History Main / RoadTripPlot

Films with a Road Trip Plot are called "road movies" and are a distinct cinematic genre. Because of the vastness of the continental United States, and its wide road network and car culture, many Road Trip Plots take place there.

* ''Film/TwoLaneBlacktop'' is about a cross-country race between two stoic street racers and a mysterious man with a MultipleChoicePast. Along the way, a girl drifts between the two cars.

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'' features a train ride from London to Hogsmeade at the beginning of each book. That trip is plot relevand and does serve an important purpose to each story.

* An episode of ''TheDrewCareyShow'' has the main cast piling into the Buzz Beer van and travelling to New York in an attempt to sell the beer outside a baseball game.

* ''Film/NationalLampoonsVacation'', in which Chevy Chase takes his family on a disastrous road trip from Chicago to Southern California to visit Wally World, a Captain Ersatz of Disneyland. The sequel, ''National Lampoon's European Vacation'', is basically the same plot, but with the Griswolds in Europe instead.

Not all Road Trip Plots involve use of a vehicle, but it's often what one associates with the genre: a family or group of friends traveling in a car—or a van, or on horseback, maybe even on a boat—from one place to another, with stuff happening at each location.

Films with a Road Trip Plot are called "road movies" and are a distinct cinematic genre. Because of the vastness of the continental United States, and its wide road network and car culture, many Road Trip Plots take place there.

Live action television programs (As well as other episodic works) often have Road Trip Episodes in which the characters take a trip. Due to the episodic nature of TV--StatusQuoIsGod--these episodes are typically one-off affairs made to give the characters something new to do. Road trip episodes can be broken down into several types. Type 1 is The Family Car, the most common, in which the characters pile in a car and go someplace. In subtype 1a the characters complete the trip and come back, with the return journey possibly omitted (BoringReturnJourney), while in subtype 1b the trip is never completed for some reason. Type 2 is Public Transportation, in which the characters themselves aren't in control of the vehicle, and may include a bus, a plane, or even a spaceship. Type 3, the Alternate Transport, is rarer, and involves characters who are ''always'' traveling taking some different mode of transport. Imagine the characters from a show in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' universe leaving their starship and taking a bus.

Contrast with GoingToSeeTheElephant, where the destination starts the plot. See also BusesAreForFreaks, a trope that may overlap with this if the characters are taking the bus somewhere. See also WanderlustSong, the {{Music}} equivalent of this trope.

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!!Examples:

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* ''Recap/AsterixAndTheBanquet'' is about ComicBook/{{Asterix}} and Obelix on a "Tour de Gaule", collecting speciality food from various cities throughout UsefulNotes/{{France}} in a bid for freedom from the Romans, who are enclosing their village from the rest of the world with a stockade.
* The "Hard-Travelling Heroes" arc in ''ComicBook/GreenLantern[=/=]ComicBook/GreenArrow'', where Hal and Ollie travel across the US so Hal can reconnect with ordinary humans and the problems they face.
* Likewise with the "Superman: Grounded" arc of ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}''.

[[AC: Fanfic]]
* ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'' has a Type 1a in [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Insane Road Trip".]]
* The WWE fanfic ''Grapefruits'' series of stories are crack-fics that combine 1a and 2. They deal with teams of superstars traveling to far-off locations in order to procure alcohol and porn magazines for Vince [=McMahon=], and the wild and crazy adventures they have along the way.

[[AC:{{Film}} - Animated]]
* Disney's ''Disney/{{Bolt}}'' has the title character trying to travel back from New York City to Los Angeles, with a notable stop in Vegas.
* ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' is a story about a fish swimming in the ocean, so there aren't any roads. But otherwise it fits this trope exactly, as Marlin travels across the ocean to find Nemo, meeting many colorful sea creatures along the way.
* ''WesternAnimation/AGoofyMovie'' is about Goofy (yes, the Disney character) taking his son Max on a father-son trip, while Max attempts to take a trip to a concert he wishes to attend. After Goofy discovers what he's been up to, they end up doing both.

