Rediscovering the World of 'Blue Highways'

[cpzilliacus]

New York Times: Rediscovering the World of 'Blue Highways' - A 1982 memoir of an American road-trip remains relevant in a GPS world.

Once upon a time, we traveled by map. In the United States, the map, whether it be a Conquistador sketch, a Rand McNally atlas or a foldout picked up at a Union 76 station, the sort you never fold the same way twice, is holy.

Maps are the only way we know our country is a country, a unified thing instead of a series of fields, forests and cities that go forever. Maps are mystery. You cannot look at the names of the towns and ranges without imagining yourself absorbed in experience – the jagged line of the Sawtooths, the peak of which you know is approached by roads lined with motor courts, or the vein of California's Highway 1. Along that road, I see myself visiting San Simeon to see where William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies entertained Charlie Chaplin, or that fingernail of coast where William Finnegan still waits for the wave that will carry him to God. An hour with an atlas just makes me want to go.

[Rothman]

Although an important American book, it set off our travel writing as far too saturated with individuals heading off on a trip to find themselves.

[wanderer2575]

The book aside, I still plan most of my roadtrips by paper map.  When I'm roadtripping, I'm not interested in the shortest or fastest route between points A and B.  And often, I don't even know what B is.