The great American road trip, fueled by -- and undercut by -- the automobile that created it

The American road trip—romanticized in novels like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and mocked in films such as National Lampoon’s Vacation—was once a defining family ritual fueled by car culture and highway investment. In the years after World War II and before the oil crisis of the 1970s, historian Susan Rugh describes the postwar period as the apex of family road travel. More families had paid vacation, car ownership rose quickly, and federal spending helped build highways for longer trips. Destinations included Washington, D.C., and national parks, where attendance surged more than 650% from 1946 to 1966 after over $1 billion in upgrades. The shift toward faster interstate travel changed the experience.