Chasing Summer Down the Highway
Vintage images of family road trips, especially those where the car gleams and the trailer is enormous, remind me of the wild optimism everyone feels when you’re pulling out of the driveway, before the reality of the open road, close quarters, and differing snack break needs hits. That range of feelings is valid whether it’s 2026 or 1926.
The automobile changed summer in America by making spontaneity feel possible on a national scale. By the mid-20th century, families could pack up the car and head toward beaches, national parks, roadside diners, motels, and scenic detours with a new sense of freedom. Destination travel like Route 66 (celebrating its 100th anniversary this year) became the great symbol of that promise, allowing travelers to get from Chicago to Los Angeles, past neon signs, desert towns, filling stations, and souvenir stands.
Images like this capture the fantasy and emotion of road trips beautifully. Vacation then (and still today) is mobility and independence. Even if every mile of a road trip wasn’t perfectly romantic, with siblings sitting shoulder to shoulder, fighting over a book or a snack while one parent tried to navigate with a paper map, there were magic moments in every trip.
We still love road trips and find them irresistible, especially as the months get warmer. Summer becomes something we can chase on a long stretch of the highway.