Get your kicks on Route 66: why American road trips rule
A 372-mile journey from Phoenix to California in a Bentley Continental GT is no hardship The US is so big that you tend to default to jumping on a plane for any intercity journey. Indeed, the Google Maps journey planner in North America treats plane journeys the same way as it does train journeys here. For example: Phoenix, Arizona, to San Diego, California, is given as a 1hr 25min flight for £77 or a six-hour, 372-mile drive. The former is the easy option and something often necessitated by time. Yet fortunate timing on recent back-to-back work events and a Bentley Continental GT that needed repatriating to California meant that I could at last take the latter option and go on a proper journey, rather than just a trip. Phoenix itself seemed to go on forever and was most notable from the road for its admirable commitment to listing every single fast-food outlet available at each highway junction. Once west of Phoenix, I headed south at Buckeye – less impressive than it sounds – then west again onto Interstate 8 at Gila Bend, a rather sad place that felt like it had been left behind by the modern world. A gas stop at Dateland gave me the first chance to stretch my legs, and naturally they had gone all in on the date theme inside the shop. Strikingly so. Row after row of sweet, shrivelled fruits in every form imaginable, from key ring to extra hot. The nice man behind the counter told me about a great burrito place for lunch up the road in Yuma, the only town of any significance en route. The food was more Yucka than Yuma in the end, but it’s the thought that counts. An Australian mate told me he loves the UK so much because you can travel only a few miles and end up in a totally different landscape. The Sonoran Desert is the complete opposite of that – a bit like the Aussie bush in that there’s almost nothing to report for mile after mile. ‘Big RV park at Fortuna Foothills’ reads one of my notes from the road. I will never speak ill of the M6 again. When crossing into California, it looks like the Sahara for a while, and there are some checkpoints, due to the proximity to Mexico, to add a bit of jeopardy. You can spy Trump’s big fence here, too. About five hours in, the desert ends, you cross the Laguna Mountains, climb up and then descend into San Diego – a quite peculiar place that seems largely deserted, save for a massive cordoned-off street that resembles Albufeira in Portugal, with bar after massive bar offering happy hour deals. Yet to whom? This all sounds a bit po-faced for a Why I love column, but that’s not the intention: these sorts of journeys become addictions, the banal becoming brilliant. Within about 30 minutes of being parked up in San Diego, I was ready to open another pack of dates and do it all again.
A 372-mile journey from Phoenix to California in a Bentley Continental GT is no hardship
The US is so big that you tend to default to jumping on a plane for any intercity journey.
Indeed, the Google Maps journey planner in North America treats plane journeys the same way as it does train journeys here.
For example: Phoenix, Arizona, to San Diego, California, is given as a 1hr 25min flight for £77 or a six-hour, 372-mile drive. The former is the easy option and something often necessitated by time.
Yet fortunate timing on recent back-to-back work events and a Bentley Continental GT that needed repatriating to California meant that I could at last take the latter option and go on a proper journey, rather than just a trip.
Phoenix itself seemed to go on forever and was most notable from the road for its admirable commitment to listing every single fast-food outlet available at each highway junction.
Once west of Phoenix, I headed south at Buckeye – less impressive than it sounds – then west again onto Interstate 8 at Gila Bend, a rather sad place that felt like it had been left behind by the modern world.
A gas stop at Dateland gave me the first chance to stretch my legs, and naturally they had gone all in on the date theme inside the shop. Strikingly so.
Row after row of sweet, shrivelled fruits in every form imaginable, from key ring to extra hot.
The nice man behind the counter told me about a great burrito place for lunch up the road in Yuma, the only town of any significance en route.
The food was more Yucka than Yuma in the end, but it’s the thought that counts.
An Australian mate told me he loves the UK so much because you can travel only a few miles and end up in a totally different landscape.
The Sonoran Desert is the complete opposite of that – a bit like the Aussie bush in that there’s almost nothing to report for mile after mile.
‘Big RV park at Fortuna Foothills’ reads one of my notes from the road. I will never speak ill of the M6 again.
When crossing into California, it looks like the Sahara for a while, and there are some checkpoints, due to the proximity to Mexico, to add a bit of jeopardy. You can spy Trump’s big fence here, too.
About five hours in, the desert ends, you cross the Laguna Mountains, climb up and then descend into San Diego – a quite peculiar place that seems largely deserted, save for a massive cordoned-off street that resembles Albufeira in Portugal, with bar after massive bar offering happy hour deals. Yet to whom?
This all sounds a bit po-faced for a Why I love column, but that’s not the intention: these sorts of journeys become addictions, the banal becoming brilliant.
Within about 30 minutes of being parked up in San Diego, I was ready to open another pack of dates and do it all again.
