I recently completed a series of road trips around the U.S. with one of my children. We found Road Trip USA to be an indispensable guide to each section of the country we visited. The book was full of accurate recommendations and suggestions of what to see and what to avoid.

This is a wonderful book. The detail and how it is divided into areas makes it an easy read and easy to locate the information you want. I am extremely pleased with my purchase and I recommend to everyone whether you are going to travel or not.

Bought this for my recently retired parents for Christmas. They loved it. Kinda of a nudge out the door to experience life....

Turnpikes and superhighways have improved much about our lives, making commutes to work and other vital travel easier and faster. Sometimes, though, it's great to just slow down and enjoy the scenery - and that's just what Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways helps all of us to do.



In this book, you'll discover plenty about out-of-the-way places that can be reached by traveling on two-lane roads in the United States. Discover lesser known monuments, museums, restaurants and roads, and enjoy the offbeat sites that you'll see. It's likely that you'll even learn something new about your own state or hometown.



Road Trip USA recommends places to eat and stay and it provides survival guides to some of America's most intriguing cities. If you've fallen into a vacation rut, this book will break you of it, as at least one quirky destination - and probably many more - will grab your attention and cause you to go on your own road trip rendezvous.

Turnpikes and superhighways have improved much about our lives, making commutes to work and other vital travel easier and faster. Sometimes, though, it's great to just slow down and enjoy the scenery - and that's just what Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways helps all of us to do.

In this book, you'll discover plenty about out-of-the-way places that can be reached by traveling on two-lane roads in the United States. Discover lesser known monuments, museums, restaurants and roads, and enjoy the offbeat sites that you'll see. It's likely that you'll even learn something new about your own state or hometown.

Road Trip USA recommends places to eat and stay and it provides survival guides to some of America's most intriguing cities. If you've fallen into a vacation rut, this book will break you of it, as at least one quirky destination - and probably many more - will grab your attention and cause you to go on your own road trip rendezvous.

This book details five north-south and five east-west journeys across the US. The book is arranged into 10 sections, one for each path, each of which lists, in order, all the sites worth seeing on the particular route in that section.
While it is a good collection of sites, the book is laid out in a way that makes it useful only if you read the entire thing. There is no easy way to look up the attractions by state or as dots on a map or by type or anything like that. There isn't even a table of contents at the beginning of the book or of each section. The only reference you have to a particular site is the blurb itself.
So while some may find this to be a useful guide, I'd say it needs a bit more work before it's a good reference.

When you think of summer, and of freedom and adventure, you automatically think "road trip." Sometimes, you just want to jump into your car for a day trip and, other times, you'd love to trek around America for an entire summer. Some trips you know exactly where you're going and what you plan to see and, other times, you go where the spirit of travel leads you.

In Jamie Jensen's book, Road Trip USA: Cross Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways, we're given quality information on fun places to visit, including places where celebrities stayed, restaurants with apple pie tasty enough for a visit (or two!) and scenic locations worth seeing just for their sheer beauty.

Trivia, myths and legends provided in the book makes trips even more entertaining. The tips of where to take photographs are terrific and provide a road trip traveler the chance to easily capture the most interesting sights for friends and family back home.

I like how Jensen covers 35,000 miles of road tripping in just one book and we appreciate his color-coded routes. Nobody likes getting lost and he pays attention to the smallest details that provide travelers comfort, including the call numbers of local radio stations.

Get off the major highways and use Jensen's book for eleven road trips that you'll never forget!

great book, I like that you can start at any part of each trip. After reading some sections that I have already traveled, I'm going to retrace some of them because I found that I missed alot of interesting places that were listed in the book. Great reading, can't wait till this summer to let the adventures begin.

This seems to be a very interesting and informative book that will be enjoyed a lot.

We drove over ten thousand miles in the last two months going acros the country on Route 2 and returning on Route 20 plus many side trips and some time in the Maritime Provicences. I drove and my wife read about what was coming. We found it fairly handy. Many of his resturant suggestions were very good. We found several errors like the address for a resturant listed that turned out to be an old garage on a graveled back street one block long.

