The dream of driving the Pan-American Highway, the world’s longest road, was becoming a reality. After a decade of contemplation, years of planning, and months of Spanish lessons, I sat quietly in my driveway, waiting to leave. I was surrounded by four seasons’ worth of clothes, protein bars, spare car parts, and a whole lot of uncertainty. Had I prepared enough? Should I even be doing this? I turned on the engine and headed out.
For Americans, the term 'highway' evokes visions of something fast and expansive—a thoroughfare crossing state borders wrapped with guardrails and signage. However, a highway, by definition, is just the main road linking significant dots on a map. The materials used and the condition of that road are variable. The Pan-American Highway is a mostly unmarked collection of asphalt, gravel, and cultivated mud. It stretches a total of 19,000 miles, from Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska to Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina.
First envisioned in 1889 as a railroad linking Central America to the United States, the Pan-American route was abandoned when work on the Panama Canal began in 1903. Revived in 1937 as a highway project, 14 countries agreed to build it, with Mexico completing its section in 1950. In 1956, America's Federal Aid Highway Act fueled an interstate boom that reshaped postwar life around the automobile. By 1963, the final sections of the Pan-American Highway were completed. Far from uniform, the highways within each country reflect the terrain and economy they pass through.
In America, this new found network of roads, combined with cheap gas, made traveling long distances faster and more accessible. Before there were terms like VanLifers, Roadtrippers, and Overlanders, a culture of highway explorers formed. The cross-country road trip became a staple of summer vacations. Four years before the official completion of the Pan-American Highway, Danny Liska set off from his home in Nebraska and became one of the first people to travel the entire route.
The summer I turned 14, my family piled into a minivan and left Kentucky, driving west. The trees got smaller and the hills got bigger. After a few days we made it to Mount Rushmore. It was the furthest I’d ever been away from home. When we turned back, I can still remember thinking, what else is out there? What would we see if we kept driving? That curiosity has stuck with me. I set out to drive the Pan-American Highway because I wanted to go past all the familiar places I’d been. I wanted an adventure.