[[AC:{{Film}} - Live-Action]]
* ''Film/{{Badlands}}'' is a super-dark take on this trope, as young lovers Kit and Holly go on a cross-country murder spree after he kills her father.
* ''Film/{{Barefoot}}'' has the protagonists driving from UsefulNotes/NewOrleans to UsefulNotes/LosAngeles.
* ''Film/{{Dogma}}'' is about a trip/chase from Illinois to New Jersey. ''Film/JayAndSilentBobStrikeBack'' is about their shenanigans on the way from New Jersey to Los Angeles.
* ''Film/DumbAndDumber'', Harry and Lloyd travel from Rhode Island to Colorado on a dog shaped van.
* ''Film/EasyRider'' centers around the main characters' road trip to New Orleans. [[DownerEnding It isn't]] [[ShootTheShaggyDog a comedy]].
* The Trope Maker, as far as the "road movie" sub-genre is concerned, is ''Film/ItHappenedOneNight''. Claudette Colbert is a spoiled heiress who wants to escape her father's detectives and make her way from Florida to New York to get married. Clark Gable is the newspaper reporter who aids her in exchange for the scoop on her story. Naturally, romance ensues.
* ''Film/KnockinOnHeavensDoor'': Two terminally ill guys with just a couple of days left to live get to know each other and refuse to just sit in a hospital and await their fate. They steal a car and go on a last road trip to see the ocean for the first and last time in their lives. The thing is, the car was used by gangsters to deliver a substantial amount of money to a kingpin.
* ''Film/LittleMissSunshine'' is about a family who travels across state lines and has various misadventures along the way, while trying to get to a beauty pageant in time for their daughter to participate.
* ''Film/TheMuppetMovie'', in which Kermit sets off from the swamplands of the American South on his way to Hollywood to become rich and famous, picking up all of his Muppet friends along the way.
* ''Film/MyFavoriteBlonde'' features a sexy British spy and the bumbling American comedian she gets entangled with (Madeleine Carroll and Creator/BobHope) traveling from New York to Los Angeles by train, bus, stolen plane, and stolen car, chased by Nazis the whole way.
* ''Film/NationalLampoonsVacation'', in which Chevy Chase takes his family on a disastrous road trip from Chicago to Southern California to visit Wally World, a Captain Ersatz of Disneyland. The sequel, ''National Lampoon's European Vacation'', is basically the same plot, but with the Griswolds in Europe instead.
* ''{{Film/Paul}}'' is about two bumbling nerds who are on their way to a Sci-fi convention to pitch a comic one of them's written, only to wind up picking up a [[TheGreys Grey]] named Paul who escaped Area 51 and was trying to get to an area where he could contact his people to leave. Hijinks and an accidental kidnapping ensue.
* ''Film/PaperMoon'': Moses and Addie Travel from Gorham, Kansas to Joplin, Missouri, conning people along the way.
* ''Film/PlanesTrainsAndAutomobiles'', which is all about a businessman's frantic efforts to make it from New York to Chicago for Thanksgiving, while all kinds of bad luck and complications get in his way.
* All of the Hope/Crosby ''[[Film/RoadTo On The Road]]'' pictures, which always featured Bob and Bing as comic partners getting in various misadventures as they traveled from A to B.
* ''Film/RainMan'': After the BlackSheep brother finds out that he's been disinherited, with his late father having left all his money to an unknown older brother in an institution, he kidnaps the brother and goes off on a cross-country trip.
* ''Film/RubinAndEd'' comically relates a trip made through Utah to give a man's deceased cat a proper burial.
