Travels with Charley & The Geography of North America

Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue by American author John Steinbeck. It documents the road trip he took with his French standard poodle Charley around the United States, in 1960. He wrote that he was moved by a desire to see his country on a personal level, since he made his living writing about it. He had many questions going into his journey, the main one being, "What are Americans like today?" However, he found that the "new America" did not live up to his expectations.

Steinbeck traveled throughout the United States in a specially-made camper which he named "Rocinante" after the horse of Don Quixote. He started his travels in Long Island, New York roughly following the outer border of the United States, from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, down into his native Salinas Valley in California, across to Texas, up through the Deep South, and then back to New York, a trip encompassing nearly 10,000 miles.

According to Thom Steinbeck, the author's older son, the real reason for the trip was that Steinbeck knew he was dying and wanted to see his country one last time. Thom says he was surprised that his stepmother (Steinbeck's wife) allowed Steinbeck to make the trip; because of his heart condition he could have died at any time.

Steinbeck began the book by describing his life-long wanderlust and his preparations to travel the country again, after 25 years. He was 58 years old in 1960 and nearing the end of his career, but he felt that he "was writing of something [he] did not know about, and it seemed to [him] that in a so-called writer this is criminal". He had a truck fitted with a custom camper-shell ...