On the road with Andrew McCarthy

Times

a day ago

Stepping out of my apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side, I got into my car and began to drive. I was headed to California, across the width of America on a journey that would take in 21 states, and landscapes that ranged from the lowlands of the Mississippi Delta to the Rocky Mountains. But it wasn't the country's abundant sights I was concerned with — it was the people that interested me.
As anyone will tell you, America has become increasingly politically polarised, but more worrying, it felt to me like my homeland had begun to grow colder, crueller even. Was I just being fed this impression by a media hungry for clicks? What was really going on out there?
Over the following six weeks I would travel 10,000 miles across the country. I'd steer clear of America's massive interstate highway system and stick to the back roads. I'd sleep in roadside motels. I wanted contact, and the closer to the ground I travelled the more of it I'd get. And I would rekindle some old friendships along the way (the subject of which would grow into a book I'm writing).
Like many northerners, I harboured an apprehension of life below the Mason-Dixon Line that unofficially delineates the northern states from the South. So that's where I headed first.
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On the John Marshall Highway in Virginia, I stopped at the New Star Market to fill my tank. I fell into conversation with a tiny and interested man from South Korea, Mr Park. Mr Park came to America in 1985 and has worked in this remote corner ever since. 'This is my friend's place,' he told me. 'Good to have friends. Life's too hard without friends.' Then, reminding me of the power and promise of the multicultural land that America still is despite the current isolationist fervour, he looked at me with feeling and said, 'This is my home.' We chatted for a long time even after my tank clicked full.
I crossed the state line into West Virginia, among the most humble and rural of places, and the only state to lie completely within the Appalachian mountain range. Winding, rising, falling, sweeping — the roads are never flat or straight. Nearly all of them felt deserted. I twisted south on Route 32, the dying light in the Monongahela National Forest was gauzy, the western horizon was first aqua then pink then violet. These mountains, while not approaching the grandeur of the Rockies, offered an experience both immediate and vast, simultaneously claustrophobic and expansive, peak after peak after peak receding. The constant rise and fall of the road continually altered perspective and the everchanging view felt like a distinct and singular American pleasure. In the gloaming, a dozen deer made their way across the road. A silver sliver of a moon rose.
At Beander's Bar in the area's working town of Elkins, it was trivia night. I teamed up with Rodney Johnson, a bridge inspector, and Chis LaSalle, a national parks ranger, and his wife, Renee. We got only one answer right and had more laughs than anyone in the place. '
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I picked up the Natchez Trace Parkway, which tracks an old Native American route from the Mississippi River and Cumberland Plateau that evolved from a bison game trail and was used by European settlers. There were no signs, no advertising, no buildings or towns — the road was so serene, uncrowded, and elegantly laid into the land that I was sorry to arrive in Tupelo, Mississippi, three carefree hours and 170 miles later.
I had come to pay homage to the King.
Before lightning struck and Elvis Presley changed the world, he was born into staggering poverty in a two-room 'shotgun shack' without running water. Today, his childhood home is a lovingly curated shrine, the Elvis Presley Birthplace (£18pp; elvispresleybirthplace.com). Barbara Wyndham, a former English teacher 'from out in bootleg country', showed me around. 'The Beatles were more my thing,' she confided. 'But I've made friends from all over the world working here. Where else in Mississippi can I do that?'
Over at D' Cracked Egg breakfast joint on Troy Street I sat beside a dozen men in Bible study, members of the Life at Tupelo Pentecostal Church. 'As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend,' Dale recited, then invited me to church the next day.
'I feel like I've just been to church, Dale.'
'You've got friends here now,' Dale replied with a smile, placing a meaty hand on my shoulder. 'The Lord loves you, Andrew, that's for sure.'
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With that assurance, I went off to the gun show.
Several times a year, in a musty hall on the edge of town, 50 tables were laid out and covered with all varieties of firearms — hunting rifles, pistols, tactical weapons, shotguns. At one table, an AR15 assault rifle had a price tag hanging from it — $675. I asked if I could hold it.
