The story

Americans increasingly choose quick air travel over driving, sticking to interstates when they do drive and bypassing small towns at speeds over 70 miles per hour. The rise of cheap airfare has made it easier to reach destinations without the hassle of driving, raising questions about what has been lost in gaining convenience.

Historian Susan Rugh argues in "Are We There Yet? The Golden Age of American Family Vacations" that the period after World War II and before the oil crisis of the 1970s was the apex of the family road trip. More Americans were rising into the middle class, many had paid vacation for the first time, car ownership was increasing rapidly, and the federal government was investing in highways. Veterans eager to show their children what they had been fighting to preserve visited destinations like Washington, D.C., historic monuments, and national parks in the West.

Black families often faced segregated facilities during road trips, even outside the South. The problem was so systemic that guidebooks like the Green Book were specifically made for Black travelers. Allen Pietrobon, a professor at Trinity University in Washington, D.C., who teaches a course on road trips, says the experience for Black families was "totally different" and "not carefree." The obstacles even played a role in passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, with the Senate Committee of Commerce hearing stories like that of a Black business owner turned away from a St. Petersburg, Florida motel.