends that are considering marriage, we always recommend that they go on a road trip together first. I think it's the relationship of the people in the vehicle and spending time together.
A small thing, but I was so happy to see John Wayne in a video about "just passing through".