The death of the road trip?

[Comment Below]

By Jonathan Specht

At the end of the semester, three friends and I will be taking a road trip across a broad swath of the United States. We’ll be travelling from the bottom of the Mississippi River at Venice, La, to its headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minn., following in reverse the path of French voyageurs who explored the river valley in the 1600s.

I live in northeast Iowa, so I’d be driving most of that distance anyway. At the start and end of every semester, I drive more than 1,000 miles between home and LSU. The only additional distance this year will be between my home, one county south of the border with Minnesota, and the northern reaches of that state.

While our trip should be fun, it seems to be coming at an unfortunate time, as gas prices approach $4 a gallon nationally. But I won’t be cancelling our plans.

The low value of the dollar relative to the Euro already nixed (or at least delayed) the summer in Europe I had been planning for most of my life, so I’m not going to let go of a trip within the U.S.

In the face of home foreclosures, bankruptcies of major companies, and starvation-induced food riots in the Third World, the decline of the road trip seems a rather trivial matter to lament. But road trips are as American as football or apple pie. Our country just wouldn’t be the same without them.

The road trip increasingly seems to be as much a dinosaur as the massive cars popular in the 1950s in which Americans took so many of them. Until gas prices drop significantly, or cars become more fuel efficient, long distance tours will fade into memory as a luxury of the past, as the Titanic must have seemed in the Great Depression.

Our near future may not be like the 1930s, but such a situation is possible. The next president will face an extremely delicate situation immediately upon taking office. Whether that situation turns out to be a continued recession, prolonged economic difficulties as in the 1970s, or even a depression will at least partially depend on his or her leadership.

Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain are all talented and intelligent individuals, and while each is flawed to a varying degree, any of the three will have the best interests of the U.S. in mind while in office. None of them, however, may be able to rescue America from the difficult period that seems inevitable, and any of the three could leave office as reviled as Jimmy Carter, who served through very trying times for America.

The policies of President Bush have contributed to America’s current economic situation, but it would be too simple an explanation to lay all the blame at his feet. Even if George W. Bush had never been elected, the September 11 attacks had never occurred, and the U.S. had never invaded Iraq, gas prices would likely be higher now than they were in the 1990s, if for no other reason than the fast-paced growth of demand for natural resources in China and India.

In light of such demand, and other trends, Jeff Rubin, an analyst for CIBC World Markets, predicts gas prices will continue to rise in coming years, and will be near $7 a gallon by 2012 - right about the time our next president will be facing re-election.

You may be weighing whether or not to take a road trip this summer. The idea of $4 per gallon gasoline may give you serious pause. But consider that prices may not dip below that amount again for several years, when the relatively free days of college will be behind you and you’ll be tied down to a boring office job.

So I say take the trip. When tougher times come, at least you’ll have the memories.

Originally Published: Issue 607 - May 6, 2008

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