“ ... The road ahead is as long as you make it. Make it worth the trip”
Jon Bon Jovi
Road tripping is the epitome of adventurous travel, where planning is replaced by spontaneity and en route impulsive decisions, a freeing experience in a world where precise planning and strict timing, rule.
Breaking free from everyday planning may seem intimidating at first, as planning is often being used to avoid undesired and unpredictable events and situations... and a road trip is just as much about unpleasant surprises as delightful ones. You must be prepared to take it all as it comes, and this is precisely where lies the beauty of the experience.
The literary world and movie industry have been enriched by what have become cult road trip novels and movies. It is a genre in itself as the journey is as important as the main character who evolves along the trip's experiences and encounters.
Temporarily freed from everyday's duties and obligations, which dictate life's pace and content, the heart and spirit become exceptionally receptive to the burst of energy and renewed gusto for life an untamed trip offers.
Jack Kerouac's autobiographical novel On the Road remains a reference of choice among aspiring road-trippers celebrating the raw romanticism of cruising mid -century America.
"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was — I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds."
Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Des Moines.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Des Moines.
One of my favorites has to be Motocycle Diaries, ased on 23 years old Ernesto Guevara's (El Che) travel journals.
Unlike most road trip movies which take place in the US, it is set into Latin America's wilderness, which brings a fresh take on the subject: while studying medicine engaged a nine months trip through Latin America with his best friend and physician Alberto Granado.
The journey relates alongside the mere adventure of the travel itself, Ernesto's growth into what would later become his life mission and lead his to his exceptional destiny.
For a lighter humourous take on road tripping The Bad Girl's Guide to the Open Road, by Cameron Tuttle is a cheering and happy read with clever tips, thoughts and ideas.
