On the road: mapping the great road trips of American literature
by Marta Bausells
Cheryl Strayed killed time at a small casino adjoining a Reno bus station at 4am, pack still strapped to her back; Jack Kerouac went down the mountain between Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Benson, Arizona, “with the clutch in and the motor off to save gas”; Bill Bryson drove through a landscape of gumdrop hills in Virginia, with a sky “full of those big fluffy clouds you always see in nautical paintings”, and came across towns with names including Snowflake, Horse Pasture and Charity.
These are just a handful of the more than 1,500 locations charted in a comprehensive and interactive map of American literature’s most iconic journeys, created by self-declared “freak for the American road trip” Richard Kreitner, in collaboration with developer Steven Melendez, and hosted online by Atlas Obscura.