This book was pretty good. Took me a while to get into it but I enjoyed most of the whole book. It was just wordy in some parts and lost my interest.

This is a pretty random bit of a walkabout. Reynolds seems to be going more for genial interactions and engaging digressions than for any sort of penetrating insight, and that's just fine if you want a bit of a ramble. Not exactly a page turner, but a fun and amiable American road trip sampler.

I enjoy a travelogue and this one was interesting in parts but it read more like a repetitive review of local bars, motels and people's thoughts in Donald Trump than anything else. The author also seemed strangely fascinated by people's weight which I found quite off-putting.

I picked up David Reynolds' book as I love US road trips and have read a number of other road trip books in the last few years. David Reynolds has picked an interesting route across the US for this book and I like the way he is interested in whatever he finds along his route, rather than designing a route in terms of places of interest.

However, unfortunately the writing style has limitations. It is somewhat prosaic; we learn very little about the writer, his feelings, his motivations etc. He clearly has a specific range of interests and therefore tends to do a lot of the same things during this trip - visit museums, sit in bars, eat salmon, ask people about Trump. This tends to become repetitive as the book goes on and means that for the reader, one destination tends to blend into another.

While I do not read books on travel experiences very frequently, I like them for being informative on new places, culture and other experiences, including some humorous. A road trip from the east to the west coast spanning 3000 miles looked like it might be an interesting read.

David Reynolds travels to the US from London, UK to make a US east to west coast road trip. He starts from Ocean City, Maryland to keep on Highway 50 till San Francisco, described as a lonely road for much of its length. He has no pre-booked places to stay, strangely does not use GPS (getting lost on and off as a result) and just keeps driving, stopping and looking around where he feels like it. Quite a bit of his travel is through “Trump Country” where the former US President has a strong base. The conversation at each of stops starts with his appeal. An explanation he most likes, is when a man tells him that he supports Trump as he wants him to swagger on the behalf of commoners (who are fighting every day challenges) against intellectual snobs.

While the political discourse dominates a lot of his conversations (quite unnecessarily, and comes across as stale after a point), there are also some good conversations around history, slavery, ethnic Indians & weather. There is too much of detail around what he ate & drank at his stops – indicates meticulous note-taking but is tedious to read. I liked how he was able to strike conversations with strangers quite easily, but the topics could have been more diverse and interesting. Overall, a decent read though should have been a lot crisper.

My rating: 3.5 / 5.

Past the half-way mark in the book, the author mentions that he did a road-trip from the Canada to the Mexico border and wrote about it – just maybe I will look that up.

I’m always interested in travelogues as I love to travel and record my experiences and impressions. I was intrigued by an Englishman, who grew up on American western movies and books, traversing the continent along route 50. He traveled right through the heart of the Midwest, where I am from, even stopping in my home town, but strangely he didn’t mention the albino rodents that have made it famous. He mixes with the locals in most towns, but it was irritating how he kept bringing up politics. He also got lost a lot. I kept asking myself why doesn’t he get a GPS?
It was interesting to read his interpretation of American history, but I disagree with some of his explanations and definitions.

Ever since I've taken a few road trips in America I've been fascinated to learn more about the back roads and smaller communities and unlike many travelogues Reynolds' finds something new to say about each place he visits, like his trip it is a slow sprawling read that lets you get beyond some of the obvious views of America.
His hit and miss experiences of museums and the sampling of the beers as he travels really resonated with me and I can't wait until travel is easier again and we can get off the beaten track on an American road trip again.

A Brit on Rt. 50 in the age of Trump. Slow Road to San Francisco follows Londoner David Reynolds from Ocean City, MD to the West Coast, mixing humor (his takes on baseball and roadside motels are hilarious), familiar locations & history that many Americans don't know.

This book caught my attention when I saw San Francisco, almost lost me with the mention of Trump, but got me back when I saw Ocean City, Maryland. I love those two cities, with the latter being full of summer memories from my youth.

Being a people watcher myself, I like to observe and see people just living life. So the writing an observations made me feel like I met my travel doppelgänger. An interesting route and view of the people and roads that make America what it is.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this early. I loved it! We are teaching a travel writing scheme at school and there are so many extracts that I would love to use in class once I get hold of a final copy. I really interesting take and I would recommend that everyone gives it a go!