Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Main / RoadTripPlot

Go To

1%%
2%%
3%% Consolidated "Road Movie" and "Road Trip Episode" per Trope Repair Shop thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1409420738064810300
4%%
5%%
6%% Examples are alphabetized, please add new examples in alphabetical order.
7%%
8%%
9[[quoteright:330:[[Film/LittleMissSunshine https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b7d87380_7dfa_4240_9621_67d8999aa306.jpeg]]]]
10[[caption-width-right:330:Hmmm. A family and a vehicle. [[SarcasmMode Wonder what genre this could be?]]]]
11
12->''"Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car."''
13-->-- '''Creator/EBWhite''', ''One Man's Meat''
14
15A Road-Trip Plot is a work about characters taking a trip to go from point A to point Z, usually in a car. Along the way, they stop by points B, C, D, et al, in diners, motels and SmallTowns, while things happen to them at each point. It may be a silly comedy or a drama where characters [[JourneyToFindOneself learn things they didn't know about themselves]]. Unsurprisingly, this type of plot opens itself wide to {{Cliche Storm}}s and {{Narm}}, but creators conscious of what kind of story they are telling can defy these and create very original and poignant tales, because the characters are removed from their everyday environment.
16
17An important distinction needs to be made between a Road Trip Plot and a WalkingTheEarth story. If the heroes encounter an adventure at every stop and end up staying at each location for a while to solve some major problem or deal with a big event, it's Walking The Earth, especially if each location can be considered an AdventureTown. If, on the other hand, each location is merely a brief stop along the way, and the story is more about the journey than the specific locations, then it's a Road Trip Plot. The former tend to be episodic, with most of the actual travel happening offscreen between destinations, while the latter is more commonly a structure for a self-contained story.
18
19Not 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. A variant is the outlaws on the run Road Trip, in which the hero (or a couple) are [[CarChase pursued]] by [[HotPursuit law enforcement]]. Road movies can overlap with horror if the heroes are fleeing zombies, serial killer families, and the like.
20
21Films with a Road Trip Plot are called "road movies" and are a distinct cinematic genre. Because of the vastness of the continental United States, its extensive highway network, deep-seated car culture, its love of the "rugged individual" character, and a still-lingering affection for TheWestern (a genre which road movies draw on a lot), most Road Trip Plots take place there. Characters may discover both [[EverytownAmerica wholesome, friendly small towns]] and
22[[TownWithADarkSecret towns with a seamy underbelly.]] Historically, the characters are often two male buddies or a couple, but female buddies are also used. The characters are often [[VisionQuest trying to get away from it all to figure out a personal issue or discover themselves]]. For this reason, the interaction between the characters is more important than the destination or places they stop.
23
24During Hollywood's Golden Age, FilmNoir directors loved road film plots. One of the attractions of the road film was that it was a way around Hays Code censorship rules. A 1940s road movie about an unmarried couple on a road trip would technically follow the [[MoralGuardians rules]] if the two people stay in separate motel rooms on the trip, but for viewers, knowing that the lovers are alone in the car on the open road and staying in cheap motels got their imagination working.
25
26Live 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 and create opportunities for friction.
27
28Road trip episodes can be broken down into several types.
29* Type 1 is The Family Car, the most common, in which the characters pile in a car or an [=RV=] and go someplace. It may be a noisy, ChaoticCarRide if it is PlayedForLaughs.
30** In subtype 1A, the characters complete the trip and come back, with the BoringReturnJourney possibly omitted.
31** In subtype 1B, the trip is never completed for some reason.
32* 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. This type can easily be derailed by a StuckAtTheAirportPlot.
33* 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 or a shuttle.
34
35HardTruckin is a SisterTrope, as it's a road trip, combined with delivering a 18-wheeler's load to its destination. Compare [[TenMoviePlots Blake Snyder's description of this plot]], under the title ''Golden Fleece''. Also compare TheQuest, along with [[Literature/TheSevenBasicPlots Booker's version]] of the archetypes behind it.
36
37Very likely to run into at least one WackyWaysideTribe along the way.
38
39Contrast 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. See also TravelogueShow, the non-fiction equivalent of this. For instances where a road trip is dangerous, see DeadlyRoadTrip. For road trips that are incredibly short, see RoadTripAcrossTheStreet.
40
41----
42!!Examples:
43
44[[foldercontrol]]
45
46[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
47* The earlier chapters of ''Manga/DragonBall'' evoke this as Goku and Bulma travel the world in search of the titular [[PlotDevice plot]] [[MacGuffin objects]].
48* Parts 3, 5, & 7 of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' are essentially what you get when you combine one of these with a {{Shonen}} FightingSeries, with Part 5 incorporating TheMafia and Part 7 incorporating TheBigRace & TheWestern.
49* ''Anime/RollingGirls'' follows a group of girls as the travel from city to city mediating land disputes.
50* ''Anime/{{Robihachi}}'' follows Robby Yarge and Hatchi Kita, two strangers throw together by circumstances, on a trip to Isekandar, the planet where dreams come true. They stop at an assortment of tourist traps and odd planets along the way.
51
52[[/folder]]
53
54[[folder:Comic Books]]
55* ''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.
56* 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.
57* ''ComicStrip/KnightsOfTheDinnerTable'' has featured multiple arcs where the main characters (and many supporting characters) make the annual pilgrimage to [=GaryCon=]. Adventures on the road (before they even get to the con) have included being locked in a basement before they leave; losing all of their luggage; getting stranded in a biker bar; and driving hundreds of miles in the wrong direction.
58* Likewise with the "Superman: Grounded" arc of ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}''.
59* An unpublished DC Comics story of ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', "Road Trip," has the Professor on his way to a festival out of town with the girls in tow. The girls' misbehavior causes the car to get dismantled piece by piece until, when the car is nothing but strewn parts, the Professor angrily intones that if they don't start behaving, "I'm turning this car around right now!"
60[[/folder]]
61
62[[folder:Comic Strips]]
63* ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} and Jon (and sometimes Odie) go on Type 1a road trips occasionally. They've also gone on Type 2 ones.
64[[/folder]]
65
66[[folder:Fan Works]]
67* ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'' has a Type 1a in [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "The Insane Road Trip".]]
68* 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.
69* ''Fanfic/{{Dermabrasion}}'': The fic's epilogue has [[spoiler:the Todoroki siblings including Dabi]] on a road trip through Japan. Even though it's meant to be a vacation, a good chunk of it is them discussing the future.
70* {{Lampshaded}} in [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3512881/1/MST3k-Operation-Return-to-Earth MST3K: Operation: Return To Earth]] when Gypsy asks [[JustEatGilligan why they can't just take a plane from Montana to Minnesota]] Crow replies [[BreakingTheFourthWall then the story wouldn't be a road movie.]]
71* In the third book in the Fanfic/LastMageOfKrypton series, the two villains [[spoiler: Voldemort and Gellert Grindlewald]] spend a large portion of the story travelling around America to collect [[spoiler: Obscurials.]]
72* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12321109/1/Gap-Year-Adventures Gap Year Adventures]]'', a work by Creator/AAPessimal, has two new graduates of the Assassins' Guild School go on a walking[[note]]Also horse and sometimes camel[[/note]] holiday while they [[Fanfic/GapYearAdventures figure out what to do next]]. [[AmoralAfrikaner Mariella]] and [[BadassIsraeli Rivka]] opt to cross an entire continent, the Disc's Howondaland, a place with many suspicious similarities to our Middle East and Africa. WordOfGod says that the girls have another road trip maybe four years later, to close their single lives before both get married. This time they cross the Central Continent from Ankh-Morpork to Genua, in a long extended hen-party, meeting Discworld races suspiciously like Germans, Russians, Canadians and Americans on the way. This tale exists in note form but is yet to be properly written. Where they'll go if one or both get pregnant is anybody's guess.
73* The protagonists of [[Creator/MLLanzillotta Cececat's]] ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' fanfic ''Fanfic/LifeNotAtTheFrankensteinPlace'' spend a large portion of the plot driving across America in a van.
74* ''Fanfic/LuzAndHuntersRoadtripExtravaganza'' has two teenagers stranded in Texas, and having to go back to Connecticut in spite of having no money, no supplies and cheerfully loathing each other. HilarityEnsues.
75[[/folder]]
76
77[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
78* Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Bolt}}'' has the title character trying to travel back from New York City to Los Angeles, with a notable stop in Vegas.
79* ''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.
80* ''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.
81* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobSquarePantsMovie'' revolves around [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick going on a road trip with the Patty Wagon to Shell City to retrieve King Neptune's crown, visiting various new locations and encountering strange characters along the way.
82* The Plucky & Hampton subplot from ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventuresHowISpentMyVacation'' is about a road trip to an amusement park.
83* ''WesternAnimation/TheMitchellsVsTheMachines'' features a family going on a cross-country road trip to the main character's college when a robot apocalypse hits. The family spends the remainder of the movie fighting against said apocalypse.
84[[/folder]]
85
86[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
87* {{Lampshaded}} and {{Enforced}} in ''Film/TheAdventuresOfRockyAndBullwinkle'', where the titular heroes need to get from Los Angeles to New York within 40 hours to stop Fearless Leader from [[ItMakesSenseInContext using hyponotically bad TV shows to make people vote for him for President of the United States]]. As they start out, Rocky questions why they don't just take an airplane and Bullwinkle simply responds "Because then it wouldn't be a road movie."
88* ''Film/AlvinAndTheChipmunks: The Road Chip''. The premise of the film being the the Chipmunks three are rushing to Miami to stop Dave from proposing to his new girlfriend and dumping them, based on a misunderstanding.
89* ''Film/AmericanHoney'' follows a traveling magazine sales crew as they traverse multiple states in the Midwest—Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota among them.
90* ''Film/{{Ana}}'': The two protagonists embark on a road trip for Ana to get back home, and Rafa out of debt.
91* ''Film/AroundTheBend'': The patriarch of the Lair family leaves instructions in his will that his son, grandson, and great-grandson go on a road trip to scatter his ashes at various sites across the southwestern US... a series of KFC restaurants. His motivation was for his son and grandson to heal their broken relationship. [[spoiler:The ploy works just in time... his son is dying of renal failure himself.]]
92* ''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.
93* ''Film/BalladOfASoldier'' is about a Russian soldier making a difficult journey home on leave during the darkest days of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and all the people he meets and experiences he has on the way.
94* ''Film/{{Barefoot}}'' has the protagonists driving from UsefulNotes/NewOrleans to UsefulNotes/LosAngeles.
95* ''Film/BetweenTwoFernsTheMovie'': The crew drives from North Carolina to Los Angeles, interviewing several celebrities along the way.
96* ''Film/BoysOnTheSide'': The first act, before they settle down in Tucson due to Robin's hospitalization.
97* ''{{Film/Broker}}'' is about brokers who drive around South Korea in search of adoptive parents willing to buy an abandoned baby for a price.
98* ''Film/{{Carol}}'' takes place on the road for the latter half of the film.
99* Parts of ''Film/CarryOnCamping'' are based around this, depending on what character story the movie chooses to follow. One subplot follows [[CloudCuckooLander Charlie Muggins]], who spends most of the runtime looking for a place to stay after his tent is blown away in a landmine accident, whilst [[HenpeckedHusband Peter Potter]] travels around the countryside with his absent-minded wife Harriet as [[HorribleCampingTrip he has a horrible holiday]], as well as two sexually-frustrated thirty-somethings, Sid Boggle and Bernie Lugg, driving around England looking for a nudist camp with their prudish girlfriends Joan Fussey and Anthea Meeks.
100* ''Film/CryMacho'': an old washed up rodeo star and horse breeder (Creator/ClintEastwood) is sent to Mexico to bring a young man back to his father in Texas. They are forced to take the backroads.
101* ''Film/DamnationAlley'': The survivors of WorldWarIII have to travel from the western desert to Albany, New York, which, for some reason, survived all the destruction.
102* ''Film/{{Dog|2022}}'': A US Army ranger with PTSD must bring the dog of a fallen comrade to said comrade's funeral, from the State of Washington to Arizona.
103* ''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.
104* ''Film/DriveAwayDolls'' is the story of two best friends who get mixed up in a crime during a road trip to Florida.
105* ''Film/DueDate'' is about two strangers being forced to travel together to the hospital where one's wife is giving birth. [[spoiler: Turns out this was invoked by the other, who stole his wallet so he'd have to travel with him]].
106* ''Film/DumbAndDumber'', Harry and Lloyd travel from Rhode Island to Colorado on a dog shaped van.
107* ''Film/EasyRider'' centers around the main characters' road trip to New Orleans. [[DownerEnding It isn't]] [[ShootTheShaggyDog a comedy]].
108* ''Film/Finch2021'': The title character, his dog, and two robot companions go on a road trip west across post-apocalyptic America to San Francisco.
109* Much of ''Film/{{Fleisch}}'' has trucker Bill and German tourist Monika travelling across the highways of the American southwest in order to rescue the latter's husband, who has been kidnapped by [[OrganTheft organ traffickers]].
110* ''Film/{{The Go-Getter}}'' [[spoiler:When his mother dies]], a teenager takes a road-trip in a stolen car to find his long-lost brother.
111* The basic plot of ''Film/GoTrabiGo'' revolves around a man and his family seeking to take advantage of their newfound freedom to travel following the reunification of Germany by recreating Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe's ''Italian Journey'' using their family car, a [[TheAllegedCar Trabant 601]] nicknamed "Schorsch".
112* ''Film/HoneyBaby'' revolves around a washed-up musician meeting a runaway ballerina on his contractually obligated tour of Europe, and they travel the continent together. It then deconstructs the genre by showing that, while they do become closer, it doesn't make them any happier or closer to understanding themselves and that [[spoiler:going home may lead to self-actualization]].
