How different things really used to be

The Now & Then

How different things really used to be

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The Road That Ate Your Summer: How Driving Across America Went From a Month-Long Ordeal to a Long Weekend
Travel

The Road That Ate Your Summer: How Driving Across America Went From a Month-Long Ordeal to a Long Weekend

Before the interstate system existed, driving from New York to Los Angeles wasn't a vacation — it was an expedition. Here's how a single piece of legislation in 1956 fundamentally shrank the United States and turned the great American road trip into something ordinary people could actually do.