I just returned from a 7,250 mile road trip, following many of the routes in this book, specifically the Great Northern to the Pacific Coast Highway to the Oregon Trail. Jamie's book contained so many useful stopping places, although if I had stopped at all of them, this trip would have taken months rather than weeks. In using the book, you have to choose what works for you - and not everything is of interest. However, he did lead me to some wonderful places like Sullys Hill Nature Preserve in Devil's Lake, MT; the Buffalo Bill Historic Museum in Cody, WY; and the museum dedicated to lumbering in Grand Rapids, MN - all of which I might well have bypassed had it not been for Jamie's recomendations.

If you are planning a road trip this summer, either near or far, this book is a great resource. It is also great for the armchair traveller. But beware, it may get you out of your armchair and on the road. Buyer beware!

My dad got me this book for our trip this year. Usually I don't like family trips but this year is different. We're mapping out our routes and it's going to be a good summer.

I love this book a lot. It's really heavy and when it cam, I was trying to work out what was in the box because of the weight. I love travelling and I love America and while I've been many times before, I usually fly from city to city (with the exception of the drive from LA to Vegas and back) and therefore miss out on the real America and all the in between stops. I bought this book because I swear next visit, even though gas prices are at an all time high, I want to do more exploring which I really think can only be done this well by driving rather than flying.
This gives you a lot more vacational options than shopping. From the Great Smokey Mountains to Tyringam, MA to Shamrock, TX, this is such a great book.
With the inclusion of maps and extra info and colour-coded route markers, the choice of drives you can do is endless. There appears as if the enitire mainland is covered. There is quirky facts about each place, information on where to get the best whatever in different towns, so I'm really looking forward to putting this excellent book to use. Can't wait and I highly, highly recommend this book to everyone.

I love this book a lot. I love travelling and I love America and while I've been many times before, I usually fly from city to city (with the exception of the drive from LA to Vegas and back) and therefore miss out on the real America and all the in between stops. I bought this book because I swear next visit, even though gas prices are at an all time high, I want to do more exploring which I really think can only be done this well by driving rather than flying.
With the inclusion of maps and extra info and colour-coded route markers, the choice of drives you can do is endless. There appears as if the enitire mainland is covered. There is quirky facts about each place, information on where to get the best whatever in different towns, so I'm really looking forward to putting this excellent book to use. Can't wait and I highly, highly recommend this book to everyone.

The new edition of Road Trip USA is an amazing read. I've used a previous edition and this edition, now in full color, is filled with inspiring ideas as well as the practical, useful information you need to take a road trip. There's regional routes and bi-coastal routes all on two-lane highways. Amazing info and great photos and illustrations for armschair dreaming. I recommend this book to everyone.

Having used the info provided by the roadtripusa.com web site for a Rte 66 trip last year, I decided to purchase this book to assist with a trip across the northern tier states this summer. However, it has been 8 weeks since I ordered it and Amazon has changed the expected delivery date twice already, while continuing to advertise current availabilty of the book. Maybe I'll have to purchase a used one from another source. To be honest, their. service has been great up until this botched order.

dd

This is a good book that can help any traveler in USA to plan a many trips in many routes across the country. I highly

Road Trip - USA returns you a time when America was much, much slower paced. I purchased this book because I am interested in motorcycling some of these roads in the near future. Preferable, U.S.-50. A well written book that touches on the main points of interest across, and up and down America.I am looking forward to traveling some of these roads.

If you are planning a cross country road trip -- you must have this guide along! The author touches the pulse of road-trippers eveywhere: the quest for the zany, unexpected and downright quirky! When you are ready to plan your trip of a lifetime, be sure to check out "Live Your Road Trip Dream: Travel for a year for the cost of staying home". The authors will get your moving from the dreaming to the doing in no time at all.

We used it on our tour of Route 66, and the book proved to be entertaining to read, as well as informational in helping us to set up our itinerary. I'm looking forward to using it to help plan more vacations across the US.

It was an interesting read as we were traveling across the old roads of route 66 however, there was not much information that was helpful. We stayed at a motel in the midwest that was recommended but, it cost much much more than was indicated in the book and was on of the worst motels I have ever stayed in. Take the book as entertainment only.