113* ''Film/{{Interstate 60}}'' features a surreal road trip on a mythical interstate, where the main character tries to find "the answer to his life."
114* The Trope Maker, as far as the "road movie" SubGenre 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.
115* ''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.
116* ''Film/LargerThanLife'' has the protagonist crossing the country with an elephant using various modes of transportation, including trucks, a train, and at one point riding on the elephant's back.
117* ''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.
118* In ''Film/MadLove1995'', a teenager busts his mentally ill girlfriend out of a psychiatric hospital, and they run away together by car.
119* ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' naturally, since it has 'road' in the title. The titular Max stumbles across a woman freeing the [[BreedingSlave wives]] of the {{Bad Future}}'s tyrant - and the majority of the story is them journeying across the desert in search of an {{Arcadia}} called 'The Green Place', [[TheChase while being pursued by aforementioned tyrant's army]]. As it's also an action movie, there's quite a lot of CarFu.
120* ''Film/MidnightSpecial'' drops you right into the middle of a father on the run with his empowered son - as they travel across Texas trying to escape both the FBI and a religious cult trying to worship the boy as TheMessiah.
121* ''{{Film/Monsters}}'' is primarily a road movie, where a journalist helps his boss's daughter get back home from Mexico. The Mexico in this location just so happens to be after an alien invasion.
122* ''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.
123* ''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.
124* ''Film/MyNameIsEmily'' is a rare Irish example. The eponymous Emily is a depressed teenager who, after her DisappearedDad fails to send her an annual birthday card, convinces a school friend to drive across the country to break him out of his mental hospital. Overlaps with the RoadTripRomance of course.
125* ''Film/NathansKingdom'' is about an autistic man and his younger sister searching for a magical kingdom free from hunger, fear, and pain, mostly in the sister's truck.
126* ''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 [[spoiler:that's closed for maintence]]. The sequel, ''National Lampoon's European Vacation'', is basically the same plot, but with the Griswolds in Europe instead. ''Film/NationalLampoonsChristmasVacation'' and ''Film/VegasVacation'' avert this trope, however, as their Christmas vacation is not really a vacation at all, and they fly directly to Vegas in the other.
127** The sequel/reboot, ''Film/{{Vacation}}'', is revisiting the premise of the original from the perspective of Rusty and his family.
128* ''Film/TheOddWayHome'' is about an autistic man and an abuse survivor traveling by truck to visit first his father, then hers.
129* ''{{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.
130* ''Film/PaperMoon'': Moses and Addie Travel from Gorham, Kansas to Joplin, Missouri, conning people along the way.
131* ''Film/PatayNaSiHesus'' (in English, ''Jesus is Dead''), follows a Filipino family in the Visayas region, in the central Philippines, on a roadtrip from Cebu to Dumaguete city, for the funeral of their father/husband, named Hesus.
132* ''Film/PlanB'': Most of the plot is Sunny and Lupe going to Planned Parenthood in another city for the Plan B pill, since the pharmacy near them won't issue it.
133* ''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.
134* ''Film/PoeticJustice'': is about a hairdresser and a postal worker going on a trip from Los Angeles to Oakland alongside their two respective acquaintances. The trip ends up both destroying and creating relationships.
135* All of the Hope/Crosby ''[[Film/RoadTo Road To]]'' pictures, which always featured Bob and Bing as comic partners getting in various misadventures as they traveled from A to B.
136* ''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.
137* ''Film/RubinAndEd'' comically relates a trip made through Utah to give a man's deceased cat a proper burial.
138* ''Film/{{Scarecrow|1973}}'' has two oddballs hitchhiking and riding the rails from California to Pittsburgh, where they hope to start a car wash business.
139* ''Film/SesameStreetPresentsFollowThatBird'' has Big Bird travelling 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.
140* The 1989 sci-fi movie ''[[Film/Slipstream1989 Slipstream]]'' is a RoadMovie with airplanes. A LoveableRogue steals the prisoner from two {{Bounty Hunter}}s and flies off with them in pursuit across a world changed by environmental disaster. Earthquakes have torn up all the roads so everyone uses a [[WeirdWeather permanent world-encircling wind]] called the slipstream for long distance travel. Unfortunately it was [[NeverTrustATrailer marketed as a sci-fi action movie instead]], causing it to flop.
141* ''Film/SmokeSignals'': Victor and Thomas go on a road trip to Phoenix to retrieve Victor's father's ashes and grow as people along the way.
142* A good chunk of ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020'' is this, with Sonic and Tom hitting the road to San Francisco to recover Sonic’s rings while trying to stay one step ahead of Robotnik and the government.
143* ''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".
144* ''Film/ThelmaAndLouise'': The two women shoot a rapist and decide to flee the scene of the crime, and travel towards Mexico.
145* ''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.
146* ''Film/{{Trafic}}'': Features the misdaventures of Creator/JacquesTati's M. Hulot and his bumbling goof a truck driver, as the two of them try to haul a model car from Paris to Amsterdam, having all sorts of wacky adventures on the way.
147* ''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.
148* In ''Film/VampiresVsZombies'', a father and his allies are transporting his vampire-infected daughter to the vampire queen's hometown so they can stake her in her lair and hopefully destroy the curse. Unfortunately, the countryside is infested with zombies.
149* ''Film/TheWayBack2010'' is a BasedOnATrueStory account of several prisoners who escaped from a Siberian gulag, and hiked all the way to India.
150* ''Film/Weekend1967'' by Creator/JeanLucGodard is a satirical roadtrip in a WorldGoneMad in which everything is SeriousBusiness.
151* ''Film/WhosSingingOverThere'' describes an eventful bus trip to Belgrade [[UsefulNotes/WorldWar2 on the eve of the German attack on Yugoslavia during the 2nd World War]].
152* ''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.
153* Creator/DavidLynch's ''Film/WildAtHeart'' is about a young heiress (Creator/LauraDern) and her ex-con boyfriend (Creator/NicolasCage) driving across America, trying to get away from her [[KnightTemplarParent overprotective mom]] (Creator/DianeLadd, [[RealLifeRelative Laura Dern's real-life mother]]) and her various henchmen.
154* ''Film/WildBoysOfTheRoad'': Three teenagers stuck in TheGreatDepression go on a harrowing journey from middle America to Chicago and thence to Cleveland and New York, scrounging for food and trying to avoid arrest and/or assault.
155* ''Film/WildStrawberries'' is a relatively rare European example. 78-year-old professor Isak must travel from Stockholm to Lund to receive a special award in recognition of fifty years as a medical doctor. He meets many people and sees places along the way that make him think about his life and what to do with the time he has left.
156* ''Film/TheWizard'' has elements of this, as Corey (Fred Savage) takes his (supposedly) autistic brother Jimmy from the home he was put in, and they both run away to "California", where Jimmy competes in a video game tournament at Universal Studios Hollywood.
