1916 Guide Shows What the First Road Trips Were Like | Hacker News Reader

1916 Guide Shows What the First Road Trips Were Like

phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

137 pointsThevet51 comments

My friends and I actually road trip like this! We drive a 1930 Model A from town to town, and because of its maximum speed (about 50-60mph), we can't take interstates or main roads. Well, we could, but it's better to avoid it.

This means that when we say something like "let's go from Panama City to Charlotte", we must plan the entire route beforehand, much in the style of these books. And it's definitely necessary to have a navigator to point out the turns correctly; it is still difficult to navigate on, e.g., tiny backwoods Alabama roads. The directions end up being quite long; when I saw that there were only 40 directions from Fort Morgan to Denver, I thought that was fewer than what we usually get in our ~140 mile days!

What makes these trips really interesting is that we have to go through towns that are not served by the interstate system (and in some cases do not even have U.S. routes going through them). This, combined with the fact that we often come to a stop to fix something, means that we meet a lot of interesting people and discover interesting parts of the country that none of us knew existed.

We also stop at old bridges and take pictures in front of them:

http://ratml.org/misc_img/saluda_bridge.jpg

Anyway I know this comment is quite long at this point, but, I highly recommend road-tripping like this to anyone and everyone! I have learned more about the rural Southeast in three weeks of roadtripping like this than in ten years of living here.

It warms my heart to see proof that such people as yourself still exist.

Personally I had no idea such experiences were possible until taking a trip like this was suggested by a friend (who is the owner of the Model A). The people we talk to (or more accurately the people who talk to us) are from a different time, and remember when travel was very different. We've heard a lot of fascinating stories.

For me it is very enlightening to realize that the technology sphere in which I live is actually only a very small part of the world!

i think there were only 40 directions because there were a lot fewer roads / intersections back then.

its interesting how so many things come full circle. like how turn by turn directions faded out of style and came back with GPS

There used to be guide book for African American travelers called the green book. It helped them know places they could use the bathroom, eat, and lodge.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Boo...

That article is really wikipedia at its finest.

I'm embarrassed that I didn't even think that something like this would exist.

Thank you for posting it!

Even in Canada today you can still see instances of this. Fairly disgusting, to put it mildly. I found this out when we employed the one person of color in the community as a gas station attendant, the reverse situation sketched in the wikipedia article linked. Large customers would contact me and pointedly demand we fire the person or they'd cease doing business (this was fine with me, the nearest alternative was a 90 km round-trip and not serving them for a couple of weeks taught several of those customers expensive lessons about racial intolerance, I suspect that they did not change their mentality even if outwardly they eventually relented and begged to be served again).

Assholes.

How long ago was this? I thought you were a technology consultant living in the Netherlands.

8 years. And yes, you are right but it wasn't always so... I've lived in Canada between 2003 and 2008.

Do you keep mental tabs on the claims of users? What's my file say?

Where in Canada was this? I could possibly see it in Northern Ontario, they were eagle eyed watching a black friend of mine there. In the cities or southern Ontario I'd be very surprised to witness open racism.

Northern Ontario, spot on. But even in the cities I've seen plenty of it, just more clever variations.

Growing up it wasn't something we really thought of. People of all sorts were always around us. In high school we even used to play the game of trying to pronounce someone's name "correctly" (Which could be really difficult if you didn't have the right accent).

I had heard from people about 10 years older than me that they got flak for interracial marriage. It seemed absolutely alien to me at the time.

I know entire families who got split in half because one half decided to become Evangelical Christians while the other half remained Dutch Reformed. It's not the same thing, but similarly alien to me.

Sad.

Did (or, do) First Nations people experience similar overt racism?

Yes, no doubt. I befriended some people from those communities (apparently a rarity) and some of the stories they told made me cringe. There are quite a few stereotypes at work there and if you're born into one of those then you'll be working uphill to escape these. The net effect is that First Nations people tend to be either un-employed or employed as cheap labor only. It's a very sad story and even though on paper the Canadian government is doing all kinds of things to create a more level playing field the only viable option a First Nations born person has to change that is to assimilate.

> Even in Canada today

Drop the surprise. Canada is populated by people. People in Canada are just as assholish, racist and disgusting as people anywhere else in the world.

Steely Dan even wrote a song about it.

I've read the lyrics and don't have the cultural background to get everything. I couldn't find anything racist in it and don't think it was supposed to. Is that correct? I'm asking because you mentioned it in this context here.

Also: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-green-book/

My grandfather's job in the military (in the early 1950s) was to desegregate (by aggressive diplomacy) places to eat and rest between East Coast bases, because when soldiers travelled together (esp. by the busload), all of them were limited by the fact that any of them were black.

America is not a great place for black people.

They're getting rare (as they're torn down and rebuilt), but if you stop at a rest stop along the interstate and encounter a men's or women's restroom that has two entrances, that's one that was built during segregation, and it originally had a wall inside dividing it into white and colored sections.

It's worth noting that Michelin guides, which date back to 1900 in France, were actually launched with the same idea in mind: http://tedium.co/2015/04/09/michelin-guide-unusual-side-busi...

Long story short, the guides were created to drum up interest in tires—by encouraging customers to actually take their cars to go on road trips. The fascinating part about them is that the guide's reputation at rating restaurants became so strong that the fine dining guides turned into a huge side business for the company.

