48 Fun Facts About Road Trips

Which 1939 novel popularised 'the Mother Road' as a nickname for Route 66?

The Grapes of Wrath was publicly banned and burned when it came out, including in the California county where its migrant family ends up.

What 1969 film follows Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as bikers on a cross-country road trip?

Easy Rider cost little and earned a fortune, which showed the big studios that cheap films by unconventional young directors could pay.

Which president signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, launching the freeway network that bears his name?

Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it quietly in hospital, with no ceremony, while being treated for an intestinal illness.

What is the surname of the family in the National Lampoon vacation movies?

Griswold family trips began in John Hughes's magazine story 'Vacation '58', where the drive ended at Disneyland, which the film changed to Walley World.

Which Amarillo, Texas art installation, created by the group Ant Farm in 1974, has ten cars buried nose-first beside Interstate 40?

Cadillac Ranch encourages visitors to spray-paint its cars, so a fresh coat rarely survives a day before someone paints over it.

Which 1957 Jack Kerouac book was first typed on a scroll roughly 120 feet long?

On the Road's original scroll used his friends' real names, such as Neal Cassady, which the published novel swapped for characters like Dean Moriarty.

Which travel-trailer brand did NASA convert into a quarantine unit for the returning Apollo 11 astronauts?

Airstream's converted trailer was kept at lower air pressure than outside, so any lunar germs Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins carried could not escape.

Which South Dakota roadside attraction is famous for its hundreds of billboards?

Wall Drug struggled until Dorothy Hustead suggested a roadside sign offering free ice water, and thirsty travellers soon came pouring in.

Which state officially named its Route 375, the road past Area 51, the Extraterrestrial Highway?

Nevada unveiled the name at a 1996 ceremony with Independence Day stars Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, as 20th Century Fox promoted the film.

The Blue Ridge Parkway connects which two national parks?

The Blue Ridge Parkway's 469 miles link Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina–Tennessee line; construction began in 1935.

Which 1991 Ridley Scott road movie ends with its two fugitive heroines driving off a canyon cliff?

Thelma & Louise's Grand Canyon finale was actually shot in Utah near Moab, as Ridley Scott filmed the Arkansas-to-Arizona story in California and Utah.

Which Canadian prime minister officially opened the Trans-Canada Highway at Rogers Pass in 1962?

John Diefenbaker opened it at a pass so prone to avalanches that snowsheds shield the road and crews set off slides on purpose to keep it clear.

Which Interstate, running from Seattle to Boston, is the longest in the United States?

I-90's last traffic light hung in Wallace, Idaho, until a 1991 viaduct carried the highway past the town, and officials there held a funeral for it.

Which Australian coastal drive was built by returned First World War soldiers as a war memorial?

Great Ocean Road crews cut it largely by hand along a coast whose towns had until then been reached mainly by sea or rough track.

Which Steppenwolf song, written by Mars Bonfire, became a biker anthem?

Born to Be Wild grew partly out of the freedom Mars Bonfire felt driving around in his secondhand Ford Falcon.

Which brand's rhyming jingles were spread across a series of small roadside signs?

Burma-Shave signs grew harder to read as driving speeds rose, and they were taken down after Philip Morris bought the company in 1963.

The Darién Gap breaks the Alaska-to-Argentina road in which Central American country?

The Darién Gap, some 60 miles of roadless rainforest between Panama and Colombia, is the only break in the roughly 19,000-mile road from Alaska to Argentina.

Which Los Angeles-area landmark carries the sign marking Route 66's western End of the Trail?

Santa Monica Pier marks only a symbolic finish, since Route 66 officially ended a little inland, at the corner of Lincoln and Olympic boulevards.

Which brand introduced the Wagoneer in 1962 to replace its postwar station wagon?

Jeep's old Station Wagon was facing newer truck-based 4x4 rivals, so Willys had designer Brooks Stevens create the Wagoneer as its replacement.

In Forrest Gump, the hero ends his cross-country run on a highway through which landscape?

Monument Valley's stretch of U.S. Route 163 near Utah mile marker 13 draws fans who re-create the moment Forrest finally stops running.

Which German band had a 1975 international hit with 'Autobahn', a song celebrating motorway driving?

Kraftwerk's German refrain about driving was widely misheard by English speakers as 'fun, fun, fun', a Beach Boys homage the band denied intending.

Which 1988 film has Tom Cruise driving his newly discovered older brother from Cincinnati to Los Angeles?

Rain Man's airport scene, where Raymond refuses to fly, was cut from in-flight screenings by at least 15 airlines, which feared it would alarm passengers.

The 1925 Milestone Mo-Tel, source of the word 'motel', stood in which California city?

San Luis Obispo's Mo-Tel was meant to launch a chain of 18 motels a day's drive apart, but the Great Depression left architect Arthur Heineman short of backers.

Which city marked the eastern end of Route 66?

Chicago's road west was first mapped as US 60, but Kentucky's governor fought for that number and its backers settled for the unused 66.

Which state does John Denver's 1971 hit 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' celebrate?

