The most famous roadtrips in American literature, mapped

[Brother X]

There are few things more quintessentially American than a road trip. The country's vast size, the diversity of different regions and the incredible landscape make experiencing the U.S. from the road something you need to do at least once in your life -- or, perhaps, every summer. "Every American hungers to move," John Steinbeck wrote, observing that most of us are the descendants of migrants from other countries.

Richard Kreitner pays homage to this institution in a new interactive map of the most famous roadtrips in American literature. With the help of mapmaker Steven Melendez, Kreitner traced the trajectory of road trips taken in 12 famous works of literature, all of which are either non-fictional or told in the first person.

The results are amazing and, as Atlas Obscura says, kind of obsessive. Kreitner painstakingly hand-typed 1,500-plus quotes from books and located their coordinates on a map. The interactive version, which is definitely worth a look, lets you click on various locations to read quotes from the books, or see how different authors described the same place.

Read the entire article here: http://goo.gl/EtovP3

 

[Tude]

Wow - this is cool!! I'm going to add Resources to your title. Good find!!

 

[Brother X]

Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[Andrea Van Scoyoc]

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Kal]

What @Tude and @Andrea Van Scoyoc said.