157* ''Film/TheYellowHandkerchief'' has three lonely strangers hitch-hiking together through post Hurricane Katrina Louisiana, and slowly becoming friends over the course of the trip.
158* ''Film/ZabriskiePoint'' by Creator/MichelangeloAntonioni has two plots. One guy joyrides a plane out of Los Angeles and flies over the desert, near Death Valley, and the other plot is a girl riding to Phoenix to be with her boss. Their paths intersect midway, but the story is mostly the girl's trip from Los Angeles to a corporate retreat in Phoenix.
159* ''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]].
160[[/folder]]
161
162[[folder:Literature]]
163* 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).
164* ''Literature/BlueHighways'' 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 idiosyncratic small towns, in the 1970s.
165* ''Literature/{{Borgel}}'' is about a kid and his uncle driving through various locations along The Interstate through Time-space-and-the-other. They only develop their goal of seeing the Great Popsicle about halfway through, and Uncle Borgel isn't very committed to it.
166* The ''Literature/CalLeandros'' book ''Roadkill'' features the brothers and Robin on a road trip to try to stop a figurative walking plague bomb.
167* ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales'' has as its framing device a group of pilgrims sharing stories to pass the time on a long journey from London to Canterbury.
168* ''Literature/CarryOn'''s sequel, ''Wayward Son'', sees the main characters dealing with their HappyEndingOverride. The main character, Simon, is depressed and his relationship with his boyfriend, Baz, is on its last leg because of it. Penelope believes a change of scenery might do them good and pushes them to travel to America and then make a road trip from Chicago to San Diego, something Simon always dreamed of.
169* ''Literature/CarsonCrossesCanada'': The plot of the book is that [[TheProtagonist Carson]] the dog and Annie, his owner, are taking a cross-country road trip across UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} to visit Annie's sister, Elsie.
170* A portion of the plot in ''Literature/CigaretteGirl'' consists of Soeraja's sons, Tegar, Karim, and Lebas, travelling across Java in search of the titular "cigarette girl".
171* ''Literature/DancingAztecs'': Jerry spends most of his scenes in the second half of the novel following (and falling in love with) Bobbi after she leaves her husband and is driving out of the country.
172* ''Literature/DashingThroughTheSnow" is a romance novel about a man and a woman who share the last rental car available to get her home for Christmas/him to a job interview (although he's also an FBI agent tailing her) as they run into increasingly improbable plot twists. This was also made into a Hallmark movie.
173* ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKid'':
174** ''The Long Haul'' is about the family's (disastrous) summer road trip.
175** The first third or so of ''The Deep End'' is about a road trip the Heffleys go on before sticking with the RV park for the remainder of the plot.
176* ''Literature/TheDreamsideRoad'' becomes a road trip story after the first arc. Once the story leaves Nimauk, the focus shifts to finding the Island Hidden at the International Dateline and all of the many stops on the way there.
177* ''Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas'', both the book and the film.
178* The Literature/GauntsGhosts novel ''Honour Guard'' features the main characters as part of a convoy to retrieve a sacred relic from a distant location.
179* ''Literature/GenerationKill'' is effectively described as a combination of this genre with a war movie, as it deals with the members of [[SemperFi Marine Recon]] driving through Iraq during the 2003 invasion.
180* The second book of ''Literature/TheGirlFromTheMiraclesDistrict'' is basically a road trip novel about Nikita's and Robin's journey from Wars to Iben's household and what happens on the way.
181* ''Literature/TheGrapesOfWrath'' follows the Joads, a family of tenant farmers displaced from Oklahoma journeying to California where work is said to be plentiful.
182* Two of Creator/JohnGreen's books include a road trip:
183** In ''Literature/AnAbundanceOfKatherines'', Colin and Hassan take a road trip south from their home in Chicago after graduating high school and (in Colin's case) getting broken up with. They end up in a small town in Tennessee where most of the story takes place.
184** Towards the end of ''Literature/PaperTowns'', Quentin, Ben, Radar, and Lacey take a road trip from their home in Orlando to upstate New York to try to find Margo.
185* In Keith Robertson's ''Literature/HenryReed's Journey'' Henry, his best friend Midge and her parents travel across the continental US.
186* ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'', the third book in ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia''[[note]]Third chronologically; it's an {{Interquel}} taking place during the Pevensies' reign in Narnia. It was one of the last books published.[[/note]] spends the bulk of its plot on the road. A talking Narnian horse persuades a Calormen slave to help him ride north to free Narnia. Along the way they meet another Narnian horse and her mistress trying to do the same.
187* According to ''Literature/HowToSurviveAHorrorMovie'', only three things can happen when you go on a road trip in a horror movie:
188## Your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you're 'rescued' by a stranger who promptly butchers and eats you.
189## You accidentally run someone over, decide to hide the body, and spend the rest of the movie slowly being picked off like scabs.
190## [[HopeSpot You safely arrive at your destination]]... [[DontGoInTheWoods only your destination is a log cabin the middle of nowhere]].
191* ''Literature/IAmDavid'' has a young boy being helped escape from a concentration camp and essentially being directed in a hike all the way from Germany to Denmark on his own. He eventually realises [[spoiler: he's being directed to the home of his birth mother]].
192* ''Literature/InTheMidstOfWinter'': Richard, his colleague and tenant LucĂ­a and Evelyn brave a blizzard so they can go to a remote location to [[spoiler: DisposeOfABody that Evelyn found in the trunk of her employer's car.]]
193* ''Literature/JudysJourney'' is a sort of juvenile ''Grapes of Wrath'', being a story of a ten-year-old girl and her family who are forced to become migrant farm workers after they are evicted from Papa's work as a sharecropper. They travel from Alabama to Florida and back up into New Jersey, living in a tent, enduring the hardships of life as migrant laborers and meeting many people and having experiences along the way.
194* ''Literature/{{Nevada}}'', the plot revolves around the main character's, Maria Griffiths, Road Trip to Nevada.
195* ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', in a way. It's basically about a king and his men on their journey home from war. By sea, of course.
196* ''Literature/OnTheRoad''. Creator/JackKerouac's adventures constitute a long succession of road trips.
197* ''Literature/TheRoad'', a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and film starring Viggo Mortensen about a boy and his father following an abandoned highway AfterTheEnd.
198* ''Literature/TheSomedayBirds'' has an autistic boy, his three siblings, and their babysitter Ludmila travelling in a camper from California to Virginia to visit the kids' brain-damaged father.
199* ''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).
200* ''Literature/StrangerThanFanfiction'': Four friends decide to spend their last summer together before leaving for separate colleges on one. They plan to hit up the world's biggest rubber band ball, the St. Louis Gateway Arch, the Lewis And Clarke museum, the Mark Twain National Forest, the Bundy and Claire jailhouse, the [=UFO=] Observation Tower, Dinoworld, the Petrified Forest, the Arizona Meteor Crater, the Grand Canyon, and ending at the Santa Monica Pier, followed by touring the Wiz Kids set on the Sunshine Studios lot in Hollywood, California.