* ''Film/SesameStreetPresentsFollowThatBird'' has Big Bird traveling to the fictional Ocean View, Illinois, to live with Dodo family, only to find he doesn't really fit in with the family, and flees to return to Sesame Street; at the same time, his friends embark on a journey to try and meet him half way.
* ''Film/TheSureThing'' is a great example from TheEighties, combining this with QuestForSex, as a college student travels from the east coast to California in search of nookie with the eponymous "sure thing".
* ''Film/TommyBoy'' follows Tommy and Richard's travels as they attempt to sell brake pads. Complete with singing along with the car radio, hitting a deer, and other events typical of the genre.
* ''Weekend'' by Creator/JeanLucGodard is a satirical roadtrip in a WorldGoneMad in which everything is SeriousBusiness.
* ''Film/WhosSingingOverThere'' describes an eventful bus trip to Belgrade [[WorldWar2 on the eve of the German attack on Yugoslavia during the 2nd World War]].
* ''Film/{{Wild}}'' is a road movie on foot, as Cheryl Strayed goes on an 1100-mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, on a voyage of self-discovery.
* ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'' is pretty much a Road Movie set after the ZombieApocalypse. Initially, Columbus is looking to get to Columbus, Ohio to find his estranged parents (mostly for want of anything else to do) and the girls are going to Pacific Playland. Tallahasee is [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge mostly just in it for the zombie killin']] (and the [[TrademarkFavoriteFood Twinkies]]). [[spoiler:Halfway through, Columbus finds out his parents are very probably dead already, and once the climax at Pacific Playland is over, the end of the movie seems to signal the four of them starting their WalkingTheEarth]].
* ''Film/TwoLaneBlacktop'' is about a cross-country race between two stoic street racers and a mysterious man with a MultipleChoicePast. Along the way, a girl drifts between the two cars.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Creator/{{Mark Twain}}'s ''Literature/AdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'' may qualify, in that while Huck and Jim didn't go "across" the country, they did journey down the Mississippi River from the North to the South on a crude raft, with plenty of perils (particularly for Jim in the Antebellum South).
* ''Blue Highways'' by William Least Heat Moon is a nonfiction chronicle of the author travelling around the US in his camper-outfitted van on back roads (highways that were often colored as narrow blue lines on old gas-station maps), visiting many obscure or ideosyncratic small towns, in the 1970s.
* ''Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas'', both the book and the film.
* ''Literature/GenerationKill'' is effectively described as a combination of this genre with a war movie, as it deals with the members of Marine Recon driving through Iraq during the 2003 invasion.
* ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', in a way. It's basically about a king and his men on their journey home from war. By sea, of course.
* ''Literature/TheRoad'', a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and film starring Viggo Mortensen about a boy and his father following an abandoned highway AfterTheEnd.
* ''Literature/TheStand'' turns into an AfterTheEnd version of this, as the characters make harrowing journeys to either the rallying place for the protagonists (Boulder, CO) or the rallying place for {{Satan}} and his antagonists (Las Vegas, of course).

