Books About Traveling Across America

Book Summary

Just a few months after leaving office, Harry Truman and his wife, Bess, did something unprecedented for a former President. They hopped in their new ’53 Chrysler New Yorker and started a three-week, 2500-mile road trip from their home in Independence, Missouri to Washington, DC, with a stop in New York City for their anniversary. They wanted to fly under the radar – no press, no Secret Service, just a newly retired couple.

Of course, America didn’t cooperate, and their cover was blown time and again by bellhops, cabbies, teenagers, and even a Pennsylvania state trooper. While he left office with a 22% approval rating, he was still greeted with respect and adoration all along the way.

Book Summary

Set in 1932 during the Great Depression, This Tender Land follows four orphans who have escaped the abusive Lincoln Indian Training School in Minnesota. The kids headed down the Minnesota River to the Mississippi, passing through Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri.

They have to survive on their own in nature while being pursued by the school. With each stranger they encounter, they have to decide whether to trust them, or run from them. Along the journey, they’ll discover more about themselves.

Book Summary

In 1848, a young enslaved couple, Ellen and William, made a daring escape from slavery. While posing as master and slave, the couple traveled more than 1000 miles on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North. Ellen passed as a wealthy, disabled White man while William posed as “his” slave as they dodged slave traders and military officers.

When they found freedom, their story made them celebrities, and many Americans fell in love with the couple. They traveled another 1000 miles, crisscrossing New England, speaking alongside some of the greatest abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass.

However, with the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States.

Book Summary

Naomi May never expected to be widowed at the young age of twenty. When she sets off with her family on the Overland Trail, she hopes it will be a chance to leave her grief behind. Along the trail, she forms a connection with a half-Pawnee man named John Lowry. John straddles two worlds, but feels like a stranger in both. Even as John and Naomi are drawn together, their pasts and the trials of life on the wagon train work to keep them apart. 

John’s heritage allows them to gain passage through hostile territory, but it also comes between their desire to build a life together. When a terrible tragedy strikes, both will have to make incredible sacrifices to save each other.

Book Summary

In the 1950s, at age 67, great-grandmother Emma Gatewood set out for a walk with less than $200 in her pocket. But this wasn’t just any walk. She was determined to be the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone.

She achieved this big goal and became the first person (man or woman) to walk the trail twice, then three times. When reporters learned of her quest, they began calling her Grandma Gatewood, and she even made it to the pages of Sports Illustrated.

This biography tells of her adventures, with stories pulled from her diaries, trail journals, letters, and even interviews with her family members.

Book Summary

Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle needs a big favor. She needs a ride from Texas to Cincinnati, Ohio, to attend a funeral… tomorrow. She asks her hairdresser, Dorrie, to drop everything to take her there, but she gives few details about why it’s so important she be there. Over the years, Dorrie, a 35-year-old Black single mom, has developed a friendship with Isabelle and agrees to drive the elderly woman across the country.

Dorrie has a lot on her mind between the new man in her life and her teenage son’s irrespowesnsible decisions. But she’s also curious about Isabelle’s guarded past and hopes that along the way, she may be able to unlock some of her friend’s secrets. And she does…

Isabelle confesses that, as a teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell madly in love with a would-be doctor, the son of her family’s Black housekeeper. In the sundown town, where African Americans weren’t allowed after dark, theirs was a forbidden relationship with tragic consequences.

Book Summary

In 2018, author Nathaniel Philbrick, along with his wife and their dog, set out to visit Washington’s presidential excursions to all 13 original colonies, from the new capital in New York to the southern edges of the new country in South Carolina and Georgia.

His account alternates between what it would be like for Washington in the 18th century alongside the Philbrick’s 21st-century visits. This lends itself to his exploration of the divisions of the country as it was formed, compared to those we experience today.

Book Summary

West With Giraffes is a charming tale of adventure that takes you on the ride of a lifetime from the East Coast of the US to the west, alongside a rowdy 17-year-old, a grumpy older man, and two giraffes. The year is 1938, and no American zoo has successfully housed giraffes before. The female zoo director of the San Diego Zoo believes she can do it. The giraffes have just survived a hurricane en route to the East Coast, and Riley Jones, the zoo’s curmudgeonly head keeper, is responsible for safely transporting the giraffes from New York City to San Diego.

America is still in the throes of the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl conditions continue to ravage the drought-stricken Southern Plains states. A coast-to-coast trek with giant animals is no easy feat. Jones begrudgingly teams up with a starving teenager named Woody to help him make the journey. The adventures along the way include run-ins with circus con artists, being tailed by a female photographer looking for a big scoop, an emotional visit to Woody’s hometown, and so much more.