201* ''{{Literature/The Traveling Triple-C Incorporeal Circus}}'' follows the three main characters traveling from New York City to San Francisco. On foot. The journey takes months, and is quite physically difficult on the one living member of the trio. (The other two are ghosts.)
202* ''Literature/WhyWeTookTheCar'' is about two 14-year old boys' journey in a 'borrowed' car from Berlin to Walachia.
203* Robert Persig's ''Literature/ZenAndTheArtOfMotorcycleMaintenance'' details a motorcycle journey by him and his son across the western US, along with a journey of philosophical and spiritual discovery.
204* ''Literature/MrMen'': The 2018 book ''Mr. Men Road Trip'' has the Mr. Men and Little Miss characters hopping in a bus to take a tour of the United States.
205* ''Literature/RoysBedoys'': The plot of “Let’s Go on a Road Trip, Roys Bedoys!” is Roys and his family going on a road trip to a dinosaur theme park.
206* ''Stalin's Nose'' by Rory Maclean has the author and his aunt (and her pet pig) taking a road trip in a [[TheAllegedCar Trabant]] through Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's also a journey into the past and the moral compromises needed to survive under fascism and communism.
207[[/folder]]
208
209[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
210* ''Series/AntiquesRoadTrip'' is a much more subdued version of this trope. The series has two RealLife British antiques experts and {{auction}}eers driving a classic car around the UK over five legs (one per episode, though the CelebrityEdition reduces this to a single leg) to look for items to buy from different antiques stores in order to sell them at various auctions. While the experts do some silly lighthearted antics during their trip, it is a factual RealityTV series where the experts nevertheless maintain their professionalism on camera, and the profits they make are always donated to charity at the end. If anything, the mood is more like a nice Sunday drive.
211* Due to a blockade, Marcus and Dr. Franklin leave ''Series/BabylonFive'' and embark on a Type 2 on board a slow freighter to Mars in order to meet with LaResistance.
212* The original ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|1978}}'' sent crew members on Type 3 trips in a great many episodes. The [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 reimagined]] series was a little more restrained about it.
213* ''Series/BillyTheExterminator'': Season 4 has Billy and Ricky visiting various new locales, such as Phoenix, Chicago and Florida, to deal with different threats, such as javalinas.
214* An episode of ''Series/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.
215* ''Series/FrontierCircus'': In "Journey From Hannibal", Casey has to pick up an elephant from Hannibal, Missouri and deliver it to the circus in Bismarck, Dakota Territory.
216* Throughout the series, ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'' take [[RoadTripPlot/TheGoldenGirls quite a few road trips]] of the type 2 variety. Many become problematic due to the shortcomings of the person who planned the trip themselves without taking into consideration the needs of the other members of the group. Others are interrupted by natural circumstances, such as inclement weather.
217* ''Series/GoldRush'': Each season opens with a type 1a trip that delivers the miners to their gold mine in the slowly thawing far north. A few low-grade secondary type 1a trips are undertaken during the course of the mining seasons in order to obtain more mining resources. (Loans, materials, machines and equipment)
218* ''Series/ILoveLucy'' had a several-episode arc where Ricky got cast in a Hollywood movie, so Lucy, Ricky, Ethel, and Fred drive a Type 1a cross-country to get there, stopping in (in subsequent episodes) Ohio, Tennessee, Albuquerque (Ethel's hometown), before finally getting to Hollywood, where they meet (through several more episodes) tons of [[TheCameo Celebrity Cameos]].
219* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': This series has sent Harm on several road trips.
220** [[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.]]
221** 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.]]
222** 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/QuantumLeap'' convention, complete with [[CreatorCameo Bellisario addressing a group of fans.]]
223%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample * ''Series/LittleHouseOnThePrairie'': The Ingalls family went on at least one Type 1a road trip, while the dad (Charles) went on multiple trips. -- to where?
224* ''Series/TheLoveBoat'': In an interesting twist on the trope, the job of the regular cast was to facilitate type 2 trips for the guest stars.
225* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'': Members of the [=NCIS=] crew are on a Type 2 international flight when an air marshal is found murdered.
226* One episode of the British comedy ''Series/OneFootInTheGrave'' had Victor and Margaret stuck inside their car in a traffic jam for the entire episode for a Type 1b.
227* ''Series/RedDwarf'': Several Type 3s using the Starbug.
228* ''Series/{{Roseanne}} '' follows Jackie and Roseanne on a trip to meet their father’s mistress when her existence is revealed upon his death.
229* ''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.
230* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Several different crew members took shuttles to get someplace the Enterprise wasn't going.
231* Post-Season 8 of ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' moves from a WalkTheEarth format to the brothers and their companions settling into the Men of Letters Bunker and going on frequent monster-hunting road trips. One notable episode, "Baby", is shot entirely from their car's point of view and fills in the gaps not seen in standard episodes.
232* ''Series/That70sShow'': The gang traveled out of town so the boys could check out a college.
233* ''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.]]
234* ''Series/MrBean'' takes a trip in one episode to a destination we never see him arrive at. He first has to pack for his trip, desecrating most of his belongings in the process so he can get them to fit in his small trunk, taking the first part of his trip by train and then going by plane. The train trip is a disaster when he gets distracted by another passenger's laughter and then throws his ticket out the window. The plane is more so a disaster when he has to deal with a boy and his motion sickness. Of note, both feature films are road trips. Both of the films are also road trips. The first film ''Film/{{Bean}}'' is about him making a trip to the United States. In the second film, ''Film/MrBeansHoliday'' he wins a trip to Paris to attend the Cannes Film Festival.
235* The first season of ''Series/TheDetour'' chronicles the Parker family's road trip from Syracuse, New York, to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. [[spoiler:It turns out to be a last-ditch effort by patriarch Nate to get his job back.]]
236* The show ''Promised Land'' (a SpinOff of ''Series/TouchedByAnAngel'') made this the entire concept of the series, with the Greene family traveling around the country to help people. Though they did settle into a community by the final season.
237* The ''Series/{{ER}}'' episodes "Fathers and Sons" (Doug and Mark travel to California for the former to settle his dead father's affairs and the latter to visit his parents) and "Sailing Away" (Carter and Abby travel to Oklahoma to rescue her ailing mother).
238* The ''Series/{{Victorious}}'' episode "Car, Rain & Fire" has Cat, Tori, and Jade travel to a dead actress's home so that Cat can pay her last respects to her. Turns out [[spoiler: she wasn't dead, Cat just misread a headline to a news story about joining a new show.]]
239* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' had two episodes in its run where Frasier and company head out on a trip in Martin's RV. The first season had "Travels with Martin" where the whole gang travels up to Canada, only to discover Daphne doesn't have her green card yet and have to try and get back so she doesn't get in trouble. Season seven had "RDWRER" where Frasier, Martin, Niles, and Eddie travel cross country to a big party that's celebrating the turn of the millennium, but HilarityEnsues when they arrive at a rest stop and Niles accidentally gets on the wrong RV.
240* ''Series/GoodLuckCharlie'': The [[ChristmasEpisode Christmas]] movie, ''Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas!'' has this plot for Teddy and Amy, as during a planned flight to Palm Springs to visit Amy's parents for Christmas, the plane turns out to be overbooked, so Teddy volunteers to take a later flight in return for a free ticket, and Amy follows her refusing to let her daughter travel alone. However, when it turns out the next flight won't have them arrive until after Christmas, the two are forced to hitchhike by road to reunite with the rest of the family in time.
241* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': In "A Lobster, an Armadillo, and a Way Bigger Number", Sheldon, Dr. Sturgis, and Dr. Linkletter go on a road trip to the Super Telescope.
242* The first episode of ''Series/LovecraftCountry'' follows Atticus, George, and Leti on a road trip through 1950's rural America. Due to the prevalent racism still being in full force, just surviving the trip becomes a harrowing experience.
243* "[[Recap/YellowjacketsS2E4OldWounds Old Wounds]]" from ''Series/{{Yellowjackets}}'' feaures a road trip for all four of the original main adult characters.
244** Misty goes on with citizen detective Walter, seeking out to find Lottie's cult.
245** Natalie goes on a trip with Lisa, the girl from the cult that she stabbed in the second season premiere, and meets her controlling mother.
246** Shauna takes her daughter Callie out into the middle of nowhere to try to get some answers from her about where she's been going when claiming to be with her friends. In return, she ends up telling the truth to Callie about having killed Adam and Jeff having blackmailed the Yellowjackets.
247** Taissa goes on a trip, runs out of gas and ends up hitchhiking, eventually making her way to a store run by [[spoiler:adult Vanessa]].
248[[/folder]]
249
250[[folder:Music]]
251* 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.
252* Music/NinjaSexParty's song, aptly titled Road Trip, features Danny Sexbang and Ninja Brian going on a Type 1b road trip so that Danny can avoid a meaningful relationship with a girl he is dating. The trip (and song) revolves around Danny having sex across the nation (with various sex-related puns based on state and city names) until they reach California, at which point Ninja Brian kills a man for his yacht, and the duo travels around the world (continuing with the sex puns, this time using country names). The pair board a rocket so that Danny can bang "hot alien sluts", and the song ends when Danny leaves the rocket and is killed by rapid depressurization (he forgoes his spacesuit, as he is "way too horny").
253* "Its My Mother and my Father and My Sister and the Dog" by Music/BarryLouisPolisar is about a family going on a long car trip to visit relatives, and the chaos that happens throughout the journey, especially in the car. The protagonist gets into a fight with his two little brothers, his sister cries and joins in the fight, and the dog keeps on making a mess. At one point, the father gets so fed up with the chaos that he threatens to send the kids out the car to walk to their destination. The song doesn't end so much as it fades out while the chorus is being sung.
254--> ''We're going on a trip''\
255''And we're riding in the car,''\
256''We've been driving all day it seems.''
257* Music/WeirdAlYankovic's ''The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota'' tells the story of a family on a three day trip to see the titular tourist trap. Notably, the journey is actually extremely pleasant. Even when the father's camera is stolen by a homeless man and thrown out of the attraction for getting too emotional, he looks on the bright side and the family is excited to come back the next year.
258[[/folder]]
259
260[[folder:Pinballs]]
261* ''Pinball/RedAndTedsRoadShow'' has its titular protagonists traveling across America, wreaking havoc along the way.
262* ''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).
263* The much-maligned ''Pinball/VacationAmerica'' was all about this.
264[[/folder]]
265
266[[folder:Radio]]
267* ''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.
268* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'' has the episode "Game at Clay City."
269[[/folder]]
270
271[[folder:Theater]]
272* The Thornton Wilder play ''Theatre/The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden'' is about a family taking a car trip to visit their oldest daughter, who has just had a baby.
273* Similarly to in the book, much of ''Theatre/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' plays out as the main trio treks across the country to Los Angeles. There's even an obligatory upbeat travel montage.
274* In the musical ''Theatre/{{Violet}}'', the title character travels by Greyhound bus from [[UsefulNotes/{{Appalachia}} Spruce Pine, North Carolina]], to Tulsa, Oklahoma, with several stops along the way.
275* The comedy ''Theatre/LeavingIowa'' contains a road trip within a road trip. As columnist Don Browning drives across the Midwest trying to find a suitable place for his father's ashes, he remembers the summer driving vacations that Dad would take them on with all their stresses, frustrations, and near-death experiences of trying to dodge semis while passing traffic. Dad's long-ago destination (Hannibal, Missouri) is never actually seen in the play; the trip itself and how it changes Don is the point.
276[[/folder]]
277
278[[folder:Video Games]]
279* 80s edutainment game ''Are We There Yet?'' is about the Mallard family's quest to visit two usually-obscure tourist attractions in each of the fifty states.
280* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon2'' takes place on the road, with four heroes seeking to keep hope alive in a world going straight to hell.
281* ''VideoGame/DeathRoadToCanada'' is a road trip game that takes place during the ZombieApocalypse. Alongside fighting zombies, dealing with bandits or rescuing survivors, your party members will have to deal with mundane things like figuring out who farted in the car.
282* The [[VideoGame/TheRockwellSeries Rockwell Pursuit]] mod for ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' revolves around a trip from Nevada to a research facility in Vermont.
283* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' uses this, with protagonist [[WarriorPrince Noctis]] setting out on a road trip with his TrueCompanions to recover the stolen PowerCrystal that keeps their kingdom alive.
284* ''[[{{VideoGame/GetInTheCarLoser}} Get In The Car, Loser!]]'' is a Road Trip Plot fused with the plot of your standard RPG - a party goes on a journey to defeat a recently revived ancient evil, they just happen to have a nice car.
285* ''VideoGame/{{Jalopy}}'' sees the game's protagonist drive through Eastern Europe shortly post-Glasnost with his uncle on a trip said uncle took in his youth. The game's title comes from the vehicle acquired for the trip: an {{Expy}} of the Trabant, [[TheAllegedCar which will cause its fair share of complications]].
286* ''VideoGame/TheOregonTrail'' is an edutainment game about a family in the mid-nineteenth century crossing America to get to Oregon.
287* ''[[http://jayisgames.com/games/thule-trail/thuleTrail.html The Thule Trail]]'' is an ''Oregon Trail'' parody made in Flash, which has a typical modern RoadTripPlot.
288* ''VideoGame/Persona5Strikers'' features the Phantom Thieves on a BusmansHoliday around Japan, taking an RV to different cities where they enter the Metaverse to combat Shadows and take back the stolen Desires of the people in those cities.