This book is quite simply in a league of it's own. I have only done (partially) two of the eleven routes. It's the little things this book has that counts and the highlights of the trip that are listed at the beginning of each chapter are handy.
Of course, this book can't be everything and I would seriously recommend also taking a good comprehensive USA Guide Book from say 'Frommers' with you as sometimes the book misses out on some things along the way that a comprehensive guide book can fill in. I would also recommend having a good road map. The maps in the book aren't the best and since you're not on the Interstate you don't want to take a wrong turn and be in the middle of nowhere lost.
So, If you're planning a Road Trip in the USA check this book out. You won't regret it (plus it's just such a neat book to have in the bookshelf that will never grow old).

I used this book on a trip following the Mississippi, from New Orleans to Chicago, and it made my road trip epic. Without it, I would have missed spectacular yet obscure sights like the restaurant shaped like a mammy in Mississippi and the world's largest ketchup bottle in southern Illinois. You will miss so much if you just drive on the eight-lane interstates, yet seeing the cool stuff on the two-lane roads can be hit or miss without someone to show you the way. Let this book be your guide. A gem for all road trip pilgrims.

I love this book. I have used the section on the coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco for planning a driving trip. It is a refreshing change to find so many local and low-key, even quirky places detailed, without neglecting the standards like Hearst Castle. The rest of the book is terrific armchair reading, fuel for fantasy travels.

This book is very entertaining to look through, and if you happen to be crossing paths with any of the places it visits it can be useful. But few people have the time to actually do what this book describes--travel a good part of the country on (what at least used to be) one of America's two-lane roads.

If you're planning a trip that overlaps one of this book's covered routes, then it's worth the money. But if your trip is primarily to get from point A to point B, try, for example, Let's Go USA.

This book is a fantastic resource. Most guide books are arranged around a city or a state. But Jensen has built this book around the road. Dividing the country into a series of road trips, North - South, East- West, crisscrossing this country. Pick a route, and follow it in the book state to state to see what's near your route in terms of food, and interesting sites. Good for long or short road trips (as long as you are in the vicinity of the roads reviewed). It is such a relief from the more traditional guides. Copiously illustrated and made for bookmarking, this tome (and it is a surprisingly big book) has earned a place in my car when I need to just get away, or want to get there, but I'm willing to take the longer, but more interesting, road.

When we drove across country last summer, we searched for a book that could lead us on an off-the-beaten-path American adventure. Jamie Jensen's Road Trip USA gave us more than we could have hoped for. Road Trip USA is filled with credible and detailed information regarding sites, hotels and restaurants. The book provides vivid history and current information, so you can get a real sense of the places you go. We ate crabs with the local beachhounds on the Outer Banks, had BBQ with the 9-to-5'ers in Montgomery, ate pizza with LSU fans in Baton Rouge, and drank the best beer we'd ever tasted in a tiny town off the California coast. The detailed, quirky tidbits the book includes are invaluable. What other book tells you about the B'Hai radio station that you can listen to as you drive through Myrtle Beach, SC? If you want to see the USA- not just check out the tourist sites, but see where and how other folks in the USA really live - this is the book for you.

I have the first printing of this book, and indeed, many of the places listed were interesting to visit, if not for their excitement then at least for their quaintness.

On a trip to Yellowstone, NP in 1997, I was able to stop at the Big Q cafe in Quasqueton, IA for breakfast, off of US-20. If it wasn't for this book, I would have probably spent most of that morning hungry.

This is a good overall guidebook for a long trip; however, if you plan on really exploring an area, than no book of this size can do it justice. Treat yourself to a more thorough collection of guides for that specific area. Some of the information is repeated from other Moon guidebooks; this is not a bad thing. I found the layout very inviting and the information helpful.

I purchased this book because it seems like a really great concept, a book with road trips all planned out for you, where to eat, sleep, etc. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I had expected. It is interesting at times, its fun to find out little tidbits of info about the little towns you pass by, but if you're planning a roadtrip on a budget, make sure you have some other source of information along.
This book does not deal with places to stay or eat for cheap (or even very much at all), if you are not totally familiar with an area, do not count on this book to help you find a place to crash for the night. Most of the lodging that it features are novelty sort of places, and can be pretty high-end (at leats for me). And it doesn't really tell you where to grab a bite to eat on the road either.
I found the directions lacking as well. I am not a great navigator, and at times I found it hard to figure out where to go, so I ended up just abandoning any hope of following one of the routes. It also didn't really tell anything about road conditions.
If you are planning a road trip, I think you would be better off to do most of the research yourself. It was interesting in a couple of aspects though, so if you have some extra cash laying around and you've already pretty much planned the trip out yourself, it is kinda interesting. It is certainly not indispensible though. And make sure you have an alternate guidebook and an atlas (the maps in this book are definitely lacking).