At its heart, this is a coming-of-age story. Now, at the age of 105, Woody recounts his 12-day cross-country trip with Jones and the giraffes and how it shaped his life.

Book Summary

This non-fiction biography reads more like a work of fiction. In 1954, 63-year-old Annie Wilkins decided she had to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. The Maine farmer had no remaining relatives, had lost her family farm, and was given two years to live by the doctor.

Instead of resting as the doctor recommended, Annie bought a retired racehorse named Tarzan, put on a pair of men’s Dungarees, and set out from Maine in November. Her only other companion was her dog, Depeche Toi. Annie, Tarzan, and Depeche Toi traveled over 4,000 miles through America’s big cities and small towns without maps. Through the kindness of strangers and her incredible determination, Annie had the adventure of a lifetime.

Book Summary

Cora is enslaved on a cotton plantation in Georgia, where she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans. With womanhood on the horizon, she knows that she’ll soon face even greater problems and pain unless she is able to escape to freedom. When she learns about the Underground Railroad, she decides to take the terrifying risk to escape.

In this novel, however, the railroad is not merely a network of secret routes and safe houses. Instead, Colson Whitehead employs an element of magical realism. His Underground Railroad has engineers and conductors operating a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath Southern soil.

Along the way, Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. She is now being hunted as she continues to make her harrowing journey northward, state by state. She encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey, each created by the author to illustrate the unique terrors and dangers for African Americans in the pre-Civil War era.

Book Summary

This novel opens in the present day on an Amtrak train traveling up the West Coast toward Seattle, where a group of strangers’ lives briefly intersect. Among them are siblings who have recently suffered a loss, and their encounter becomes a hinge that sends the story backward.

The novel then flashes back to the mid-19th-century United States, matching forebears with their descendants. Spanning 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view, this epic novel takes us to Chicago, the expanding railroad, and journeys west—following Irish immigrants, Black Americans, and Chinese railroad workers whose paths, choices, and hardships shape later generations.

As the narrative alternates between the modern Pacific Northwest and earlier decades across the Midwest and West, we see how separate migrations, ambitions, and accidents slowly build the family lines that will converge on that single train ride. The connections are revealed gradually in intertwined chapters.

Book Summary

In 1960, at the age of 58, John Steinbeck set out to rediscover the country that he had been writing about for many years. Together with his French poodle, Charley, Steinbeck cruised down interstates and traversed country roads, stopping in diners and national parks along the way. 

In this classic memoir, he reflects on what he observed during his journey, including American loneliness, racial hostility, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

Book Summary

In this contemporary thriller, the Statue of Liberty is toppled due to an act of terrorism, and Special Agent Michael Walker from the National Park Service is assigned as the lead investigator, with FBI Agent Gina Delgado as his partner. Before they can even begin investigating, rumors of another attack circulate.

A domestic terrorist group is threatening additional monuments, sending Michael & Gina on a cross-country journey to American landmarks like Independence Hall, the Gateway Arch, the US Capitol, and more as they try to stay ahead of the terrorist.

Book Summary

Author Anna McNuff was disillusioned with her corporate life in London and ready to make a big change. Despite having no long-distance cycling experience, she set out on an 11,000-mile journey to visit every US State on her pink bicycle named Boudica.

She endured floods, blizzards, and lightning storms while cycling through varied terrain from the Redwoods to the Rocky Mountains. Along the way, she meets a whole cast of characters in this down-to-earth, heartfelt, and hilarious account of her travels through America.

Book Summary

From 1936 to 1967, millions relied on The Negro Motorist Green Book to keep them safe as they traveled in the United States. This guide lists safe places to rest, eat, and sleep along major highways in the North and South.

For this book, author Alvin Hall traveled with his friend Janée Woods Weber from New York to Detroit to New Orleans to explore historical and cultural landmarks. They visited some of the motels, restaurants, shops, and stores where Black Americans once found a friendly welcome. Along the way, they spoke with some of the last living witnesses for whom the Green Book meant survival.

Book Summary

Teenager Annabelle has suffered a great loss and sets out to outrun the tragedy. She starts in Seattle and runs through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long, lonely roads to bustling college towns in 13 different states.

While she set out to run alone, Annabelle was followed by her Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her self-appointed publicity team, made up of her brother and two of his friends. As her cross-country journey gains publicity, she is greeted at state lines and thrown parties, but she still just wants to escape what happened back home.

