5 books to inspire your next road trip
“All he needed was a wheel in his hand and four on the road.” You may have seen that Kerouac quote on Detour’s homepage. It’s a passage that I immediately identified with as a teenage driver and has remained with me ever since. On The Road is one of many road trip reads that led me to a career in car journalism and my own automotive adventures. here are five favourites.
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Kerouac’s semi-autobiographical account of dashing back and forth across America confirmed my belief in the romance of the road trip. Open skies and empty highways, chance encounters and the endless hum of tyres on tarmac just seemed so alluring. The drugs, sex and politics of the Beat Generation, and some of Kerouac’s more flowery prose, would have gone over my head at first reading, and today’s audience will find some sections uncomfortable, but the fast-paced driving force behind this story still holds its appeal.
The First Overland – Tim Slessor
This 1950s’ adventure couldn’t be more different to Kerouac’s automotive antics. It’s the tale of The 1955-56 Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition from London to Singapore (and back). Six students, five from Cambridge and one from Oxford took two of the earliest Land Rovers on an extraordinary overland journey. Planned with an almost military precision, as you’d expect from young men who had only recently completed their national service, the drive took them on a route that would be unthinkable today, passing through Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Nepal and Myanmar (Burma). It inspired Alex Bescoby to repeat the trip in 2019 and is widely regarded as the overlanders’ bible.
Driving Like Crazy - PJ O’Rourke
He famously reported that: “Nothing handles better than a rented car. You can go faster, turn corners sharper, and put the transmission into reverse while going forward at a higher rate of speed in a rented car than in any other kind.” It is his total absence of mechanical sympathy that results in the most entertaining stories in this anthology of 30 years of car writing. If you can navigate his politics then the tales of trashing family sedans on the route of the Baja 1000 or careering across America in a broken Buick are hilarious.
Road Fever – Tim Cahill
Setting a new Guinness World Record for the fastest drive from Tierra del Fuego to the top of Alaska on the Panamerican Highway Tim Cahill and Garry Sowerby travelled 15,000 miles in a shade over three weeks. Driving a 1988 GMC Sierra pick-up they battled bureaucracy, skirted cocaine cartels, fuelled mostly by cold coffee, yoghurt drinks and beef jerky. It’s an extraordinary endeavour that’s yet to be beaten and a brilliant read.
Why We Drive – Matthew Crawford
There is a widely-held belief that autonomous cars will save us from ourselves. That robot drivers will be inherently better than humans and the roads will become safer. Matthew Crawford believes the opposite. “Technocrats and optimisers seek to make everything idiot-proof, and pursue this by treating us like idiots,” he says “It is a presumption that tends to be self-fulfilling; we really do feel ourselves becoming dumber. Against such a backdrop, to drive is to exercise one’s skill at being free, and I suspect that is why we love to drive.” Whether you want ammunition for debate or to confirm your own feelings about driving this book is a must-read in a changing world.
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