The Singular Romance of the American Road Trip
That long trip — chronicled in books, films, television shows and visual art — combines the American love of the car with the wonder of the country itself: its vast, lonely tracts of land; its changeable and diverse topography; its history, recent and old. I'd imagine most Americans have at one point, by necessity or for pleasure, taken a multiday drive — it's both rite and birthright. When I was 6, my family made the move from Baltimore to Irvine, Calif., in a pair of rattling, un-air-conditioned VW Rabbits; four years later, we drove in a Toyota van (now with air-conditioning) from our small town in East Texas to a small town in southern Vermont so my father could attend a summer seminar. I remember those drives well, the ache of watching green landscapes shade into brown ones; the miles in which we'd pass no one, as if we were the last people on earth, and the twinned sensations of fear and awe that fantasy would induce.
For the T writer at large Aatish Taseer, who spent 10 days driving Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., the American road trip represented something greater — a reckoning with his adopted country, the place where it was becoming increasingly possible he might live the rest of his life, after having been banished from his native India. Taseer attended college in Massachusetts and now lives in New York, and he was, he writes, always reluctant to expand 'my worldview westward, almost as if it would spread me too thin. It wasn't rational, but these things rarely are.'
His trip, taken in the month before the 2024 election, is a new citizen's reckoning with this country's unique ahistoricism. 'I had always noticed a kind of breeziness in America's relationship to the past, a casual disregard, which I found at once unsettling and liberating,' he writes. Here there was 'a palpable impatience with history, as if people were afraid of its power to bog you down.' Yet an impatience with history doesn't mean there isn't history, and Taseer's drive forces an understanding about a country that had once seemed impenetrable to him, too large and new to ever be known, and too faceless for him to ever call it home. Yet, he concedes in this beautiful and wise story, he was wrong. 'I was lucky to have landed in a country with a long tradition of making room for newcomers, and I had every reason to feel it would make room for me too,' he says at the end of his trip. May it ever be so.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
6 hours ago
Trump administration imposes limits on Mexican flights and threatens Delta alliance in trade dispute
The Trump administration imposed new restrictions Saturday on flights from Mexico and threatened to end a longstanding partnership between Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico in response to limits the Mexican government placed on passenger and cargo flights into Mexico City several years ago. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Mexico's actions to force airlines to move out of the main Benito Juarez International Airport to the newer Felipe Angeles International Airport more than 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) away violated a trade agreement between the two countries and gave domestic airlines an unfair advantage. Mexico is the top foreign destination for Americans with more than 40 million passengers flying there last year. "Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg deliberately allowed Mexico to break our bilateral aviation agreement,' Duffy said, referring to the previous president and his transportation secretary. 'That ends today. Let these actions serve as a warning to any country who thinks it can take advantage of the U.S., our carriers, and our market. America First means fighting for the fundamental principle of fairness.' All Mexican passenger, cargo and charter airlines will now be required to submit their schedules to the Transportation Department and seek government approval of their flights until Duffy is satisfied with the way Mexico is treating U.S. airlines. It's not immediately clear how Duffy's actions might affect the broader trade war with Mexico and negotiations over tariffs. A spokesperson for Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum didn't reply immediately to a request for comment. Sheinbaum didn't mention the new restrictions during either of her two speaking events on Saturday. Delta and Aeromexico have been fighting the Transportation Department's efforts to end their partnership that began in 2016 since early last year. The airlines have argued that it's not fair to punish them for the Mexican government's actions, and they said ending their agreement would jeopardize nearly two dozen routes and $800 million in benefits to both countries' economies that come from tourism spending and jobs. 'The U.S. Department of Transportation's tentative proposal to terminate its approval of the strategic and pro-competitive partnership between Delta and Aeromexico would cause significant harm to consumers traveling between the U.S. and Mexico, as well as U.S. jobs, communities, and transborder competition," Delta said in a statement. Aeromexico's press office said it was reviewing the order and intended to present a joint response with Delta in the coming days. But the order terminating approval of the agreement between the airlines wouldn't take effect until October, and the airlines are likely to continue fighting that decision. The airlines said in a previous filing fighting the order that it believes the loss of direct flights would prompt over 140,000 American tourists and nearly 90,000 Mexican tourists not to visit the other country and hurt the economies of both countries with the loss of their spending. ___
Epoch Times
11 hours ago
- Epoch Times
How a View From Pikes Peak Inspired America's Most Famous Poem
Five hundred Pawnee warriors The Americans, led by Lt. Zebulon Pike, were determined to move past the Pawnee either peacefully or by force. They had already accomplished one geographic expedition, and now they were in the midst of their second. The Spanish, however, had strongly encouraged the Pawnee not to allow the Americans to move westward from their location in today's Guide Rock, Nebraska.