West Virginia was a state co-writer Bill Danoff had never visited; the song's title line came to him on a drive along Clopper Road in Maryland.

The Tail of the Dragon, with 318 curves in 11 miles, runs from Deals Gap, North Carolina, into which state?

Tennessee's stretch runs between protected park and forest land, so no intersections break its curves.

Which classic American roadside restaurant chain, begun in 1925, was known for its bright orange roofs?

Howard Johnson's turned to franchising after the 1929 crash stalled growth, letting an acquaintance open its second restaurant in Orleans, Massachusetts, in 1935.

Which Interstate runs the length of the East Coast, from Miami to the Canadian border in Maine?

I-95 only became continuous from Maine to Florida in 2018, when a Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange bridged the gap left by New Jersey's canceled Somerset Freeway.

Which actor headlined the 1981 ensemble comedy inspired by the outlaw coast-to-coast Cannonball Run, alongside Dom DeLuise and Roger Moore?

Burt Reynolds's ambulance ruse copied the real 1979 race, in which Brock Yates and Hal Needham drove a disguised Dodge ambulance, the same van used in the film.

The Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses the Continental Divide in which national park?

Glacier's heavy snow at Logan Pass keeps the road's alpine stretch closed until summer each year.

Which Texas travel-center chain, fronted by a cartoon beaver, won Cintas's 2012 best-restroom contest?

Buc-ee's name blends founder Arch Aplin's childhood nickname, Beaver, his Labrador, Buck, and Bucky, the cartoon beaver from old Ipana toothpaste ads.

In Interstate numbering, what does a three-digit number starting with an even digit signify?

A loop that returns to its parent takes an even first digit, but numbers restart in each state, so I-80 has separate I-280s in California, Iowa, Ohio and New Jersey.

Which 1971 Spielberg TV movie has a businessman terrorized by a mysterious tanker truck on the highway?

Duel never shows the trucker's face, only glimpses such as his boots, so the truck itself becomes the villain.

Which roughly 30,000 km network of roads runs from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina?

The Pan-American Highway is interrupted only by the Darién Gap, a stretch of roadless rainforest between the two continents.

Which budget lodging chain, founded in 1962, took its name from its original nightly room rate?

Motel 6 was nearly Motel 4: William Becker and Paul Greene first targeted a $4 nightly rate, then $5, before settling on $6.

Which wartime supply road, finished in 1942, runs from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, via Whitehorse to Delta Junction?

The Alaska Highway was paid for by the United States even across British Columbia and Yukon, and Canada took over that stretch only after the war.

Which American author wrote the 1962 travelogue 'Travels with Charley'?

John Steinbeck told of roughing it in his camper, but a reporter retracing the trip found he seldom slept in it and often stayed at top hotels and resorts.

Which tycoon's railroad to Key West, wrecked by a 1935 hurricane, became the roadbed of the Overseas Highway?

Henry Flagler wanted Key West's deep-water port, the closest in the US to the new canal being dug between the Atlantic and Pacific.

The U.S. Army's 1919 truck convoy across America ended with a ferry ride across a bay into which city?

San Francisco was reached at an average of about 6 mph, as engineers shored up weak wooden bridges along the way.

The Karakoram Highway, one of the world's highest paved roads, connects China with which country?

Pakistan's stretch of the Karakoram Highway was cut in 2010, when a landslide dammed the Hunza River and the new lake drowned part of the road, so boats carried the traffic.

Which Kansas town has the giant sisal twine ball begun by Frank Stoeber in 1953?

Cawker City keeps its ball growing: visitors are invited to wrap on more twine, and the town holds an annual Twine-A-Thon to add to it.

Which Icelandic highway, circling the whole island, is the country's classic long-distance drive?

Route 1, the Ring Road, runs about 1,320 km around Iceland; it was only completed in 1974, when the Skeiðará bridge, then the country's longest, closed the last gap in the south-east.

Erwin Baker, the record-setting cross-country driver, got the nickname 'Cannonball' by being compared to what?

A newspaper writer likened Baker to the Cannonball Express, an express train, and it fit: one of his early stunts was racing passenger trains from town to town.

Which Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder was the chief promoter of the Lincoln Highway, launched in 1913?

Carl G. Fisher's backers pledged millions, but Henry Ford refused to give, reasoning that the public would never fund roads if industry paid.

Which road trip movie takes a family from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach in a yellow VW bus?

Little Miss Sunshine was first written as a trip from Maryland to Florida before the story moved west.

Which All-American Road winds 123 miles through Utah's red rock between Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon?

Scenic Byway 12 reaches Boulder, a town unreachable by car for so long that it was among the last in the US to get its mail by mule.

The concept for the Volkswagen Type 2 bus is credited to Ben Pon, a VW importer from which country?

Netherlands importer Ben Pon saw a makeshift parts carrier on a Beetle chassis at the Wolfsburg factory and sketched a better van on the same chassis.

Which small New Mexico Route 66 town is home to the Blue Swallow Motel, a preserved neon-era motor court?

Tucumcari's Blue Swallow Motel was bought in 1958 as an engagement present for Lillian Redman, who went on to run it for about 40 years.