'Of course you can,' Ted said.
It was lighter than I imagined. 'I could buy this from you now?'
'As long as you tell me that you're not a federal criminal.'
I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting, but the atmosphere in the room was cordially mundane. There was laughing and teasing, warm greetings were exchanged. It all felt pretty work-a-day.
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Mississippi is also home to the blues, the distinctly American form of music that sprang from the oppression and suffering of the cotton fields. And the epicentre of the blues is Clarksdale. Robert Johnson was said to have sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads on the edge of town so he could play the blues like no other. Today, Clarksdale retains a ravaged charm.
'The music brings people out and brings them together,' Roger Stolle, the owner of Cat Head Blues & Folk Art (cathead.biz), an emporium of all things blues on Delta Avenue, told me. 'We're nearly 80 per cent black, less than 20 per cent white, but there's a global friendship through the blues. It's a unifier.'
And that night, on the banks of the Sunflower River at Red's Lounge, bluesman Lucious Spiller let rip and brought the room together in one of the most memorable evenings of music I'd ever experienced.
As I drove further south on Highway 1 through the Delta, the sun hit hard off the tilled fields. The land felt elemental, thrilling in its lack of adornment. In Natchez I crossed the mighty Mississippi River and then Louisiana and entered the planet that is Texas.
I knew I had entered the Lone Star state because the speed limit suddenly increased to 70mph, yet I was being passed by F-150 pick-up trucks as if I was standing still.
Stopping for lunch at the once-grand Redlands Hotel in hardscrabble Palestine, I was seated at a table beside a dozen women of a certain age, sharply dressed for no occasion other than it was Thursday. Their laughter bordered on raucous.
'Good to have friends,' I said to the table when I got up to pay my bill.
'It sure is, darlin',' drawled a tall woman in a lime green pantsuit with a large gold pendant. Her hair, expertly sculpted and frozen high in place, might have made Margaret Thatcher envious. The table toasted me with their white wine and went back to laughing.
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By the time I got to Waxahachie, things looked like the Texas of imagination — flat and unspeakably vast. Then just south of Dallas I met up with my old friend Eddie and convinced him to take me to the Fort Worth rodeo.
'If you're going to the rodeo you need to get some cowboy boots,' he cautioned.
Over at Justin's Outlet on Vickery Boulevard we found them. Floor to ceiling. Pointed toe, squared toe, rounded toe. Leather, snakeskin, ostrich skin. His and hers. A matronly, no-nonsense saleswoman who knew what was what took me in hand while Johnny Cash sang When the Man Comes Around over the store speakers. Twenty minutes later I strode out in my new boots.
The 10,000-seat arena was packed. We took our seats just below the rafters, a local pastor blessed the event. Men roped steer and were flung from the backs of angry bulls. It was all more exciting and entertaining than either Eddie or I had anticipated — until the mutton busting.
A child of five was placed face down on the back of a sheep and held on for dear life. One youngster after another was sent airborne. Most bounced up quickly after being dislodged. There was something oddly amusing about the sight, if you ignored that these were small children being flung and trampled like rag dolls.
Eddie was flabbergasted. 'Two words,' he cried in disbelief. 'Child abuse!' A young girl — the only one in the competition — clung on to the far end of the ring, sealing the win and delighting the crowd. Eddie threw up his hands, 'We ban The Diary of Anne Frank in school, but we let five-year-old kids get their heads kicked in riding a sheep? What the hell is happening to America?'
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Leaving Eddie, I drove into the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas, a lonely place. I visited heartbroken Uvalde, where a school shooting had shattered the community. Then Eagle Pass, the border town with Mexico that has come to represent the immigration battle that has divided America — like all border crossings, it was a transactional, pitiless town. Outside El Paso I finally left Texas behind and headed into the West.
Outside White Sands, New Mexico — test sight of the first nuclear bomb — I had a memorable breakfast at the Waffle and Pancake Shoppe. Taking a seat by the window, I was approached by a rail-thin waitress with long grey hair and cat-eye glasses secured by a sparkly chain. She wore an Ozzy Osbourne T-shirt over deeply tanned skin covered in drooping and faded tattoos.