289* ''VideoGame/Road96'' has you travelling across for over a thousand and a half miles across the game setting of Petria via a number of means while meeting interesting characters and falling into various situations as you ultimately try to get to the border [[spoiler: and maybe help overthrow the oppresive regime of the country.]]
290* ''VideoGame/RoadToGuangdong'', an Indie game where you're the matriarch of a family in 1990s China bringing your family on a road trip back to your ancestral home in Guangdong Province (well, duh) to attend an unexpected funeral. [[https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/nintendo-switch/road_to_guangdong That's pretty much the game's entire plot]].
291* ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesTournamentFighters'': The {{UsefulNotes/SNES}} version has stages all over... [[ArtisticLicenseGeography what is probably supposed to be the United States.]]
292* ''VideoGame/WarioWareIncMegaMicrogames'': In their chapter, Dribble and Spitz are asked by the player's avatar to be taken to the harbor during a rainy night. Winning the microgames symbolizes Dribble overcoming the difficulty of driving across the road during night while the downpour is ongoing. At the end, the taxi drivers manage to get their customer to the destination... and then that person is shown to be a merperson. Watching them depart to the vast sea is heartwarming for the drivers... until they realize that the merperson didn't pay them!
293[[/folder]]
294
295[[folder:Visual Novels]]
296* In ''VisualNovel/DaughterForDessert'', the protagonist and Amanda take a car trip to Whiskeyville. Apart from their main object (to fix their jukebox), the trip proves very eventful, with the sexual tension between the two of them reaching a tipping point, and with the two of them meeting Lily for the first time.
297[[/folder]]
298
299[[folder:Web Animation]]
300* ''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.
301-->'''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.
302[[/folder]]
303
304[[folder:Web Comics]]
305* ''Webcomic/CarryOn'': Kathy, Freddy and Sandy have been on an epic Type 1 / Type 2 hybrid trip for [[http://www.hirezfox.com/km/co/d/20130909.html a while now]].
306* ''Webcomic/DropOut'' is about main characters Sugar and Lola taking a cross-country road trip to the Grand Canyon... [[SuicidePact where they will proceed to jump to their deaths.]]
307* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive''s "Hammerchlorians" arc dedicates several pages to a Type 1a road trip.
308* ''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]].
309* 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.
310* ''Webcomic/TheLessThanEpicAdventuresOfTjAndAmal'': Amal is a guy in trouble with his family due to just coming out to them and TJ is an eccentric guy he met on a bar. Together, they cross the US to get to Amal's sister's graduation, as well as taking TJ away from California so he can start a new life.
311* ''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...
312[[/folder]]
313
314[[folder:Web Original]]
315* ''Literature/ChakonaSpace'': Plenty of [[CasualInterstellarTravel interstellar]] type 2 and 3 trips.
316* A minor plot in Volume 3 of ''Literature/SimpleComplications'' is Ted and Lyle going on a roadtrip. It's mostly just used for one off jokes in between the more serious storyline that took over that volume.
317* ''[[Podcast/NeoScum NeoScum]]'' turns into this by Episode 12, when the crew decides to run away from their problems in Chicago and Minneapolis and drive to California, making pit stops and enemies all along the way.
318[[/folder]]
319
320[[folder:Web Videos]]
321* While the first ''Chris and Scottie's Road Trip'' (made by the same man behind ''WebVideo/TheIrateGamer'') was a [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=hxy9ub2egx1v5o6tciahi3h7 World Tour]], the second installment is focused on the US instead.
322* Find TheAllegedCar. Go on road trip with it. Break down multiple times and hack together fixes using absolutely sketchy methods and whatever the hell is lying around for parts. Use said Alleged Car for something it never was meant to, most likely failing at it in a photogenic and hilarious manner. Congratulations, you just made an episode of ''WebVideo/{{Roadkill}}''!
323* ''WebVideo/{{Tabletop}}'': Invoked in the ''TabletopGame/DragonAge'' episode, where the party members joke that they're basically the cast of an '80s road trip movie: Thinly needs to get laid, Keegan is "trying to make up for the [[NoodleIncident football thing]]", Fonzor is there to make out with chicks, and Gorek just wants to go home.
324* In the summer of 2022, good friends and fellow YouTubers Ted Nivison and Eddy Burback set out to visit and eat at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA-bjpKvIw8&t=300s every single Rainforest Cafe]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7InqrH1TCI8 in the United States (and Canada)]]. One year later, in the summer of 2023, they set out on a second excursion, this time to visit every single [[Music/JimmyBuffett Margaritaville]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsb9T1g5nlE&t=1734s in the US]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj9Oy2Jx2dM&t=138s&pp=ygUbZWRkeSBidXJiYWNrIG1hcmdhcml0YXZpbGxl and Canada]]. The two end up experiencing many of the classic road trip experiences, visiting bizarre and unique roadside attractions, dealing with car malfunctions, racing against the clock, and, in Eddy's case, [[Main/SanitySlippage slowly going mad]].
325[[/folder]]
326
327[[folder:Western Animation]]
328* 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 Big Butt Rock. They never reach their destination because they accidentally drive the van into the lake.
329* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': "Independent Movie" is a {{Homage}} and AffectionateParody of this kind of movie, and uses this kind of plot, since it's a rather popular subject for independent American cinema, with Steve and his friends driving through the country so Snot can be in his estranged father's funeral.
330* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': The first several episodes of Season 2 are about Anne and the Plantars on the road heading towards the Amphibian capital city Newtopia and their misadventures along the way. After spending several episodes in the city, their return trip then consists of a single episode before they get back.
331* In an episode of ''{{WesternAnimation/Arthur}}'' Arthur and his family are taking a vacation to the beach. Arthur just wants to go to camp all by himself (and with his friends) but his family has to keep reminding him of how fun things can be. Even though things turn out bad at first, it winds up being a perfect vacation.
332* ''WesternAnimation/BeingIan'': A two parter season finale has Ian and his family crossing the country so Ian can take part in an amateur film competition that is being judged by his idol. [[spoiler:It becomes an in-universe example when he loses the movie he was going to submit and edits the footage he got of his family during their trip there to make a road trip independent movie as his entry]].
333* 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.
334* The third ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' MadeForTVMovie, ''WesternAnimation/RealityTrip'', doubled as this when the titular hero and his friends had to travel cross-country to obtain three magic gems.
335* ''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".
336* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' seems to have gone on more than one with their "Road To..." episodes.
337* ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'': have gone on a variety of different Road Trips.
338* One ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode, "[[Recap/FuturamaS3E13BendinInTheWind Bendin' in the Wind]]" where they follow Beck in a VW bus is a Type 1a.
339* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' has "Roadside Attraction" in which Dipper, Mabel, Stan, Candy, Grenda and Soos go on a statewide road trip, which includes sabotaging Stan’s rival tourist traps, Dipper learning to talk to girls and [[MonsterOfTheWeek giant spiders.]]
