A decade of contemplation, years of planning, and months of Duolingo Spanish culminated in me sitting quietly in my driveway, waiting to leave. The dream of driving the Pan-American Highway, the world’s longest road, was becoming a reality. I was surrounded by four seasons’ worth of clothes, protein bars, and spare car parts. Doubt crept in between thoughts of a successful adventure. Had I prepared enough? Should I even be doing this? I turned on the engine and headed out.
For Americans, the term 'highway' evokes visions of something sleek, swift, and expansive—a thoroughfare threading across state borders decorated with guardrails and signage. However, a highway, by its definition, is just the main road linking significant dots on a map. The materials used and the condition of that road are variable. The Pan-American Highway, a mostly unmarked assortment of asphalt, gravel, and cultivated mud, stands as the longest road in the world, spanning over 19,000 miles from the peak of North America in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to the base of South America in Ushuaia, Argentina.
Originally conceived in 1889, a Pan-American route was envisioned as a railroad linking all the countries in Central America to the United States. No rail lines were ever built and the plan was abandoned when work on the Panama Canal began in 1903. The idea gained momentum in 1937 and by then the automobile had taken off in America, and so the plan would now be for a road. An agreement was reached between the 14 countries that would contain this new highway. Mexico would be the first country to complete its portion in 1950. In America, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 aimed to connect major cities and industrial centers. Postwar America’s highways would bring not just commerce but tourists to the corners of the country. The building of the interstates created a new American identity, one where daily life centered around the car. By 1963, the final sections of the Pan-American Highway were complete. Far from uniform, the highways within each country reflect the terrain and economy they pass through.
If there were a faster and easier way to get there, it would simply be called the way.
This newly connected network of roads and cheap gas made traveling long distances faster and easier. Before there were terms such as VanLifers, Roadtrippers, and Overlanders, a culture of highway explorers formed. The cross-country road trip became a staple of summer vacation in America. Four years before the official completion of the Pan-American Highway, an American named Danny Liska set out from his home in Nebraska and became one of the first people to travel the entire route.
The summer when I was 14 my family rented a minivan and we drove out west. The trees got smaller and the hills got bigger. After a few days we made it to Mount Rushmore. It was the furthest I’d ever been away from home. When we turned back towards Kentucky I can still remember thinking, what else is out there? What would we see if we kept driving? That curiosity has stuck with me. I set out to drive the Pan-American Highway because I wanted to go past all the familiar places I’d been. I wanted an adventure.