CNBC
18 hours ago
- CNBC
36-year-old lives and travels in her truck full-time, spends $1,305/month: 'I'm comfortable in very small spaces'
In 2019, Ashley Kaye took a scuba diving trip to Honduras that changed the course of her life. On that trip, Kaye met someone who travels full-time, and the conversation they had helped her realize she wanted to leave her career and life in Wisconsin behind and continue traveling. "He told me he wished he had done it sooner because it's so much easier and cheaper than you think. That changed everything for me," Kaye tells CNBC Make It. "I went home and worked more and more until I quit the next year." When Kaye quit her job in 2020, she says she had about $37,000 in savings, but what she struggled with the most was not having a job to fill her time. "I didn't know how to just do nothing. The first few months were really hard and I wasn't sure if I was making the right decision," she says. "Once I got into my rhythm of traveling and growing my confidence through that experience, I've never looked back and don't have a single regret about leaving." Kaye spent the next three years traveling the world, including to South Africa. In 2022, a couple reached out to Kaye on Instagram to ask about her time there and shared their own experience overlanding in a Toyota truck with a camper. Overlanding is a form of self-reliant travel that involves adventuring to remote destinations, typically in a vehicle of some type. After doing a bit of her own research, Kaye was all-in and purchased a Toyota Tacoma truck for $42,934, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Kaye picked up the truck in South Dakota and drove it back to Wisconsin, where she had just sold her childhood home for $320,000. In March 2023, Kaye drove to Baja California, Mexico, where she spent time arranging the necessary renovations to make the truck more livable. "My life is kind of like 'the plan is there is no plan.' Most people plan this type of adventure for years. I didn't even have a truck when I accepted the offer on my house," she says. "It was very spur of the moment, so I needed to take a pause and figure things out." She estimates she spent over $50,000 on the renovations. The costs included purchasing a camper, adding solar power, replacing the truck bed, upgrading the suspension, new tires, customizing a bumper, and installing an electric cooler. When the truck was ready, Kaye decided to journey the Pan-American highway, starting in Denver. The highway stretches from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina. "It's really an incredible way to travel because you get to set your own pace and if you find somewhere that's beautiful and peaceful you can stay as long as you want," Kaye says. "But there's pros and cons to every mode of travel and a lot of red tape and logistics crossing borders. It can be exhausting, especially when you're alone. You have to find a balance that works for you, but overall, it's definitely one of the coolest adventures of my lifetime." Kaye's time on the road is split between travel days and leisure days. On a travel day, she gets up early to break everything down and secure it all in the camper before embarking on a five- to seven-hour drive. On average, Kaye estimates that she spends $556 a month on gas and $453 a month on food. "The easiest part for me is being comfortable in very small spaces and I'm totally content. I can spend all day inside the camper and not feel suffocated or claustrophobic," Kaye says. "I'm constantly seeing so many vast spaces within nature that I'm really content." Once she reaches her destination, Kaye likes to stay for two to three nights before moving on to the next one. Since Kaye's truck doesn't have a bathroom, she uses a box toilet and a portable shower bag. "I try to organize everything in the truck and camper so that it's just the way that it's supposed to be. Powering down is the kind of goal on the second day," Kaye says. Kaye's other expenses include $96 a month for her cellphone bill and $200 a month for her Starlink internet. She's also spent upwards of $6,000 for unique experiences like a week-long scuba diving trip in the Galápagos Islands. Kaye has been living in the truck for years now, but says the most challenging part is still setting up and breaking down the camper. "Even though it is very simple, it's one of those things you have to do every time," she says. "If you are somebody who makes your bed every time, it's no problem, but if you're somebody who doesn't, it feels like a burden." While Kaye still hasn't finished journeying the Pan-American Highway, she is considering selling the truck at the beginning of next year. "Part of me wants to just get rid of it and move on and enter the next chapter of my life but then the larger part of me is like 'no, maybe just wait because I want to see some other places and just chill,'" she says. "I just want to finish my adventure. I'm not tired of living in the camper and I'm not tired of that lifestyle, but I am tired of driving." Kaye doesn't know where she'll settle if she ever sells the truck, but returning to the U.S. full-time is unlikely. If she ever does buy another house in the States, Kaye says it will be an investment and a source of income if she decides to rent it out. She's currently considering a life in the South of France, Spain or Italy. "Each one of them has their challenges. For me, it's about finding somewhere that I want to be and then I can deal with whatever the challenges and hoops are that come with that," she says.