340* The ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode aptly titled "Road Trip" is kind of a subversion of Type 1a: The entire episode takes place while the family is coming ''home'' from a road trip.
341* ''WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw'' episode "Family Vacation" sees the Murphys on one of these, complete with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhF4nNje9yE a song.]]
342* The ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' short "Daisy's Road Trip" has Daisy inviting herself on a road trip with Mickey and Minnie. She spends much of the trip driving them insane.
343-->"AARDVARK CROSSING!"
344* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Several trips happen in the show:
345** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E21OverABarrel Over a Barrel]]" may count as a Type 2, with the Mane Six and Spike taking a trip by train to Appleloosa.
346** "[[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.
347** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E19RoadToFriendship Road to Friendship]]" is another clear-cut Type 1a, focusing on Trixie and Starlight going on a road tour to take Trixie's magic show to [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Saddle Arabia]], while facing issues such as difficult terrain, the cramped confines of Trixie's wagon, inns with no vacancies and mounting irritation with each other.
348* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatiansTheSeries'' has the three-part series finale "Dalmatian Vacation".
349* ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'': In "Road Rash", Heffer talks Rocko into going on a trip to see a tourist attraction called Phlegm Rock before it's closed down. Hijinks ensue, ranging from the struggle to find a decent motel, to having to ask for directions from easily-distracted locals, to Rocko trashing their motorcycle trying to stop the tape player and having to complete their trip in a hot-dog-shaped car Heffer wins in a contest, to an encounter with some surprisingly-friendly bikers.
350* The ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' episode "Planes, Trains and Dude-Mobiles" has Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles going on a road trip to participate in a concert. Despite the number of bathroom breaks, tourist trap stops, and a run-in with the police, they make it to their destination. [[ShaggyDogStory Only to find that their concert isn't for another month.]]
351* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' had a few vacation-themed episodes during the eighth season.
352** In "A [=SquarePants=] Family Vacation" [=SpongeBob=] is bringing Patrick along on his family vacation to a water park but the two get lost along the way.
353** In "Walking the Plankton" Plankton and his wife go on a cruise but it is actually party of a plan to steal the Krabby Patty formula.
354** In "Mooncation", [=SpongeBob=] tags along with Sandy on her vacation to the Moon.
355** Lastly, in "Mr. Krabs Takes a Vacation" [=SpongeBob=] tags along with Mr. Krabs & Pearl on a vacation to the Bikini Bottom Mint, much to Pearl's disappointment.
356* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
357** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E20BartOnTheRoad Bart on the Road]]", Bart and some of his friends take Type 1 in order to visit a world fair [[spoiler: that turns out to have closed years ago, making this Type 1b]].
358** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS17E11WereOnTheRoadToDohwhere We're on the Road to D'ohwhere]]", 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.
359** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS32E8TheRoadToCincinnati The Road to Cincinnati]]," Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers head on an 800-mile road trip to Cincinnati so Chalmers can deliver the keynote speech at an educators' convention.
360* 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.
361* One of the final episodes of Nickelodeon's ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' has a Type 1 with Doug's family off 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.
362* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'':
363** "[[Recap/TheLoudHouseS1E4TheSweetSpotATaleOfTwoTables The Sweet Spot]]" has Lincoln (and then his sisters) vying to sit in the "sweet spot", the only good seat in Vanzilla, for a road trip the following day. The trip turns into type 1b before it even begins, as it gets cancelled when the kids' violent brawl for the seat completely destroys Vanzilla.
364** A later episode, "[[Recap/TheLoudHouseS3E1Tripped Tripped!]]" features an actual road trip. The Loud family have worked hard to save money for their family vacation to the Weeping Willow Resort & Lodge on Lake Michigan, but as they drive to their destination, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. [[TheAllegedCar Vanzilla]] breaks down and later accidentally ends up on a car carrier, the Loud family attend an open mic night to raise money for new transportation, they encounter a prisoner when they accidentally get on a prison bus, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Leni made egg salad sandwiches weeks ahead of the road trip]], which make the family sick.
365* The hour-long special ''Tiger Family Trip'' from ''WesternAnimation/DanielTigersNeighborhood'' premiered in May 2017. The double-length story "Tiger Family Trip" is only the first part of it and the part the contains the actual road trip. The rest of the special is spending time at Grandpere's and vacationing, followed by the BoringReturnJourney that is only depicted on-screen in about a minute or so. Given the EdutainmentShow aspect of the program, "Tiger Family Trip" focuses on strategies for making a long road trip bearable for both youngsters and their parents, one of which is to take breaks every so often at someplace like a play park so the kids aren't just spending the entire trip cooped up in a vehicle.
366* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'' episode "Road Stories" where Granny and Caprice embark on a world road trip for a reality TV show, and Granny decides to drive the van to the forest near their house and secretly fake their visits to world destinations using a backdrop.
367* ''WesternAnimation/WowWowWubbzy'' has the episode "Wubbzy's Wacky Journey", in which he and his friends embark on a trip to Wuzzleburg after he previously wins the Wubb Girlz' TalentContest in Wuzzleburg. However, Walden refuses to let anyone stop at fun places along the drive to Wuzzlewood. HilarityEnsues as expected when Wubbzy sneaks off the Wubb-Mobile to spend time at Wacky World, bumping into the Wubb Girlz. As his friends arrive there and find out, they suggest using the Wubb Jet to arrive in Wuzzlewood on time for the rehearsal which, after some time enjoying rides, they then do.
368[[/folder]]
369
370[[folder:Real Life]]
371OlderThanRadio:
372* In 1888, Bertha Benz was convinced that her husband's newly invented motorcar was much more than a technological curiosity and had huge potential to revolutionize transportation. So she took the car that previously had only been used for short engine tests on the factory grounds and went on a road trip to visit her mother with her two sons. Even though they had to deal with various complications like running out of fuel (a pharmacy was able to help) and engine failure, they still made the 100 km trip in a single day. A journey with a horse carriage would have been a trip of at least three days. She also came up with the idea for a multi-speed gearbox, which would allow the car to be driven slowly uphill or quickly across flatter terrain.
373* In 1903 Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson bet he could drive from San Francisco to his home in Vermont. After purchasing a 20hp Winton automobile and hiring a mechanic to ride with him, they set off. The journey would take three months. It's regarded as America's First Roadtrip.
374* If you have a car or a reasonable amount of disposable income - The road goes ever on...
375* This has been a major sticking point in getting people to embrace [[UsefulNotes/ElectricVehicles electric cars]]. Before lithium-ion batteries, their range was severely limited, and before high-voltage DC charging (such as Tesla's Superchargers), recharging took several hours (if one could even find a place to plug in while on the road). Even people who rarely if ever drive long distances tend to be hesitant to deny themselves that option. Things have gotten better, but many people still associate "electric" with "useless for road trips".
376[[/folder]]

Top