Book Summary

Lewis is young, gay, and out of work. When he learns that his insufferable, homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler, is in need of end-of-life care, he doesn’t need the headache. But he does need the money. Lewis agrees to run errands and be on call for other things Chester might need. The two exchange barbs, bicker, and push each other’s buttons. But when Chester tells Lewis his dying wish, Lewis can’t say no.

Chester wants Lewis to drive him from Buffalo to Arizona in his rusty Winnebago so that he can see his ex-wife, who he hasn’t seen in 32 years, one last time. One week and two thousand miles is a long time to spend together. But along the way, Chester will reveal some of his life-long secrets. This vulnerability leads to understanding and a surprising new friendship.

Book Summary

This nonfiction book is part family memoir and part travelogue. Norma had recently lost her husband of nearly seven decades when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. The medical advice included surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. But she had a different vision for her waning days. Rather than spending them in a hospital bed, Norma wants an adventure.

Together with her retired son, Tim, his wife, Ramie, and their Poodle named Ringo, Norma hits the road in a motorhome, determined to see as much as possible. A once timid woman, Norma decides to say “yes” to living. State by state, she tries regional foods for the first time, goes whale watching and hot air ballooning, and mounts up for a horseback ride. With each passing mile (and thanks in part to a stop at a cannabis dispensary), Norma’s health improves, and she and her family form a tighter bond.

Book Summary

Logan and Rosemary were childhood friends who spent their summers together running through the woods and rebelling against their conservative small town. But then something happened the summer before high school that turned them into bitter rivals. They then went 10 years without speaking after graduation.

Both women are now in their thirties, but neither of them is living the life they’d envisioned for themselves. Still in their hometown and working as teachers at their alma mater, the two women are stuck in old patterns but for different reasons. Rosemary places security and stability above everything else, while Logan is impulsive but apathetic.

When their beloved English teacher-mentor reveals he has only a few months to live, the two women agree to fulfill his request for a cross-country road trip, even though it means spending a whole summer together. As they travel in a van from Washington state to the Grand Canyon and from the Gulf Coast to Maine, the course they chart may lead them back to one another.

Book Summary

Hadley needs to escape her physically abusive husband, Frank, to protect herself, her teenage daughter, and her special needs nephew. Grace is a new mother struggling with single-parenting while her husband is away. Hadley’s husband, Frank, has just cheated Grace out of her commission on a business deal.

One Friday night, these two women cross paths and form an alliance that sets the stage for a road trip adventure with major Thelma and Louise vibes (minus the violence). Together, Hadley and Grace, with three children in tow, are racing to stay one step ahead of the trouble that is chasing them – trouble in the form of Frank, the FBI, and the media. This is a humorous, adventurous, feel-good story about two women trying to outsmart everyone to protect their families.

Book Summary

Carrot had a very difficult childhood in Alaska, marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness. Striking out on her own, Carrot found a sense of belonging among a group of straight-edge anarchists. They taught her how to travel the country by freight train. It’s a life of adventure and freedom, but also of hardships, like foraging in dumpsters for food. And she finds that no matter how far she rides the rails, she’s still haunted by her traumatic childhood.

Book Summary

For five years, Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road. They’ve been crisscrossing the nation in an old school bus ever since her mom and two sisters were killed in a car accident. 

Coyote hasn’t been home in a long time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is set to be demolished – the same park where she and her mom and sisters buried a memory box – she knows she has to return. She comes up with an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive her 3,600 miles back to Washington State in four days without him realizing it.

Along the way, they pick up a strange crew of misfit travelers. Coyote will learn that going home can sometimes be the hardest part of the journey, but with new friends by her side, she’s ready to face it.

Book Summary

After a fall, Louise’s daughter insists that a full-time caregiver move in to assist 84-year-old Louise with daily life. Like many independent seniors, Louise wants no part of this arrangement. She’s still perfectly capable of pouring her own vodka each day.

Tanner is twenty-one and needs a place to live. She’d love to find a way to make a living in her pajamas playing video games instead of dealing with the real world. Since she knows the reality is that she needs money, she takes the opportunity when a chance to be a live-in caregiver falls in her lap.

Tanner and Louise are doing okay as roommates, mostly ignoring each other until Tanner starts noticing questionable things around the house. For example, the garden shed is locked up like Fort Knox, and the news reporting on a jewelry heist with a suspect who looks like Louise.

When Louise packs a bag and insists they must leave town in the middle of the night, they begin what might be the most incredible adventure of their lives.