America Road Trip Project

Hugo Fernandez, New Mexico, circa February 1986

Here we go.

The slightly crazy idea I floated back on July 9 has evolved into an actual book project, which will take place on the road all across the USA in September and October 2025.

It doesn’t have a title yet, so I’m just calling it the “America Road Trip Project.”

The plan is, I’m going to rent a car, and drive back and forth across the USA with my old friend Hugo Fernandez, who is a Professor of Photography. We are going to meet and talk about “America” with people from all walks of life and political persuasions.

Our adventures on the road, the stories and perspectives of the people we meet along the way, and Hugo’s photographs of the country and its denizens will be published as a book by Arcade Publishing sometime next year.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has extended offers of support or provided feedback on my initial ideas! Your enthusiasm convinced me that this project is worth doing. If you’re one of the many readers who has offered to help support the project financially, there’s information on how to do that at the end of this post.

We only have about six weeks to raise money and sort out details before I have to get on a plane to New York, so preparation for the road trip is going to consume most of my focus for the rest of the summer. I’ll post updates as the project takes shape, and reports from the road once we get underway, of course, but I’m not going to have the time to also churn out humorous commentary on whatever distractionary nonsense the Powers That Be are bombarding everyone with on any given day. Basically, this project is going to dominate my Substack output for the next three to four months.

If that gets too boring for you, well, there are tons of writers on the Internet slinging partisan slop at each other and telling everyone what to think about everything. I’m rather tired of all that kind of stuff, myself, but I’ll understand if you aren’t and need to ditch me for a while.

I hope you’ll stay tuned, though, because I think this is going to be a pretty interesting project, and I’d like to continue to benefit from your feedback and support as we put it together and ultimately carry it out.

Here are some of my thoughts about the project so far, and ways you can help …

• A lot of other writers have done the American road trip thing. So that’s not new. What is unique, however, is the weird perspective I bring to it. I’m an American, but I have lived in Europe for twenty years. So, in a sense, I’m coming home to a country I have never been to before. I want to discover and explore that country, as it is today, or as many parts of it as I can, as a stranger in a strange homeland.

• The parts of it we’re planning to visit are … the Northeast, the Midwest, the West, “Big Sky Country,” the West Coast, the Southwest, and the Deep South. It’s going to be a whirlwind tour, as we only have about six weeks to do it all.

• You can help us out by (a) steering us towards places you think we need to visit and/or people we need to talk to in the region you live in, (b) helping organize a social event where we can hang out and talk to people—including, but not only, book signings/readings at local bookstores or cafes, which I’m happy to do, but that is not my main goal, and (c) supporting the project financially via our Free Funder crowdfunding gizmo, or one of the other options below.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’m mainly relying on a few sponsors, or patrons, i.e., people who can make largish contributions to the project, and who will of course get prominently acknowledged in the book, rather than hitting up working people on budgets who have already given me more money than they probably should have (e.g., for my legal defense fund in 2023 and 2024). If you would like to become one of those sponsors, or patrons, please get in touch via the contact form at the Consent Factory.

Many readers have expressed a desire to support the project with smaller donations, so we have also set up this crowdfunding thing, which is up and running now …

And here are two other options …

1. Direct bank transfer:

Christopher Hopkins
IBAN: DE39 1007 0024 0111 9254 00
BIC/SWIFT: DEUTDEDBBER

Deutsche Bank
Alexanderstraße 5
10178 Berlin

2. My PayPal. (I know, it’s PayPal. But there’s no Venmo in Europe.)

I will be very grateful for your support in whatever form it takes. I have a hunch this could turn out to be a pretty good book. As I mentioned above, a lot of other writers and photographers have done the USA road trip thing, but timing is everything, and this seems like the perfect historical moment for Hugo and I to do it.

That’s it for now. I’ll keep you posted … and maybe I’ll even see you back home!

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