What pop culture inspired you to hit the road?
Image: Illustration: Karl Gustafson Aux Features AVQ&A
Summer is on its way, which means it’s almost road trip season. So this week we’re asking:
What is a thing from pop culture that inspired you to hit the road?
Alex McLevy
It may not be immediately intuitive as a source of open-road wanderlust, but the 2009 dramedy Adventureland managed to get me dreaming of the next time I could plan a road trip to Six Flags. Not that there’s anything particularly enticing about the film’s theme park, in which college grad James (Jesse Eisenberg) is forced to get a summer job, only to fall for his coworker, Em (Kristen Stewart). No, what the movie did was simply remind me of the trashy, lowbrow pleasures of a good theme park: Roller coasters, incredibly unhealthy food, and games that are either unwinnable or, if you do manage to succeed, reward you with the most unwanted of prizes. (Oversized plush Minion or goldfish in a plastic bag, anyone?) I was living in Brooklyn at the time, and while Coney Island could reliably deliver on the gut bomb foodstuffs, there’s only a couple of roller coasters—and to be honest, the Cyclone is more of a painful, crown-loosening device for your teeth than a ride. So I arranged for a rental car, hit the road, and made a trip out of visits to Kings Dominion and Six Flags. Nothing says vacation like being somewhere that consists largely of long lines and sunburned ears, punctuated by 120 seconds of whooping, adrenaline-laced joy.
Shannon Miller
I truly hesitate to share this, as I am not a Michael Bublé fan by any stretch of the imagination, but his 2009 hit “Haven’t Met You Yet” always makes me want to recreate the moment when I first heard it. I was visiting Virginia for a college friend’s fall wedding. The sight of the changing leaves and the quiet simplicity of the countryside was unlike anything that I’d ever seen. It was so vibrant and peacefula strong departure from my usual city surroundings. When the first plucky piano chords trickled through the speakers, it felt like the ideal soundtrack for the moment. It was an impossibly upbeat scene that continues to serve as a source of warmth, and now I always associate “Haven’t Met You Yet” with the countryside and the inherent optimism of fall. Even thinking about it now makes me want to plan an extravagant trip just to see the leaves change, or at least visit a really chill farmers market.
Caitlin PenzeyMoog
At the young age of 18, my twin and I went on a road trip cobbled together from several pop culture sources of inspiration. Our meandering journey began close to home, at Milwaukee’s great, now shuttered, Atomic Records, because the first source inspiring us to hit the road was an article my sister had read in Paste magazine highlighting the finest record stores in the U.S. We then proceeded south, stopping at record shops in Chicago, Louisville, and Nashville, before striking out west along the lonely roads from Oklahoma to Arizona, where we drove dangerously fast and abused our minivan’s cruise control. Eventually we found Amoeba Music in L.A., where my sister realized she hadn’t had her driver’s license this whole time. From there we drove north to San Francisco, our ultimate destination, because I had read several Christopher Moore novels taking place in that vibrant city. Our northerly route home began with a stop in Sausalito, because of the song “Sausalito” by Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band. On that back-half of the trip we devised a sleeping/driving system where the driver would drink a 5-Hour Energy shot and the non-driver some NyQuil tablets to sleep, and in this way we drove three days and nights without stopping. This got us to Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, our last record store, and finally home to Wisconsin.
Gwen Ihnat
He only made three movies, but I was a huge James Dean fan as a kid: My favorite is probably the epic East Of Eden (I also enjoy Rebel Without A Cause, but Giant is very long, although we do get to see what Dean might have looked like as an old man.) So in college, my friends and I favored short memorial-fueled road trips (including Graceland), which necessitated a journey to Indiana’s Fairmount Historical Museum. It was there that I learned there are two famous people from Fairmount, Indiana, and they both have the initials “JD”: Dean and Jim Davis, creator of Garfield. To call that museum a severe pop-culture whiplash would still be an understatement, although judging from the website, the proprietors have since realized that James Dean is the real draw. (Sorry, Garfield.) Even weirder, when my friends and I visited, the museum had just had a prominent visitor: Morrissey, who filmed his Dean-themed video for “Suedehead” in Fairmount. They showed us his autograph in the sign-in book: His childlike scrawl took up the whole page.
Katie Rife
You can blame The Clash for the moment when I walked off the plane from my first ever trip abroad, waving at my waiting family, only for my mom’s mouth to screw up into a scowl as she asked, “Katherine, is that a nose ring?” Sorry, mom. It was a nose ring, and I got it at a tattoo parlor in Camden Town while on a school trip to London my sophomore year of high school. By that point, I was already deep into the first wave of English punk, deep enough to know that the cover of The Clash’s 1977 self-titled album was shot in the alleyway across from their rehearsal space in Camden Market. Most of the trip was taken up by “cultural enrichment” activities that, as a surly 16-year-old, seemed like a bunch of stodgy old squares reciting the names of dead kings I couldn’t care less about. I had saved up money from my bussing job all summer to go on my punk pilgrimage, and so when our teacher announced that we had a free afternoon, I was out the door before she finished lecturing us about not taking advantage of the U.K.’s relatively lax attitudes toward serving Guinness to teenagers. I had figured out how to get there on the tube days earlier, so it didn’t take me long to arrive in Camden Town; what I hadn’t figured out was that, by the early ’00s, punk had long since departed the premises, leaving only street vendors hawking band T-shirts and an overabundance of tattoo parlors behind. After poking around the market and peering into alleyways for about an hour, I finally felt bold and decided to pop into one of those parlors. The bald guy with face tattoos and stretched-out earlobes behind the counter had no patience for my starry-eyed self, simply grunting, “American, huh?” as I babbled nervously about how I heard you could get your nose pierced at 16 in London. But he did obligingly lean me back into a squeaky old dentist’s chair—I vividly remember staring at the poster of a heavily tattooed, naked woman that hung above the chair, my stomach doing somersaults as he prepared the piercing gun— and blasted a stud into my left nostril with the nonchalant air of a hitman in a crime comedy. I don’t remember getting any aftercare instructions, but I do remember feeling cool as hell strutting back into the hotel for dinner.
Randall Colburn
I spent a good chunk of college devouring the works of Irish literary demigod James Joyce, a writer whose prose I worshipped despite it often flying straight over my head. I memorized passages, studied a batch of his early letters and drafts that were held at my college’s library, and, on more than one occasion, tried and failed to emulate his labyrinthian, culturally informed style of stream-of-consciousness on the page. My pretension eventually faded, but my love for Joyce never did—I still find it fun to open Ulysses or Finnegans Wake to a random page and rediscover some forgotten aside or searing moment of self-discovery. I chose Ireland as my first European destination not entirely due to Joyce—my grandfather was born in Cork—but it certainly played a part, and I was delighted to see the tourist-friendly signposts signifying the shops and thoroughfares specifically highlighted in Joyce’s text. I visited the James Joyce Centre and explored some Joycean landmarks on my own, but saved a proper walking tour for my final day, when, surprise, I was struck down by a bad bowl of stew (or, who knows, a few too many Guinness pints). I did, however, drag my sick ass to the “Prick With A Stick” statue that commemorates the thorny scribe. The picture hangs in my living room.
Danette Chavez
This is less a story of being inspired to travel to a pop-culture destination, and more of realizing that, while visiting a friend in Boston in 2015, I could finally do something I’d always wanted to do: grab a beer in a dimpled mug at the Cheers bar. If you have also attempted to sit your butt down in barstool with George Wendt’s ass groove, then you know that there’s the original bar (once named The Bull And Finch), which is on Beacon Street, as well as a replica bar which has promotional swag for purchase, but no Norm ass groove. Thankfully, my friend had been in Boston long enough to know that we should seek out the real deal, which we did, though I ultimately never found out if the butt of any cast member had been in the chair I perched on.
William Hughes
As someone who views travel more as a nuisance than a vector for new experiences, there’s only one thing that can reliably lure me out onto the open road: Much like Alex, I’m a sucker for a good theme park. There’s just something about a Six Flags or a Kings Island—screw Disney; too much sizzle, not enough steak—that short-circuits every grumbly, whiny, “But it’ll take too long!” gripe that normally echoes in my brain when a four-hour car ride looms. And nothing can inspire that urge quite like a movie that is, fittingly, also about the way getting from point A to point B can be a living hell: National Lampoon’s Vacation. It’s all about that moment when the family arrives at Wally World, only to find it closed for two weeks for repairs; it ignites a longing that can only be quashed by beginning the planning on my own probably-doomed expedition in search of expensive, intoxicating fun.
Nick Wanserski
I’m generally down with road trips. I like spacing off and low-key conversation, so why not also be in a different place while enjoying those activities? My first real experience with taking a road trip without my family was immediately after high school when a friend and I decided to hit the road after becoming mutually obsessed with a copy of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits my aunt had given me for Christmas. So one day, we emerged from our dank cave into the summer light with no plan, practically no money, and a giant freezer bag of pure ditch weed so green and so ineffectual it may as well been Bibb lettuce to drive to the Black Hills of South Dakota in my buddy’s 1986 Toyota Corolla. It ended up being a great trip. We had fun, I had my first kiss inside a laundromat dryer in Wall, South Dakota (free ice water, 5 cent coffee) and I spent a lot of hours on the road, pretending to be high while singing along with “Runnin’ Down A Dream.”
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In high school, a friend & I (who definitely had crushes on each other & who were definitely both too shy to act on them) talked endlessly about jumping in the car & driving the 1000+ miles to the Empire State Building after seeing Sleepless in Seattle together. Never happened though.I guess in things that actually happened, I did drive to the convenience/video store where Clerks was filmed. It was . . . a convenience store *shrug*. I bought some Gatorades though.
This topic inspires no stories from me, so let’s talk about famous movie locations you’ve visited instead. A few years ago I was visiting some friends in San Francisco, so I went on a tour of City Hall. Lots of good history there, plus I’m a dork, so yeah, win-win. Anyway, after it was over, I went to the main staircase in the huge foyer area and took a whole bunch of pictures on it. You might remember it from the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark, my favorite movie of all time. It’s supposed to be set in DC, but it is not.This is not my hand. I would’ve chosen a far less trashy nail polish color if it was.
Fools. Bureaucratic fools. The parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones had to function in polite society were very troubling to me as a child. It was like, “HE has to put up with people’s shit? REALLY?”
I think that’s one of my favorite parts of Harrison’s performance(s) as Indy. He never, ever seems to be interested in anything else but his work and what he’s after. Functioning in polite society has never seemed to be his bag at all. The scene in the library with Army intel in ‘Raiders’, the ‘fortune and glory’ scene in ‘Temple of Doom’, the scene in ‘Last Crusade’ where Ilsa describes him as being ‘giddy as a schoolboy’, the early scenes of ‘Crystal Skull’ before it goes off the rails, they all paint Indy as an adventurer/archaeologist first. He’s the superhero who doesn’t seem too interested in keeping his disguise on, and can’t wait to get back out there doing what he knows and does best.
Nice. But I admit- and this is probably the dorkiest thing I’ll ever say- I always thought it was cool he was a teacher. A teacher! Such a great idea for a day job, and even though it’s not a secret identity or alter ego per se, in superhero terms, it’s wholly unique and you just don’t see that everyday.
Oh, I totally agree! It’s cool that he’s a teacher, because it builds in the backstory and character development that he’s clearly very intelligent and knows what he’s doing on his adventures. It’s not just some idiot going to raid tombs for gold or whatever (no offense to my girl Lara Croft). There’s an intellectual pursuit to it, as well.
No. He was a professor. Being one, while teaching is part of the job, it rarely is the most important part. Even if what I do outside of the classroom doesn’t involve artifacts that could destroy humanity if in the wrong hands.
A scene in Kimmy Schmidt was filmed right outside my apartment building. Which I found perplexing because I have no idea when it took place. There’s always film shoots here and there which I’m prone to ignore, but I really should have noticed that one.
I dunno if I’d call that little spot under the bridge an “apartment building”, bronto. 🙂
Not really a famous location, but after watching the original Sabrina, I went down to the “Larrabee Company” headquarters at 30 Broad St.
I was in the math club in high school, and for one of our competitions, we went to Torrance High, the shooting location for Beverly Hills 90210. We got knocked out early, so I just walked around and checked it out. Pretty fun.I also drive by Fox Plaza aka Nakatomi Plaza in LA all the time.OH! I also got to go to a taping of a Big Brother eviction episode, and you can totally see me in the audience shots at least 3-4 times. There’s one where I’m RIGHT behind Julie Chen, and I totally start laughing when she says ‘But first…’
Despite being set in Pennsylvania, Groundhog Day was filmed in the small exurb of Woodstock, Illinois. I used to live kind of out that way and my husband and I went out to see it. The stores have changed and that diner didn’t really exist but the town square is the same, the clock tower is there and there’s a plaque at the spot where Phil keeps stepping in the puddle.
Speaking of clock towers, I’ve stood on what remains of the Back to the Future ‘Hill Valley’ set. Part of it was on the official tour at one time, but a friend of mine works nearby and she got me in to walk around the area a while back. Big fun.I also went to Niagara Falls for the first time a few years ago, and although the Canadian side has been remodeled and refurbished over the years, I did my best to locate the spots where some of the location sets for ‘Superman II’ were shot. The place where Lois jumps in the river is a few miles from the falls themselves on the White Water Walk tour, but it’s still there.
No.
Whoever ungreyed you should be beaten to death with a shovel. And by ungreyed, I mean gave birth to you.
The shooting location I was most delighted to find was from the TV series “Rubicon”. The series was set in New York, and the offices and rooftop looked out on the FDR and the South Street Seaport. So one time when I was in New York I walked around the apparent location of the building, and there’s the alley and the door they entered to get into the office with the clunky looking closed circuit TV camera above it. That one exterior could have and usually would be filmed anywhere else, but there it was!
Another shooting location I didn’t travel to see, but the opening scene of “Reanimtor” was filmed where I went to college. So my friends and I thought it was hilarious to bang on the door to the room where Herbert West overdoses his mentor with the reagent and shout “Herr Doctor! Doctor Gruber!”.
The white seaplane Indy takes out of SF is here too, at the Oakland Aviation Museum.
Well goddamit, I wish I would’ve known that. The Petersen Museum in LA is having an exhibit through next March of a whole bunch of vehicles from sci-fi movies. Looks pretty sweet.
https://www.petersen.org/hollywood-dream-machines
Wow. That’s going on my schedule pronto.
Every fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark needs to see this clip from The Big Bang Theory. I never realized this myself. Then I thought about it and said “Damn! She’s right!”
I’m not sure I agree with that theory for one reason – the question of whether or not Indy led Belloq and the Nazis (and by extension, Toht and his goons) to Marion in her bar in Nepal. Remember, Toht tailed Indy from the moment he got on the seaplane. (You see him sitting behind Indy on the seaplane and peeking out over his newspaper.) That’s how they knew where he was going, which was right to Marion and the medallion in Nepal. They tailed Indy to Nepal, but perhaps without knowing why.The Nazis were searching for Abner Ravenwood, but apparently they didn’t know he was dead because Indy himself finds out himself when he meets up with Marion. Therefore, I don’t believe they knew where she was either, and by extension, where the medallion was. If Indy was not in the movie, then maybe the Nazis don’t get led to Marion by Indy, they don’t find the medallion, and they don’t find the Ark.All this inspires other questions too, like how did Toht know that Indy was on the trail of the Ark now too? Was there a spy or a mole among the Army intelligence that told Indy about Hitler’s search for the Ark who then relayed the information that Indy was now searching for it back to Hitler? Also, if Indy is not in the movie and the Nazis somehow do find the medallion and therefore the Ark, and then they all die after they open it, what then happens to the Ark? Does it just stay on that island for some other unlucky sap to find?Which leads us to our final assessment of why Indiana Jones played a vital role in this movie. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Indy’s victory in this movie lies in the fact that he takes the Ark completely off the table for anyone to use or find at all. If he wasn’t in this movie, that means the Ark is still out there for someone to find, whether it be in the Well of the Souls or on that island or wherever else. It’s a weapon that no army should have, and therefore his being in this movie, chasing after it and eventually landing it in a crate in a warehouse somewhere was the best thing that could’ve possibly happened. That’s where the Ark needs to be – hidden away from everyone for all eternity. Leaving it where it was in the Well of the Souls still affords the option of finding it to someone in the future, and if that’s the only good reason Indy had for being in this movie, then I’d say it was all worthwhile.
Correction: Indy was followed to Nepal by a Nazi flunkie, not by Toht himself.
Don’t worry I spent way too much for a tour of Graceland, it’s just weirdly pricey. I’m glad I did it and can say I did it, but it’s not very awe inspiring.
I went to the Elvis Museum in Pigeon Forge, TN before it went under. That kinda convinced me not to go to Graceland. It was cool & they had an interesting variety of Elvis’s stuff, but the thought of doing that again only more expensive because of the house part didn’t appeal to me after going to the museum.
I’ve done the Graceland tour twice. It has all the cool, tacky Elvis stuff, but the house itself is kind of unimpressive. It’s basically a slightly bigger than average suburban house on a big lot (with a racquetball gym in the backyard).
It just wasn’t really THAT over the top. Tacky and silly of course, but just eh. Besides a big plot of land that really couldn’t have cost much to buy/build. I did see a plane too while I was there, so that was different.
I’m not a big Elvis fan and I wanted to be underwhelmed by Graceland, but instead went all in. The home tour, the car museum, the Lisa Maria airplane. It was fantastic. The home is a lot smaller than I realized, though the grounds are pretty big. I love that the swingset out back is the same crap kind we grew up with back in the 70s and 80s.
And it’s hard not to appreciate the meditation garden. I couldn’t get Richard Thompson’s “From Galway to Graceland” or the scene from This is Spinal Tap where the band tries to harmonize “Heartbreak Hotel” in front of the gravestones out of my head.Next time I need to get to the Stax museum and Sun Records.
I don’t drive, and this might be the wrong causation, but I’d listen to Transatlantacism on the bus ride from DC to NYC whenever I would visit in the early 2010s. Maybe that’s why all my vacations there were a bit melancholy.
I booked my upcoming trip to Scotland after a re-read of Harry Potter late last year. I leave next month. It’ll be my first international trip with my gf (we’ve been together 1.5 years).
A videogame critic I follow, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, spent a while repairing an old Volkswagon hippie bus and started driving around the country making travelogues and reviewing games from the road. This is his first substantial travelogue and I’ve gone back and watched it probably 10 times, whenever I need some inspiration. It relates the joys and mysteries of exploration and travel in such a wonderfully compelling way. It’s about nature, it’s about viewing exploration in the real world through the lens of videogame exploration, it’s about the weirdness of the West, and it’s about the magic of finding tiny distractions and fascinations as you meander around the US in a car.
If you had said the (mini)game Desert Bus, I would be saying awesome! And please check in at your nearest mental health hospital.
Hunter S. Thompson – Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Accidental sudden death of Father when I was 19 or 20-years-old. RIP Dad 🙁
Withnail & I. Only much later dd I realize it was really about The 8th Doctor and The Great Intelligence hitting the road for a booze-and-drug-fueled buddy trip.
I used to love a good road trip, and had many, and I guess I always saw a correlation between hitting the road and… horror movies. From Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Hills Have Eyes, Friday the 13th, etc. there always seemed to be that theme. After all, what is a road trip if not you leaving your familiar environment for unknown, unfamiliar environments? That in movies this was often the first step to putting a group of people in a terrifying situation makes all the sense in the world.
Favorite driving song? As of late, it’s been LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Yeah (Crass Mix)‘ for me. So propulsive and wonderful.
The only possible answer is Vanishing Point.
Taking my first road trip from Canada to Mexico this summer….and there BETTER be a Titty Twister on the other side of that border.
I hear there are ladies and men at “South of the Border” who will give you one of those for 20 bucks.
I wacthed Cool Runnings and then watced Miracle a few days after that. I was looking to get away for a few days. And I ended up booking a trip to Lake Placid, NY. I visited a bobsled track while yelling, “Feel the rhythm! FEEL THE RHYME!” And then got all misty eyed at the ice hockey rink. It is actually a very nice small town with a ton to do.
Hit the road jack
Freddy Got Fingered. Seriously.I quit my deadend job at 21 and explored the country in my car. This was before the internet was readily accessible, before 9/11, before GPS… I used a road atlas, and spent two years doing it. It was a different world then, full of possibility, hope, and adventure. I felt like Jack Kerouac.Thank you Tom Green.
as a writer, i really admired how the writers got a movie out of a theme park ride for “pirates of the carribean.” i had never been on the ride – when i visited disneyworld with my cousins soon after it opened, there was no pirates ride – but i’d heard enough about it that i was impressed after seeing the film & made it a bucket-list entry to someday ride the ride. a couple of years ago, i planned a spring trip to L.A. to see a production of one of my plays & decided to spend a couple of extra days after traveling so far to get there (from the east coast). i wasn’t too interested in movie stuff or hollywood- & then i remembered disneyland is nearby. yay! unfort, after checking the disney calendar, i found out that “pirates” would be closed for refurbishing at that time. just my luck. i went anyway & had a ball…marred only by a twinge of disappointment whenever i walked past the closed entrance. as luck would have it, however, my cousin got married that fall in san francisco…on thanksgiving day weekend, you know, when no one in america is traveling anywhere (thanks, chris). the best travel days were thanksgiving & the following monday which meant an extra day stuck out there. but you know what’s a quick plane ride from san francisco? “pirates of the carribean!” i used points & a visa gift card to pay for the plane, the hotel & the tickets & rode the ride 5 times. totally worth it!
The thing I like better at Disneyland v Disney World is that you can eat in the ride! I am not saying the food is good, but I love the inside twilight atomsphere (which is why I liked eating in Mexico in Disney World — when I wasn’t last there — in 1997)
I’ve eaten in both those places. Blue Bayou (the restaurant inside Pirates at Disneyland) is pretty good, but soooo damn expensive. Four of us went there for my birthday one year, and it was like $250. My favorite memory of that place is from when I was a kid. When you’re on the ride, you float past it in the boat you’re on, and I used to think that everyone eating at the restaurant was an animatronic. I seriously didn’t find out it was a real restaurant until years later.
There’s a similar set up at the Pirates at Disneyland Paris (the Blue Lagoon I believe) and I agree the atmosphere is fantastic. And I also love eating at Mexico in Epcot.
I was about 8 when I saw the movie Snoopy Come Home, and I was smitten with the idea of traveling on foot — not having schedule or needing to be home by a certain time. Exploring and seeing things up-close, instead of flashing by outside a car window.Of course, the practical obstacles to that are another matter — getting tired… needing to sleep and eat… bad weather… I guess I wasn’t the first 8 year-old to have a sort of lite hobo fantasy. I have gone on some interesting road trips since, and enjoy walking around my suburban neighborhood, and occasionally I imagine that boingy Jew’s harp theme in the background as I go.
Is that the one where Snoopy kept being denied entrance to places, and this deep offscreen voice would intone “NO DOGS ALOOOOOWWED!” I remember almost nothing from any of the Peanuts movies but that voice haunts me for some reason.
Indeed. And I believe that wasn’t just any “deep offscreen voice” but, in fact, Thurl Ravenscroft — original voice of Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger, and singer of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”, as well as featured vocalist on the song “No Dogs Allowed” in this film.
Does needing to be somewhere count? Inspired by the “Attitude Era” WWF at it’s best, I finally did the road trip thing for the first real time with my friends for Wrestlemania 17, which I guess qualifies as pop culture?
Two books:On the RoadFear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I said Dharma Bums, but On The Road is good too. Fear and Loathing would work just as well as a cautionary tale.
On the Road is classic. For me in high school, though, it was Kon-Tiki.
Is that Aussie? You handle, I mean.
I lived downtown in Denver for a year, and one nice spring day I was reading about local literary history and realized that a baseball diamond mentioned in On The Road was like 10 blocks north of my apartment. So I walked up there. There was no one else around, and it’s not in a thriving area of the city (not 4 years ago, anyway, maybe it is now or maybe it’s more gentrified now, anyway) and On The Road has never been a seminal book for me or anything, but it was still really cool to be there.
Have you been to My Brother’s Bar? I believe that has a connection to Kerouac as well
I read about it but never went! I probably should have.
Speaking of book-inspired trips, one summer, my college buddy and I walked to Mordor.
Bro, take the eagles. It’s like eight bucks round trip.
Fuckin’ A, man. +1I went through a lengthy Hunter S. Thompson phase in my early twenties. Between Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell’s Angels, I was living in a haze of wanderlust.
So I was halfway there.
I was a young guy then. Far, far more enticing to The Road though…
Glad someone mentioned Blue Highways. The idea of not taking the interstate was an eye-opener
None so far. But this old Conan sketch inspired me to beat the floor…
So, 25 years ago me and four of my buddies went to Chicago to see both a Cubs and White Sox game over a weekend (we’re from the East Coast). Unfortunately, the week we went MLB players were on strike, so no games for us. However, I came up w/ the idea of renting a car, driving out to Iowa and seeing both the Field of Dreams site (in Dyersville) as well as a minor league game in Clinton, IA (home of the Lumberkings (Giants’ affiliate back then, now Marlins). Problem is we left Chicago much too late on a Saturday afternoon (took us over two hours just to out of the city), and the Field of Dreams site closed at 6pm, though we still managed to see the Lumberkings’ game. This summer I am finally checking the Field of Dreams off my bucket list, getting on a plane in mid-July, and catching some minor league games in Davenport and Des Moines over a four day trek. Wish me luck.
Actually, the more accurate song for me would be “Never Did No Wanderin’” from “A Mighty Wind”, but then I’d have to pick which performance to link.
Eric Hansen’s books “Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea” and “Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo”. Both books about intense cultural submersion, the good and the bad. In the end, most people are good-hearted and willing to help when asked in a courteous manner. There are still thieves, casual smuggling and jails. Fun, exotic food!
Does Dharma Bums count? Cuz Dharma Bums. Though I did once go to Winslow Arizona solely because of one line of a song……..oh, oh, and Fandango, the movie.
I bought my first motorcycle in my early 20s. I assume I must’ve been influenced by something in pop culture that caused me to make that purchase but its hard to pin down exactly what that was. Perhaps it was the criminally under-rated and immensely entertaining 1973 film “Electra Glide In Blue” which made Robert Blake a star.
Electric Glide in Blue is a really good movie. I think the ending of the movie would have scared me of going on the road on a motorcycle.
Electric Guide in Blue really affected me as a kid. The Establishment has always controlled the narrative. They Suck. Really.
The end of Easy Rider put me off hitting the road on a motorcycle AND visiting the South.
Exact opposite effect on me. I grew up in the south and didn’t want to be the guys in the truck. So, I rode bikes, fast ones, away from there.
That’s a vastly underrated movie, and the final shot is stunning.
I bought my first motorcycle as a 16 year old after having been enthralled by Akira three years prior. And I wouldn’t say Long Way Round inspired the cross country trips I do now, but it probably helped.
“Coffee & TV” convinced me to go to the country, but I couldn’t find the people there who would hurt me… big rip-off!!
Nobody mentioned The Boss. Let’s face it if you have hit the road in the last 44 years there’s been quite a few of his songs playing somewhere in the background. At least nobody said “On the Road “ which is actually an Anti-Travel Travelogue. At least that’s the way I read it. Kerouac spends all this time on the road only to find everything he wanted back at home, and the novel leaves you with more questions than answers.
I decided to go on a trip to Memphis after seeing Mystery Train for the first time.
Last night we drove 2 miles to Family Video to pick up a copy of Captain Marvel. It was OK. On the way home I noticed that a“Cell Phone Store” had been converted into a Quick Loan Store called “Turtle.”
“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold…”And twenty years later, I’m still out here, cruising and huffing the ether.
I thought you were going to say that James Dean in East of Eden led to either a trip to Griffith Observatory and a random intersection outside of L.A. or the Salinas Valley and the rest of Steinbeck’s California rather than…Fairmount, Indiana.I am currently planning a road trip to Montana which was inspired, at least in some part, by A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall. As a native East Coaster, my early impressions of Montana were undoubtedly formed by the films before I moved west and read Norman Maclean and Jim Harrison. (Early-90s Brad Pitt to teenage gay me didn’t hurt either.)
Maggie Gyllenhaal: I would drive at lest 20 miles to avoid a ‘film festival’ featuring her innumerable failures (especially The Dark Knight). Nepotism generally goes over well, but not in the family’s case.
The website’s transition to Kinja inspired me to visit the Puente Hills Landfill, the largest dumping ground in the country.
Fuck Kinja Ernie
ZZ Top’s album “Tejas” is great to listen while making a night drive from LA to Vegas.
I’m not saying that the only reason I traveled to New Zealand in 2000 was to see where they stored the costumes and props from “Xena: Warrior Princess” before they got auctioned off, but I’m not -not- saying it either.
Bob Seger- Against the Wind. I can’t listen to it anymore, but I had my “drifter’s days” when I was in my 20s thanks to that song.
The Dishwasher Pete segments on This American Life have always made me look to road trips.Also, the “King of the Road’ episode of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, anyone?
For my parents, it was James A Michener’s The Drifters. I would have been six years old and I remember my mother sitting my sister and I down and telling us that we were “going on a big and wonderful adventure”. It was also immediately after Chernobyl and my parents were freaking out about it. And what happened after that, from 1986 until 1991 was that I got to live in Spain, Portugal and the Canary and Balearic Islands. We would spend roughly a year in one place (the first year was in Torremolinos, the second in the Algarve, then Mallorca, then Ibiza (oof!), Lanzarote and then back to Mallorca) before returning to the UK. And I still have my mother’s old, stolen copy of the book. I will say that as much as travelling with my parents as a child may have fucked up some aspects of my childhood, I wouldn’t wish for an ordinary childhood. I mean, thanks to my parents being inspired by that book I got to travel through Spain, lived in some pretty incredible homes that my parents somehow afforded (my favourite? The old townhouse we had in Faro that I was certain was haunted) and always had a beach as a back garden.
Myself…I suppose I’ve never really been inspired to do a “big road trip”, purely because I don’t see the point after having that sort of childhood. I’ve done my fair share of travelling and had some pretty fucking nutty times as a late teenager/twentysomething. I’m not going to be pathetic and say they were “Spectacular” or “Memorable” or “Beautiful” – nutty is the word to describe them because sometimes I look back and think “holy shit, did I really do that?” I mean, I left my fucking horrific high school aged seventeen (Americans could call me a drop-out, a term which I find rather fucking offensive, to be fair), went to college, met some pretty amazing people who swiftly became my best friends (and one that became the man I want to spend the rest of my life with), got to work in some shitty jobs, some great jobs and got to travel whenever I got the itch. To be frank, there’s no real place out there any more that makes me want to travel. Paris? Done it. Berlin? Done it, twice. Auckland? Been there, got arrested for flashing a vicious bitch in a bar. Tokyo? Don’t see the hype. I really don’t (plus, one of my best friends is from Adachi and he referred to Tokyo as “endlessly claustrophobic”) but I might be tempted to go to Hokkaido, mind you. I’m also of the opinion that the world has been ruined. Not by pollution or any of those interchangeable injustices you want to swap around to feel fashionable, but because of social media. There was a time when you could drop off the face of the world for two weeks or so and lose yourself in a foreign destination. You could literally leave your mobile phone at home and forget that the tiny part of the world you inhabit existed. Now people are pressured to “share” and “let others experience your experience”. Piss off. Memories are personal to me and me alone and not to be shared through a filter or dusted with cheap emojis. Look at the problems certain places are experiencing with mass tourism because one blogger puts up a picture of a spot that suddenly everyone wants to visit. And, here’s the thing, if you want to really experience something, to really feel that you’ve been there, you need to fucking dust your passport down, get your lazy padded arse off of that chair and get the fuck out there. And don’t give me that bullshit about affordability – I was able to travel round France and Germany back in the mid 00s for a ridiculously low amount. Why? Interrail. Staying at Youth Hostels. Only a fucking berk would aspire to stay in a five star hotel everywhere they go. But do me a massive favour. If you do go travelling, leave the fucking social media at home. Firstly, you’re not as interesting as you’ve been led to believe. And secondly, create memories for you and you alone. Put the phone away.Rant over. Now I need to go to Lidl and get my pet fuzzy ninja his preferred chow, otherwise he’ll bitch-paw me awake at four again tomorrow morning.
Not exactly a road trip but the Scott Pilgrim comics (and subsequent movie) made me want to check out all of the real life locales featured when I was visiting Toronto, from Honest Ed’s (RIP) to Sonic Boom record store.
Everytime I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I want to hop on my non-existent motorcycle and ride into the Dakota’s
A) You should get a motorcycle. They’re great.
B) There are far, far better places to go on a motorcycle than the Dakotas.
I think Motorcycle Diaries might be one of the best road movies ever made.
Try the new Springsteen album. You’ll run out to your car and drive to Colorado.
Before recorded history, I heard the Mamas and the Papas singing California Dreaming, so I walked out the door with $40 in my pocket and hitchhiked out to California. Stayed 5 years or so.
I’ve moved across the country alone three different times, and I routinely go to all sorts of obscure places for my job, and without a doubt The Lord of The Rings is my go-to pop culture touchstone for travel. When I was younger I thought Aragorn was just the absolute coolest guy—a true hero who disguised himself as a sketchy scumbag and who had so much knowledge of the lands of Middle-Earth that he could survive and thrive anywhere. Anytime I’m hanging out in some third-world airport, dressed in schlubby sweatpants, I think of him. And when I first moved abroad, I immediately felt like a Hobbit leaving the shire: America sure as hell as its problems, but when I stepped out of it into places that are truly wild and dangerous, where this no help coming or little social support in place, I realized how sheltered I was. It’s like Bilbo said:
Weekend at Bernie’s…the second one.
Try the best driving song ever recorded: Radar Love by Golden Earring.
Hell yes to Conor Oberst. His music is the ultimate road trip soundtrack. Also the soundtrack to many depressed early morning commutes to school fantasising about going to America just to hit the road and disappear. “Get behind the wheel, stay in front of the storm.”
The thing that actually inspires me to hit the road is the Youtube sped-up driving videos. It’s such a wonderful way to see the beautiful landscapes at 10x the speed of normal driving.
This is more “hit the tarmac” but:Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” made me want to go to Paris. Now I know it’s a bad thing to bring up Woody’s…well history with his woody…But that movie is so fucking good and a great love letter to the city. So about a year later I saved enough money to go to the city on my own. And it was the greatest experience I’ve ever had. Paris is such a wonderful city in so many ways. I wish I could go back.
I was inspired by watching The Hitcher to murder a bunch of randoms on my next hitchhiking road trip. Thank you very much Rutger Hauer.I kid of course. It was the Sean Bean version.
Well, I was already on the road in 1984, on the way to California, when I realized that the Interstate was going to take us right by Winslow, Arizona.(You know where this is going…) So, pulled over to gas up and get lunch, and of course walked to the nearest corner and stood for a couple of minutes. Sadly, no girl my lord in a flatbed Ford slowed down to take a look at me.Apparently, in the years since, they’ve made a tourist attraction somewhere in Winslow based on that one verse of “Takin’ It Easy”, but I got in years before that.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/19/glenn-frey-is-dead-but-the-take-it-easy-corner-in-winslow-arizona-lives-on/?utm_term=.30d41619e6a9
Winslow, AZ is also home to a giant meteor crater. A place introduced to me by a great road trip movie, Starman. I stopped by when moving out to California last year.
I also took a trip to Fairmount, IN. Not because of James Dean, but because of the “Suedehead” video.
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Forrest Gump’s long run in that movie inspired a cross-country road trip. The sublime sweeping vistas and feeling of quiet lonesomeness made me want to be there.
I don’t know if it quite counts as “hitting the road” but the Assassin’s Creed franchise pushed me towards international travel. Existing in those fully-realized, amazing worlds gave me an immense desire to experience some of the deeply historical places of the world for myself.
I loved Knight Rider growing up. There always high up shots of KITT zipping through California or screaming through the desert.
Tom Waits. Just… all of it. Ol’ 55 is the most obvious inspiration, but his full body of work frames a world I’ve never really experienced filled with diners, cigarettes, motels, trains, and shitty coffee. I want it all. Name any U.S. town you can think of and it’s pretty likely Waits has romanticized it in one of his songs.
Thank you! Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Greatest Hits really is the perfect road trip CD (other than one you’d make yourself, of course). The SUV I got last year doesn’t have a CD player, so I’ll miss starting off every road trip with “American Girl.” (Playing it off Spotify via Bluetooth just isn’t the same.)