* ''Series/{{JAG}}'' [[PlayingWithATrope played with]] this one. Because Harmon Rabb is a trained fighter pilot, he flies to ''Cuba'' in one episode. [[spoiler: He almost blows the actual mission.]]
** Another episode has Harm and Mac, on their first mission together, driving into the desert to find the people who [[spoiler: stole the US Constitution]]. Both are a bit cagey, as Harm can't help but notice that Mac [[IdenticalStranger looks just like a former lover of his who was murdered]], and because Mac knows that [[spoiler: the man who stole the Constitution is a family friend of hers.]]
** Yet another episode has Harm, Mac, and Budd driving a rental car to the site of their next case, due to there not being enough money in the budget to buy them plane tickets. On the way, they end up at a ''{{Series/Quantum Leap}}'' convention, complete with [[CreatorCameo Donald Bellisario addressing a group of fans.]]

* ''That70sShow'': The gang traveled out of town so the boys could check out a college.

[[AC:{{Music}}]]
* Music/HavalinaRailCo's album ''America'' is a concept album about a road trip across the US, with each song corresponding to a different area traveled through. The back cover of the album has a map depicting the route traveled.

* ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} and Jon (and sometimes Odie) go on Type 1a road trips occasionally. They've also gone on Type 2 ones.

[[AC:{{Pinball}}]]
* ''Pinball/RedAndTedsRoadShow'' has its titular protagonists traveling across America, wreaking havoc along the way.
* ''Pinball/WorldCupSoccer'' had the player progressing through the cup in different locales in the U.S. (matching those of the 1994 World Cup, which the game was made to promote).
* The much-maligned ''Pinball/VacationAmerica'' was all about this.

[[AC: Radio]]
* ''{{Adventures in Odyssey}}'' has two mini-arcs involving road trips. One is Connie and Joanne going to Washington D.C., and another is Eugene and Bernard.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* The [[SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem SNES]] version of ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesTournamentFighters'', which had stages all over... [[ArtisticLicenseGeography what is probably supposed to be the United States.]]


[[AC: Webcomics]]

* An early ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' arc had the crew of the ''[[WhatAPieceOfJunk Savage]] [[CoolStarship Chicken]]'' embarking on a Type 1a to an abandoned colony ship. It was technically a salvage mission, but Sam and Helix both called it a road trip.
* ''Webcomic/FinalFantasyVIITheSevening'': [[http://obstinatemelon.deviantart.com/gallery/25038206?offset=48#/d4iv06o Page 271]] has everyone pile into [[TheAllegedCar The Buggy]] and do stereotypical road trip things like suggest travel games, ask "are we there yet?" incessantly, sing "99 bottles of beer on the wall", and [[spoiler: get carsick]].
* ''Webcomic/ZeusGodlyGoodtime'' uses this as backdrop for [[VideoGame/GodOfWar Zeus and Kratos]] to spend some father-son time together. Too bad the surprise-destination Zeus planned ends up being VideoGame/NintendoLand...

* While the first ''Chris and Scottie's Road Trip'' (made by the same man behind ''WebVideo/TheIrateGamer'') was a [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=hxy9ub2egx1v5o6tciahi3h7 World Tour]], the second installment is focused on the US instead.
* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': In the WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail [[http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail156.html "road trip"]], Strong Bad and the Cheat attempt to go on a Type 1a road trip, but end up getting locked in the car with no way to start it for the duration of the episode, turning it into a Type 1b.
-->'''Strong Bad:''' And ''that'' was our road trip. Or, more accurately our car trip, since we didn't go on any roads. Or, even more accurately, our car, since we didn't go on any trips either.

* The ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Thanks for the Crabapples, Guiseppe", where Ice King and some of his fellow wizards hop on a van and take a trip to Butt Mountain.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}'', a simple delivery turned into one of these, much to Chowder's joy. Unfortunately, they were delivering explosive fruit.
* The third ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' MadeForTVMovie doubled as this when the titular hero and his friends had to travel cross-country to obtain three magic gems.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'': "The Road Worrier" sees Daria and Jane take a road trip with Trent and Jesse to go to Alternapulooza. It ends up being a Type 1b, but Daria and Trent do get some "quality time".

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E21OverABarrel Over a Barrel]] may count as a Type 2, with the Mane Six and Spike taking a trip by train to Appleloosa. [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E9PinkieApplePie Pinkie Apple Pie]] definitely counts as Type 1a, with Pinkie Pie tagging along on a trip with the Apple family to see a distant relative who might hold the key as to whether or not Pinkie really is a distant cousin of Applejack.

** There's an episode when Homer takes Bart on a road trip to a motivational camp across the country due to incident in school and was on a "no fly list" in the airlines.
* A series of ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures: How I Spent My Summer Vacation'' has Hamton's family take a Type 1a to [[SouvenirLand Happy World Land]], with Plucky tagging along. They take the monorail around one time, then go home.
* One of the final episodes of Nickelodeon's ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' has a Type 1 with Doug's family to see the Painted Gorge, which gets sidetracked by several stops to visit which turn out to be tourist traps, followed by the car getting stuck in the mud and requiring everyone to get out and push it free.
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* ''Film/TwoLaneBlacktop'' is about a cross-country race between two stoic street racers and a man with a mysterious past. Along the way, a girl drifts between the two cars.

