Ode to the American Roadtrip

The healing power of hitting the road.

Aug 08, 2024

My adult life has been segmented by roadtrips.

They seem to act as chapters, generally happening every 4-5 years, and usually preceding a change in my life shortly after. They’re like a cleanse. A break in the monotony.

A reset.

I’m heading out on the road this weekend for a 10 day trip around New England. I don’t have too much planned other than the places I’m staying, spread across two star hotels and friend’s guest rooms.

The Berkshires → Acadia → Brunswick, ME → Northern Massachusetts (let’s hang.) I’m not sure what life change will follow this trip, so I guess watch this space.

This seems like the perfect time to break down what is so great about The Open Road™ but before we do that…

A little backstory.

Growing up we didn’t fly anywhere. Family vacations were always experienced from the third row of Dodge Caravan, and seen only once my Gameboy ran out of batteries. We drove everywhere, mostly to our annual family trip to Wildwood, NJ.

When we went to our singular trip to Disney World, we drove. It’s a bit fuzzy on what I remember from that trip. I remember discovering the joy of endless South of the Border billboards. I remember stopping in colonial Williamsburg. I remember seeing a waterpark outside of Kissimmee, FL that was featured in a picture in one of my school textbooks. It was the year before I started enjoying rollercoasters, so the trip was kind of a wash, but being in the car never bothered me.

When I was about 14, we drove to Maine. To Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor to be exact. I didn’t care much about nature’s wonderful gifts back then and was kind of a little shit about it. I remember bragging that the best part of the trip was pirate themed mini-golf, and complaining about having to wear a light jacket in June (which now is my ideal scenario.)

When I was in photography school in Western Massachusetts, I was (foolishly) dating a girl attending West Chester University. A 7 hour trip on a good day that I would (foolishly) drive at the drop of a hat. It never crossed my mind that it was an outrageous thing to do all the time.

The Touring Years.

Touring is a young man’s game, at least the way we used to do it. Fresh out of photo school in 2011, I was living at home with a lot of time on my hands. My back wasn’t a total mess quite yet so sleeping on a sweaty bench seat or using a dining room table as a bunk bed was a piece of cake. The world was my oyster. Why not get in a van and see the country with a bunch of smelly dudes?

The first big tour I went out on was with South Jersey pop punk band Major League. It was the dog days of August, and we were touring in the South. They were true road warriors. We would play a show, pack the van, and drive half way to the next show overnight until we found a Walmart parking lot to sleep in. I would wake up every morning and find the family rest room that locked and take a shower in the sink. The weather was unbearably hot, and the tour was horribly promoted.

I ended up assuming the roll of tour manager when promoters weren’t doing their job and I’d have to threaten them on the phone just so we could play for pocket change and drink tickets. It all came to a head when our tour mate’s transmission nuked on their van and we stayed with them for two extra days in a sketchy downtown Orlando Walmart. With no money, I was able to book some shows to get us home after I put my last $20 in the gas tank. Maybe it was a trauma response, but I was hooked.

After learning a lot of hard lessons on that first tour, I went out with my friends in the emo band Dads taking on the roll of tour manager, merch, and photographer. They were a two piece which meant we all had a bit more space in the van. We also had a much more comfortable touring style. Most of the shows were in basements at friend’s houses so we’d crash there, or we’d put down a credit card if we had to spring for a hotel room. The best part is, they enjoyed the travel part of touring. We’d wake up early every day, research the best vegan restaurant in the next town, and we’d take the scenic route there. Building in extra time before each show, we actually had the chance to stop and explore whatever interesting stuff we came across. I think this is really when everything clicked for me. That feeling of freedom was unmatched.

Crossing the Country

When my touring days were over and my photography career was growing, I was itching for what was next. In 2015, A photographer friend of mine who I’d work with was living in Hoboken and needed a steady assistant in North Jersey. I set my sights on Jersey City and was planning on moving there in the new year.

That Fall, I saw a friend from Boston post on Facebook that she was relocating to Bend Oregon and asked if anyone wanted to join her on the trip. I didn’t know Cait too well at the time, but I knew the possibility of driving someone else’s car across the country was a rare opportunity. I had a two week gap where I wasn’t busy and October 1st, we were driving her Volvo West. We would find a hotel 8 hours away and book it 24 hours in advance. I don’t think we paid more than $60 a night for any of the rooms.

We took the Northern route following Route 80 most of the way, stopping in Chicago, Sioux Falls, Badlands, Jackson Hole, Idaho Falls, Bend, and a few days in Portland before I took a one way flight home. When we arrived in Oregon, she admitted that her car hadn’t been insured. This trip was formative in ways I’ll have to go further into on its own post, but it was the trip I really learned why film photography is so important to me.

The Superspreader

Fall of 2020, myself and everyone else were collectively losing our minds. I was fairly settled in to Jersey City at this point but work during the pandemic was brutal. Sourcing a lot of my income on event work, gatherings being essentially illegal was not great for business. I had a new-ish car, a ton of travel rewards, and a fresh $500 artist grant from Jersey City burning a hole in my pocket and adding insult to injury when I had no where to go.

There was a moment in September when Covid seemed to release its grip on the world and New England opened up travel between its borders to fellow North-Easterners. I immediately started booking my next trip with stops in Cape Cod, Boston, Acadia National Park, and Portland, ME. Get me the fuck OUT. I booked everything with travel rewards and I spent that grant on film, gas, and the finest seafood New England had to offer me. I think all in I only spent $300 out of pocket. I’ll miss the pandemic in that way.

Truly, this trip was the revelation. The blue sky in the center of the storm. That breath of fresh air after months of suffocation.

Getting to revisit Acadia National Park almost 20 years after that first time as an unappreciative 14 year old was such a great experience. Discovering the location of my favorite painting (Christina’s World) was only a couple hours out of the way was the closest thing to spiritual as I get these days. Getting to feel homesick after 6 months of cabin fever was such a bittersweet feeling that I’m not sure can ever be duplicated. Traveling alone allowed me to take as much time as I wanted, taking any road that looked interesting and stumbling upon things organically. I found a 24/7 cheesecake store run on the honor system, in rural Maine, like what the hell?

Where do we go from here?

I know having a car while living in the NYC metro area is a rarity, but I can’t imagine not having the ability to go wherever I want, whenever I want. I love New York, but without a car, I think it’d feel like a prison eventually. I know people who get onto an airplane like it’s a city bus to go to Miami, or Tulum, or Italy every weekend it seems.

Honestly, at 36 years old, I think I can count the amount of times I’ve been on an airplane with both hands. I don’t have any fears of flying or anything, but the process of getting to the airport 3 hours early, waiting around, and being treated like cattle kinda honks big time. I still consider myself well traveled, I just prefer a car window rather than the window seat. The ability to pull the car over at any moment and those small discoveries along the way is what makes it fun to me.

I’m curious what this next trip will offer me in terms of insight. I think a large part of those trips was the alone time I cherished. All of those previous ventures were taken while I was still living with room mates, whom I loved, but were always present. Now that I’ve been in my own place, will it still feel the same?

I’m looking forward to finding out.

I’ve made a lot of books with photos from these trips, check them out here!