Last year, I was fortunate to travel in the Southeastern US and visit many places. While deciding where to go, I used a series of WPA (Works Progress Administration) state guides. These guides were researched and compiled as part of the WPA Federal Writers Project https://www.britannica.com/topic/WPA-Federal-Writers-Project. They are a marvelous series of books produced in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Each Guide documents the state, the major towns, industries, entertainment, and even history. My favorite part of the WPA guides are the “Tours.” Each tour takes you along a road from one end to the other, describing that road, each town or village, and sights to see in each, from buildings to factories, and all the high points along the way.
By reading the WPA guides, you get a birds-eye view of each state, you learn about places that don’t exist any more and those that hadn’t matured. Florida, where I traveled the most, was a cast in point. Ft. Lauderdale was described in a paragraph, Boca Raton and Delray Beach not at all. Along each road on the tour were descriptions of the farms, ranches, and the everglades. What better way to learn about a place, to travel, than to see past and present intersect? You might not call this armchair traveling, but I certainly read in my armchair before venturing to explore Lake Okeechobee and places beyond.
You can read all about the WPA State Guides on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Guide_Series Many have been reprinted and some are available on the used market. You can also find the WPA State Guides online at the Internet Archive and HathiTrust.
One day, I want to travel Route 1 from Florida to Maine using that WPA guide
The other book I took with me on this trip, and many others, was William Least Heat Moon’s now classic Blue Highways: A Journey into America. In this amazing book, originally published in 1983, William Least Heat Moon takes readers along with him as he travels the lesser roads, blue highways on state maps, and sees what he can see. He’s a keen observer of places and people, stopping along the way to take in the sights, sounds, and foods, as he drives his pickup with a camper on the back. On my trip down to Florida, there were days when I drove the same blue highways and saw similar sights. What a treat to have someone describe the history of a place and then see it for myself. At night in hotels, I read in my armchair, traveling along with Heat-Moon, and marveling at the scenery and cultures across the length and breadth of America.
Tomorrow, Day 5, we’ll be armchair traveling via maps and books of map. Stay tuned!
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