* The much-maligned pinball game ''Vacation America'' was all about this.

* ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'' is pretty much a Road Movie set after the zombie apocalypse. Initially, Columbus is looking to get to Columbus, Ohio to find his estranged parents (mostly for want of anything else to do) and the girls are going to Pacific Playland. Tallahasee is [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge mostly just in it for the zombie killin']] (and the [[TrademarkFavoriteFood Twinkies]]). [[spoiler:Halfway through, Columbus finds out his parents are very probably dead already, and once the climax at Pacific Playland is over, the end of the movie seems to signal the four of them starting their WalkingTheEarth]].

* ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'' is pretty much a RoadMovie set after the zombie apocalypse. Initially, Columbus is looking to get to Columbus, Ohio to find his estranged parents (mostly for want of anything else to do) and the girls are going to Pacific Playland. Tallahasee is [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge mostly just in it for the zombie killin']] (and the [[TrademarkFavoriteFood Twinkies]]). [[spoiler:Halfway through, Columbus finds out his parents are very probably dead already, and once the climax at Pacific Playland is over, the end of the movie seems to signal the four of them starting their WalkingTheEarth]].

* ''Franchise/StargateVerse'': When they aren't spending mere seconds using the PortalNetwork to gate between planets light-years apart, they eventually use a variety of [[CoolShip starships]]. When there's only a few seconds of travel time, there's no time for plot. When travel takes days or weeks, plot has loads of time to develop.

* ''Series/{{Wings}}'' introduced the infamous Carlton Blanchard in one of these. Blanchard wins a contest where the prize is a trip anywhere. Because of how the description was written [[note]] The trip was supposed to go "anywhere Sandpiper flies", but Brian thought the last two words were unnecessary. [[/note]], he uses the prize to visit his brother in the American Southwest [[spoiler: and fight him for their father's pocket watch.]]

Live action television programs often have Road Trip Episodes in which the characters take a trip. Due to the episodic nature of TV--StatusQuoIsGod--these episodes are typically one-off affairs made to give the characters something new to do. Road trip episodes can be broken down into several types. Type 1 is The Family Car, the most common, in which the characters pile in a car and go someplace. In subtype 1a the characters complete the trip and come back, with the return journey possibly omitted (BoringReturnJourney), while in subtype 1b the trip is never completed for some reason. Type 2 is Public Transportation, in which the characters themselves aren't in control of the vehicle, and may include a bus, a plane, or even a spaceship. Type 3, the Alternate Transport, is rarer, and involves characters who are ''always'' traveling taking some different mode of transport. Imagine the characters from a show in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' universe leaving their starship and taking a bus.

* ''That70sShow'': The gang traveled out of town so the boys could check out a college.

Contrast with GoingToSeeTheElephant, where the destination starts the plot. See also WanderlustSong, the {{Music}} equivalent of this trope.

[[AC:WebComics]]
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', the "Hammerchlorians" arc is largely about Susan, Sarah and Grace taking a road trip to check on a magical artifact.
* An early ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' arc had the crew of the ''[[TheAllegedCar Savage]] [[CoolStarship Chicken]]'' embarking on a trip to an abandoned colony ship. It was technically a salvage mission, but Sam and Helix both called it a road trip.

[[AC:WebVideo]]

* Creator/{{Mark Twain}}'s ''Literature/{{Huckleberry Finn}}'' may qualify, in that while Huck and Jim didn't go "across" the country, they did journey down the Mississippi River from the North to the South on a crude raft, with plenty of perils (particularly for Jim in the Antebellum South).

[[quoteright:330:[[LittleMissSunshine http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/roadmovie.jpg]]]]

See also WanderlustSong, the {{Music}} equivalent of this trope.