'Do I want the pancakes?' I asked.
'Yes, you do.'
Men with bellies and wide-hipped women filled the tables around me. There was easy laughter in the room. I'd witnessed variations on this scene throughout the nation.
If I came away from this cross-country odyssey with one conclusion, it was that breakfast in America was the most hopeful meal of the day.
I drove on. I reconnected with a few more friends along the way. I was awed by the Grand Canyon, and was made speechless by the jagged, singular peaks of the Teton Valley in Wyoming. In tiny Eureka, Nevada — home to a 19th-century gold mining boom, but long ago gone bust — I went to check into the old Jackson Hotel.
'You know it's haunted,' said Netta, the young woman at the counter.
'Oh? Have you seen ghosts?'
'I feel them.' Netta leaned toward me, confiding. 'I sense things other people don't.'
'OK. Well … what ghosts are there?'
'There's an 11-year-old girl, she likes to do pranks on people. And the lady in red, she used to work in the brothel. She gets into bed with the guests.'
'Does she do anything to them?' My mind began to race.
'No, no. She just lays beside them in the bed.'
'That's too bad,' I said.
Netta handed me a key. 'I just thought you should know.'
After the first creak in the night, I didn't sleep a wink.
Further west, along Highway 50, dubbed by Time magazine as 'the loneliest road in America', I raced past sagebrush for hours without seeing another car.
It reminded me how all across America I had encountered surprising degrees of loneliness and isolation, but I had also been readily welcomed into tight knit communities and experienced deep bonds of friendship and easily offered generosity.
Then across the central valley of California, into San Francisco and finally over the Golden Gate Bridge to meet my friend Don for a walk among the sequoia trees in Muir Woods National Monument, a park of 554 acres. Gawking up at the giant redwoods he stopped. 'So, tell me,' he said, 'how is it out there?'
I considered. 'Still awesome. Still complicated. Still America.'Andrew McCarthy travelled independently. His book, Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Exploration of Male Friendship Across America, detailing his journey across America, will be published in the US by Grand Central in February 2026
By Siobhan Grogan
Start with a plan. Even if you want to stay as spontaneous as possible, you'll need to know where you want to start and finish, how much time you have and a rough route. Good websites for US inspiration include theplanetd.com; hertz.co.uk, which has 24 suggested itineraries; and visitusa.org.uk, which lists road trips to suit various interests including ones for music fans and wine lovers.
For DIY trips, compare prices with car hire agencies such as Hertz, Enterprise and Avis, looking for a one-way rental if necessary. Factor in costs for petrol and insurance; the GasBuddy app will find the cheapest petrol prices en route. If insurance is included with the hire, check the policy carefully; if not, it's almost always cheaper to arrange it before the trip.
Electric cars are best avoided as charging stations can be hard to find, especially in rural areas, and you'll need to take long breaks for charging (although use the PlugShare app to find stations if you do choose one). Book cars and accommodation early, especially in the peak summer season. Travelling outside this time will mean lower prices, better availability and quieter roads, though it's sensible to avoid leaving or arriving in major cities during rush hour year-round. Whenever you go, don't be too optimistic — every journey will take longer than you think and unexpected detours along the way are all part of the fun.
Booking a package is even easier, with flights, car hire and hotels included so all you have to do is drive. The American Road Trip Company can arrange bespoke trips but also has itineraries for all the classic routes, including Route 66 from Chicago to LA (15 nights' room-only from £1,699pp; theamericanroadtripcompany.co.uk). American Sky has itineraries between 7 and 22 nights, including ones designed specifically for families such as round-trips from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park (12 nights' room-only from £1,529pp; americansky.co.uk).
Note that you'll need to generate a free DVLA code from gov.uk within 21 days of your trip, which US car rental companies will use to check if you have points on your licence. Finally, learn the basics such as how to change a tyre; make sure you have adequate travel insurance; and download suitable playlists — try Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty.