If ever there was a country which cherished the road trip above all others, it would be the U.S.A. With its four billion miles of 8-lane highways and 4.3 cars per family, America knows a thing or two about packing up the car and hitting the road. Here are five non-fiction road trip books to get you in the mood to do just the same.
1. Travels with Charlie (in search of America) by John Steinbeck – Originally published in 1962, Travels with Charlie takes legendary novelist John Steinbeck on a trip across America with his standard poodle Charlie and his beloved truck Rocinante. Written during a pivotal time in America’s history, Steinbeck’s commentary regarding the direction his country is moving in is visionary. With humour, anger, joy and frustration, Steinbeck paints a portrait of America that is poignant, even 49 years later.
2. In Search of Captain Zero by Allan C. Weisbecker – Part travelogue, part personal memoir, and entirely entertaining, In Search of Captain Zero is based around one friend’s search for his best pal and former business partner. The fact that the business they partnered on was responsible for smuggling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs into America during the 70s and 80s makes the story engaging, to say the least. From New York to the jungles of Costa Rica, Weisbecker pilots his truck through banditos, love affairs and lonely surf breaks only to find an end he is not prepared for.
3. Road Fever by Tim Cahill – Travel writer and Rolling Stone editor Tim Cahill is well known for his humourous take on the precarious situations he inevitably puts himself in. In Road Fever, Cahill rides shotgun in a truck captained by Canadian Garry Sowerby. The catch? This truck is making a world record-attempt to drive from the southernmost tip of South America to the end of man-made road in Alaska, a 15,000-mile journey. It’s a raucous 23.5-day ride full of corrupt border guards, mechanical challenges and Cahill’s unique sense of humour.
4. Blue Highways by William Least-Heat Moon – Having lost his wife, his job and possibly his sanity, American author Least-Heat Moon does what so many have dreamt of doing—hopping in a van and driving around aimlessly in search of…well, something. The best part of this tale of self-discovery (aren’t all road trip books?) is that the author has a rule: avoid all interstates. Sticking to the back roads of the country, Least-Heat Moon unearths a cast of rich characters who never wanted to be found.
5. Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman – What starts out as an assignment for SPIN magazine turns into, you guessed it, a voyage of self-discovery for music journalist and humourist Chuck Klosterman. While researching a morbid story on famous dead American musicians’ places of death, Klosterman finds himself in a variety of bizarre situations, including discussing Kafka with Cracker Barrel servers, wandering the wilderness in search of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash site and snorting mid-day coke with headbangers in an abandoned building lot. A running narrative about four women in Klosterman’s romantic life is a highlight, if not for the charming sweetness of it all than for the fact that he compares them to the four members of Kiss. Radical. – Mike Berard
What books would you add? Which books would you take away? Chime in below and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading.
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I would have to add On The Road by Jack Kerouac.
And I would have to agree with you Michelle. I have another list of five coming soon. America’s road trip literary history is rich.
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Especially because you’re now middle aged.
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