Road Tripping in Mainland China

Road trips have been part of my psyche since before memory. I’ve grown up watching them in movies, taking part as a passenger and later in life spent a good few months in an ’86 Ford Mustang criss crossing North America in search of that highway nirvana. Ever since starting my driving career I’ve been at it, known as the fool who gets in a car and drives for twenty hours to no visible end. 

For those uninitiated out there, road trips remain a colossal symbol for many, most popularized by American culture (although definitely not exclusively an American pastime). 

Folks road trip for many reasons, but all share the same atmosphere and basic principles: you don’t just use the road, you live it. An open highway and big skies just the start of it, other elements join to create a motorized adventure most people deem insanity in an age where you can travel by plane rather than spend untold hours cooped up in a small vehicle. Therefore road trips aren’t for the lazy or weak, rather they exist to please dedicated souls capable of appreciating the bond between human and machine, not to mention good roadside diners and motels. 

Ever since relocating to Beijing this writer engaged numerous individuals in an effort to promote mainland road trips. Resistance has been fierce generally speaking, with the concept appearing exceedingly alien to most, local, expat and even extraterrestrial (ok the latter’s a bad joke). Conversation partners usually seem to think getting in a car and driving long distance in China would be sheer folly, quoting anything from high costs through bad roads to highway bandits (now how dumb is that?) as reasons. Strangely enough, these same people typically see nothing wrong with taking a 40 hour train ride, but that’s for psychologists to analyze. 

So this passed National Week off I went once more to peruse China’s growing express and highway network, hoping to break my own distance record (previously Dalian was the furthest I’ve driven to).