Here, we’re looking at the philosophical part of cross-country road trips: Why are they so cool? What is their magical charm? And what can we learn from them?

If nothing else, this is a post to help charge your batteries for traveling opening up more and more.

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Quick disclaimer: We are certainly not experts on this subject. Rather, we’re examining it from a beginner’s eye. Because it really is a very interesting topic to explore — one we’ve mostly neglected. But if you’re a roadtrip expert, please leave a comment below and share your wisdom!

The magic of taking a car and just going — what’s really the draw of this concept?

We’re talking about the spontaneity of getting in and instantly changing your surroundings. The moment you leave, your routines go out the window and your world starts revolving. Almost like you start to exist outside the flow of life.

That’s not super different from the traditional travel we discuss, but there’s something to be said for being able to do it right now. You don’t have to wait for a flight or a train or a bus; you just get in and go. Within an hour, your surroundings have changed just like that.

This immediate freedom can be incredibly liberating, even just for a week.

And especially when done in your home country, you witness a familiar type of life going on… Except you look at life much more as an observer, not a participant. Because what you’re observing stays the same as you move on to the next thing.

Now, some spiritual ideologies really preach that everything is within us, but experiences like road trips really bring that idea to question. Because it’s not only you and your control: The minute you change your surroundings, you start creating new things. Your connection with the surrounding world brings out new emotions and ideas in a unique way.

Why is there such a particularly strong cross-country road trip culture in the United States?

A surface-level answer: It’s a unique country in terms of diverse of landscapes and cultures. There is so much different scenery here — from the red canyons of Arizona & Utah to the snow-peaked mountains of Colorado to all the incredible ocean coastline.

But looking bigger: Maybe because the U.S. was kinda established by the idea of moving out west and pushing to the new frontier. This idea, this mythology of the United States’ historical origins, is fundamentally nomadic.

And maybe it’s just the story we tell ourselves, but the minute you have a story you have a reality. The narrative itself creates the reality. In the U.S., there is some historical narrative of “land of opportunity” or “land of freedom” or independent mindset. Politics aside, there is a certain independent fervor to this that other countries don’t have. There’s a greater tendency to do your own thing. Maybe that factors into the acceptance of in-country nomadism.

On top of that, there’s an interesting dichotomy: U.S. culture is simultaneously extremely individualistic and extremely reliant on societal narratives. And so maybe that individualism opens the door to escape those rigid societal norms — in a car, an RV, or what have you.

Where does minimalism factor into all this?

When you’re living out of a van that you’ve decked out to support your basic needs, you realize how little you need — particularly if you’re comfortable with this kind of life. It’s certainly less than if you’re a global traveler — you don’t even need a passport!

Part of the charm of cross-country road trips, then, is this extreme minimalism. By living out of your vehicle, even temporarily, you are very directly constricting how much you can take with you. Or rather, how much it makes sense to take with you. The more you lean into this minimalism, the more freedom you can enjoy.

The other side of the coin: The more attached you are, the less free you are. And when you have a limited number of things, the significance of each thing becomes heightened. This isn’t anything new.

What are some of the biggest benefits of a cross-country road trip?

For some, it’s this enormous lightness & freedom: Whether it’s the weight of problems or preexisting reality or even the weight of being a person… It kinda washes away in light of this act of agency. You just decide to flap your wings and go wherever.

Another piece of the magic: Discovering some under-the-radar spots. In what kind of life scenarios do you have a one-hour pocket of life to jump off a rock into water in some lake oasis in South Dakota? And then just go on your merry way? The unexpected is a beautiful thing for a brief, in-the-moment slice of life. Take a turn somewhere you’ve never been and you might just find something extraordinary.

Especially since so many incredible places slip through the cracks. We as humans only have so much attention span — we need to designate certain spots as destinations for a variety of reasons. And here, the beauty of having a car — instead of a bus or train or plane — is that you have an even greater capacity for freedom and exploration. And you find that a lot of those must-see places are more about stories than about reality. Whereas there are many less popular places that are a lot more magical — in part due to being less popular!

Another huge perk can come from encountering lots of different types of people. There is a certain kind of empathy and connectivity you feel with people with whom you don’t share ideals — political, spiritual, or philosophical. Puts it into perspective how easy it is to dislike someone when your only interaction is online, whereas it’s much harder to do so when you interact with them and live in their world.

We ask you: What’s stopping you from getting in a car briefly for a week right now?

What’s stopping you from disconnecting and taking a week off? Which attachments are blocking you from a cross-country road trip? In many cases, the thing that stops us is the story we tell us. And maybe, just maybe: We all deserve this freedom to just get in a vehicle and take off for a bit of time.

We’ll end by saying: When we go somewhere new, there is a psychological change. Our brains are wired the way they used to be thousands of years ago — when you go far away, in a way, our brains think, “we are never going back, we’re going off far so let’s expand our minds and adjust.” It’s a psychological feeling that something is irreversibly changing in our inner psyche. And as a result, you expecience different energies — it’s almost like a life hack for personal growth.

What do you think? Have you felt the magic of a cross-country road trip? Let us know where you’ve been and what you felt below!