Oh, so that's why they call them Michelin stars!

> It’s ironic that nearly a century later, after decades of relying on road maps and atlases, so many drivers have gone back to turn-by-turn directions as their preferred navigational aid. If only Siri could flag the landmarks and throw out some trivia along the way.

Yes! This is exactly what I would love. Be able to tell Google "tell me about interesting things within two miles of my route" and then have it start to learn what I like by which things I actually stop at.

And while we're at it, how about calling out cheap gas along the way. :)

Google Maps (for Android, at least) does allow you to find gas stations along your route, and it displays price information when available.

I'd like it to be able to suggest places for a rest stop every two hours along my route.

Google does publish an app called Field Trip that they acquired from Niantic. It tells you about historical tidbits for the place around you. Doesn't seem to have been updated lately.

https://www.fieldtripper.com/

I used Field Trip for a while and really liked it when walking around in an unfamiliar city. As you say, as you went along, it would point out interesting facts, landmarks, etc. Then I noticed that its focus seem to change to "You're near Hardees! Here's a two for one coupon!" I deleted the app and never tried it again.

Check out roadtrippers.com. It's exactly what you're describing.

For local cheap gas, gasbuddy.com is effective.

For long road trips, finding cheap gas and most of the other things often wanted - good WiFi, decent coffee, a reasonably clean restroom, food of adequate quality and speed - and all at a single point along one's planned route can be more challenging.

Approaches include using chain truck stops (Fying J, Pilot, Loves, etc.), or stopping at both state-sponsored rest areas in states that have them, and stopping for gas (or electric!) refueling elsewhere.

Back in the seventies anytime I took a trip out of state my Dad would get me a AAA trip book. Each page had a short section of the highway and in a yellow marker it would show exits, towns etc. You'd flip the pages over every 40 miles and people referred to them as flip books.

I found them to be quite useful but now they seem kind of quaint. It would show gas stations and motels at the exits. Every year they'd publish a new one, wish I'd saved one now but they were really meant to be disposable.

We aren't very far from the days that Google/Alexa will ask as you start the engine where do you want to go today and just take you there with little effort on your part. In a way its like we're all going to have robot chauffeurs.

It's called a TripTik[1] and it still exists. I remember them well. My grandmother and I took a trip across the US in the 1960's. They were invaluable.

[1] http://www.aaa.com/travelinfo/maps-directions.htm

These were called TripTiks.

http://pearlsoftravelwisdom.boardingarea.com/2014/01/remembe...

My dad required his kids to change a flat AND read a map before we got the car keys. AAA membership was for maps only. There was great pride in planning our own trips on our own and TripTiks were not for our family because we could do it ourselves.

Map reading skills was the beginning of a love of super-geography (as my professor called it, "the whyfore of where.")

Plus, a map was the first use of different letter sizes, colors, etc.. that I can remember.

Amazing how things we take for granted now were simply unnecessary in the past:

Road signs were virtually nonexistent, Bauer says, because until cars came along there was no need for them. Long trips were made by train, and virtually all short trips were made by local people who already had a mental map of the roads in their area.

This is particularly visible in Europe, where magnificent centuries-old buildings are constantly scarred by road and parking signs (as well as advertising billboards).

Indeed, every time I visit "old" Europe I notice how street signs tend to be (a) small, and (b) attached to buildings; but it never occurred to me until reading this article that this could be largely explained by the fact that they didn't need street signs until recently.

I can't say I remember a building in Western Europe where traffic signs were mounted on buildings. In cities it's either on or at the edge of sidewalks.

I'm talking about names of streets, not traffic signs.

See Strasbourg for example: https://www.google.de/maps/@48.5827359,7.7525392,3a,49.9y,21...

In any Italian city, "no parking" signs are absolutely everywhere on buildings. If the road is tight enough (which means medieval streets, usually), road signs will also be on buildings, because there is no space for alternatives.

Also of historical interest, particularly for the American south:

"The Negro Motorist's Green Book"

Locations of "sundown" towns, where to get a meal at a restaurant, where you can get a motel room.

http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Race/R_Casestudy/87_135_17...

Strongly recommended: The Men Who United the States, by Simon Winchester. Covers more than just roads, though that's included.

What's impressive is to realise how recent most modern US travel infrastructure is. The Interstate Highway System wasn't begun until 1958.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/men-who-united-the-states-ame...

Think about how gloriously empty were the roads everywhere in the world: there were only 1.8 billion inhabitants. Out of every 7 people, imagine 5 vanished. That was the world then.

There were less roads too.

Near here is a monument to something or other, the improved US highway was built as a 10 mile bypass through a swamp. There's 4 glorious, split, full shouldered lanes carrying a few hundred vehicles per hour. It's still empty.

So driving back then was a bit like rally driving where you had a driver and a navigator, and unless you were adventurous, a mechanic, unless one of them knew enough to fix the car. Kind of reminds me of Bonnie and Clyde who picked up the mechanic because their car was so unreliable.

Got this book at the Crater Lake bookstore. It's great. http://www.amazon.com/Playground-Trail-National-Park-Park/dp...

Should be called 'Rupert Murdoch's National Geographic Experiment dot com' No desire to see anything to do with him, as there is ALWAYS an agenda there. This is not a political statement, this is fact, he manages to ruin a lot and National Geographic is another one in a long list of them. Sorry.

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