Road Trip USA Pacific Coast Highway

Contributors

By Jamie Jensen

Formats and Prices

Price

$11.99

Price

$15.99 CAD

Format

Trade Paperback

Format:

Trade Paperback $11.99 $15.99 CAD

The Road Awaits!

From the evergreen giants of the Pacific Northwest to the beaches and brews of San Diego, Road Trip USA: Pacific Coast Highway reveals the best of the PCH.

  • Excerpted from Road Trip USA
  • Mile-by-mile highlights so you can make the most of this winding highway through Olympic National Park, Cape Perpetua, Avenue of the Giants, Hearst Castle, and more
  • Driving maps covering 1,500 miles of classic American blacktop, from Oregon’s ancient forests down the coast to California’s sunny beaches
  • Vintage snapshots, full-color photos, and beautiful illustrations of the West Coast both then and now in a slim, portable guide
  • Local history that reveals the unique personalities of small towns and big cities along the route, plus roadside curiosities and worthwhile detours
  • Expert advice from road-warrior Jamie Jensen, who has zoomed along nearly 400,000 miles of highway in search of the perfect stretches of pavement
Road Trip USA: Pacific Coast Highway celebrates the great American road trip, and gives you the tools, resources, and inspiration to make it your own. Hit the Road!

Want more road trips? Criss-cross the country on two-lane highways with the 11 routes in Road Trip USA.

Series:

On Sale
Apr 17, 2018
Page Count
152 pages
Publisher
Moon Travel
ISBN-13
9781640493643

Jamie Jensen

About the Author

Growing up along Route 66 in Southern California, Jamie Jensen was immersed in road trip culture at an early age. Back then, freeways were new, cheeseburgers cost a quarter, and every beach had a waterfront amusement park. Family road trips to national parks and historic sites nurtured an appreciation of the USA's distinctive natural landscapes, one-of-a-kind attractions, and unexpected local traditions.

A summer break from studying architecture in college turned into a two-year odyssey driving, hiking, biking, and hitch-hiking all over the continent. Odd jobs became unforgettable experiences. He made hay in the summer heat of the Midwest, crewed sailboats from Cape Cod to Chesapeake Bay, and tuned guitars in a Manhattan recording studio.

A fondness for old road maps and a chance encounter with the 1930s WPA Guides led to an obsessive exploration of the two-lane highways that preceded today's interstate freeways. To spread the word about small-town businesses surviving in the face of anonymous "big box" chain stores and sprawling suburbs, Jamie set to work on Road Trip USA, which first appeared in 1996. Since that prehistoric era of paper maps and pay phones, technology has brought once-distant places ever closer. New generations have been busy reviving old gas stations as microbreweries and turning historic warehouses into farmers markets. Meanwhile, parenting his twin sons Tom and Alex provided Jamie with a good excuse for enjoying minor league baseball games, studying historic plaques, and taking silly photos of roadside dinosaurs and supersized Paul Bunyans.

After a half-million miles spent in search of the perfect stretch of two-lane blacktop, the joy of discovery remains strong. Jamie still feels that sense of adventure every time he gets behind the wheel and heads out on the road.

Learn more about this author