We started at a concert at Tanglewood (MA), hit the road, and never looked back. We opted for US-20 to get us to Portland, OR, and we couldn't have had a better time! This book is packed with amazing B&B's, fun, quirky diners and tons of funky roadside attractions. All of which immersed us in the local culture and gave us a view of all of the diverse parts of America. The true flavor of each place is brought out by Jamie Jensen in this guide. We made many friends who are locals to the towns we passed through. Between this book, and the people we met, I learned so much about American culture.
It was the time of our lives - and we owe it to our compass: Road Trip USA!
ps- if you like chili dogs - YOU MUST check out the cafe on page 581!

I returned this book because I found it to be very negative.

For someone who enjoys to travel and loves to find unexplored (by me) roads, I looked forward to recieving this book. What a dissapointment. This author was very negative and had something to say on just about every road he wrote about. For example, instead of talking about the virtues of Plantation Alley, the author calls it Chemical Corridor. Yuck.

There are many lovely books available about traveling and a good map will provide you with many roads unexplored. I would suggest that you skip this book altogether.

The book is helpful with good information but it could have been better organized for easier reading and finding of information. For example, using headers to block out specific areas. Also it could use more lodging and eating information. It would be nice if there was more information on side trips off the covered routes to major destinations.

But, there is no other book like this that I am aware of, and I think it is a good buy if you are planning a cross country road trip and want to stay off the interstates. However I recommend supplementing it with a good comprehensive USA guidebook since there are a lot of attractions you will probably want to see that are not covered in this book.

This book is an outstanding resource for anyone with a desire to get on that road and just bail their scene. The hotels/hostels/motels outlined in this book are really secondary to just being on that unknown road and just punching it. I love this book and would have been lost without it. It is rare to find a book that outlines such a vast area of land in such depth. Only a deadhead could know all this stuff.

This is an excellent, excellent book for anyone who wants to take a road trip as a vacation and see the country like you've never seen it before. I used this book to see so many funky pieces of Americana: everything from a miniature Stonehenge in Missouri to the world's largest ketchup bottle in Illinois. I traveled Rte. 66 and stayed at a great little motel in Missouri (Munger Moss) recommended by this book. That motel is a must for any Rte. 66 fans: its gift shop is filled with Rte. 66 memorabilia. And it's cheap!! $25 a night with clean rooms. The whole idea of this book is to get people to see that America isn't all the same, though it seems that way when you stay on the highways. It's filled with great road trips to take wherever you are in the country, north or south, east or west. It's really an amazing country we live in and you'll find out that you can have a great vacation traveling endless roads that provide new discoveries.

You'll get a whole new perspective on areas you may have visited. And the author offers suggestions on places to go to get a local flavor. So instead of eating at a McDonald's or Denny's for breakfast, you can try a diner in Memphis that Elvis used to frequent.

A couple of my Chicago-based colleagues were very impressed when I told them I ate at Berghoff's and Lou Mitchell's in downtown Chicago. They said nobody from out-of-town would have gone there.

It's like having a knowledgeable traveling companion with you wherever you go. I enjoyed every town and city I visited on a two-week trip thanks to this book.

I've looked at other travel guides and they don't compare to this book. High praise to Jamie Jensen for creating such an informative book, packed full of useful nuggets. This book was never far from my fingertips on that trip.

I'm planning a motorcycle road trip in the near future and will definitely have this book along. I only wish I had more time to take more of these road trips.

Enjoy and happy motoring.

Just last week I returned from taking several of Jamie Jensen's road trips in the USA, and I can attest to the high quality of his book. We set out with Lonely Planet's USA guidebook which greatly failed us. Typical of Lonely Planet's laziness (their television series greatly outranks their travel books),their USA book was wrought with so many errors and outdated information that we quickly reverted to Road Trip USA thereby enhancing the remainder of our 8,200 mile trip around the USA and making it a truly educational, one month drive. We really saw the USA from beautiful back roads and will never regret it. Instead we owe a huge debt of graditute to the author and his editors.

I've used almost every travel book available when traveling, so I have absolutely no doubt that this is the best book available if you are considering taking a drive in the USA. We drove 3 of the major trips in this book--including Route 66, The Oregon Trail, and The Great River Road--and if we had depended on other books, the truth is, we would have missed almost every great site Jensen points out. He and his editors have accomplished more than I'd have ever hoped from a mere travel guide. If you use this book for even part of one road trip, you will see the real USA.

The book provides indepth coverage of eleven road trips in a lively, knowledgeable, and educated format highlighted with many great photographs and asides in the margins of corresponding trip narratives. All routes are readable from either direction one chooses to drive them as we found driving the Great River Road from south to north instead as outlined in the book--from north to south--and we had no problems whatsoever because Jensen has thought of every angle for us.

Road Trip USA is jam packed with hints, "secrets," history, gossip, lore, and myths, in addition to advice on great places to take photographs of unique sights, best spots to find perfect pie, local radio stations to tune in for local flavor, and out-of-the-way lodging and camping information that other books will not even mention. If you prefer the superhighway, this is not the book for you. If you want to see the America you hope is out there, this book will help you find it. I give it my highest recommendation. As far as I can tell, he didn't miss a thing! And I can now say without reservation, this is a beautiful country. END

I rode 6600 miles through the US on a motorcycle, with most of the routes chosen from this book. This book made my trip great. The restaurants, hotels and roads are well thought out and have clearly been visited first hand by the author and his team. Don't take a road trip without this book.

Organized primarily around 11 coast-to-coast (some north-south, some east-west) trips, you may not find your current location covered. But if you're thinking of taking a long drive, or if one of the pinpoints you visit by airplane is on a route covered within, "Road Trip USA" will provide you with things to do, places to eat, people to see and a good helping of local history with which to orient yourself.

The authors' emphasis is on the unusual and the local, which means you'll find out-of-the-way cafes, odd museums, classic tourist traps and more.

Perhaps this books biggest drawback is that its nearly 800 pages is bulky, making it a bit cumbersome to carry. But then, if you're travelling by car, this isn't really a problem.

One of a few essential books I consult before heading some place new (or revisiting some place old).

I thought this sounded like an interesting book, but then I decided to read what Jensen had to say about where I live - Athens, Ohio - which is on US 50. I'm guessing the author never really visited Athens, because there is no possible way that he could have thought Athens to be pleasant, attractive, and progressive.

After my first trip across country, I wanted to write a real road trip book. All of my US guide books give good information about big cities but little about small towns and back roads. The real gems I found on cross country trips were a cheese factory in Wisconsin or an ice cream shop in Iowa. Luckily I found this book before my second cross country trip. It was really great. It gives about 8 different 2-lane highway routes usually stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic or from Canada to the Southern tips of the US. It doesn't cover everywhere I want to go, but it's great if you're going on a long road trip... or if you live near one of the 2-Lane Highways in the book. Although it gives information about large cities along the way, you may want a supplement if you plan on spending lots of time in big cities. This book focuses more on the interesting places between those major cities.

A great, great guide. This book "gets it" in a way no Frommer's ever could. It's the trip, man, not the destination. :-) The places it suggest visiting are interesting, generally inexpensive, and honestly portrayed. This is a great book for people who think bus trips and interstates are a terrible way to see what America is really about. The author understands what an adventure a road trip can be. Very cool.

My wife & I have driven NY-CA twice in two years using this book. It takes you so many fun places and along so many beautiful routes that you regret ever arriving at the end.

You've got to see this movie, starring a '69 Pontiac GTO and a '55 Chevy w/ 400 horsepower. Oh, yes, and James Taylor.

Road Trip USA is the kind of book that creates an overpowering urge to quit your daily grind, pack the wife and kids into an old Chevy, and hit the blacktop. So if everyone in America were to read it at once, our natioanl economy would almost certainly collapse. It's apparently part of an anti-American plot orchestrated by foreign despots. Much safer for us all to just stay at home and watch VH1 flashbacks, without ever wondering about what might lie over the next hill