Lifestyle The great American road trip, fueled by — and undercut by — the automobile that created it
By TRAVIS LOLLER Updated 6:31 AM PDT, September 14, 2026
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — There’s something about the American road trip.
It brings to mind visions of cars the size of boats, the glory days before seat-belt laws and pit stops at the world’s largest fill-in-the-blank. It has been memorialized in books like Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and satirized in movies like “National Lampoon[’s] Vacation.”
It primarily consists of hours upon hours of driving that should be boring — but somehow isn’t? Maybe it’s the anticipation of getting to some mythical destination — the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Death Valley. Or maybe it’s the unexpected sights along the way. Tumbleweeds! They’re real!
Americans love the idea of a road trip, but we often opt for reaching our destination as quickly as possible instead. The rise of cheap airfare has made it easy to travel without the hassle of driving. When we do drive, we’re likely to stick to the interstates, blasting past the small towns we idealize at 70-plus miles per hour. These options are faster and, for some, safer.
But in gaining convenience, what have we lost?
The decades after World War II were the golden age of the family road trip
As far back as 1921, Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr. wrote of a road trip he took with his new wife from New York City to Hot Springs, Virginia. “We had heard people say in muffled tones that the roads would be impassable and that it was foolish to even think of trying them,” he wrote. “But within four days after leaving New York we reached Hot Springs, none the worse for wear and a great deal happier for the experience.”
Long-distance travel dipped with the Great Depression and then rationing during World War II, but it came roaring back as the veterans returned home and started families.
In “Are We There Yet? The Golden Age of American Family Vacations,” historian Susan Rugh argues that the period after World War II and before the oil crisis of the 1970s was the apex of the family road trip. More Americans were rising into the middle class, many had paid vacation for the first time, car ownership was increasing rapidly, and the federal government was investing in highways that allowed for more comfortable long-distance travel.
Many veterans, having traveled to Europe for the war, were eager to show their children what they had been fighting to preserve. One popular destination was Washington, D.C., where the Allied victory had enhanced the importance of the city as the capital of the free world. Families also visited historic monuments, homes and battlefields.
Read more: What has become of the great American road trip? – AP NewsContinue/Read Original Article: What has become of the great American road trip? | AP News
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