We drove cross-country, and these were the 16 coolest places we stopped along the way, plus 3 spots we'd skip next timeNEWS | 04 December 2025Driving cross-country was never something I had planned on doing, but it was my partner's lifelong dream.
Driving cross-country was never something I had planned on doing, but it was my partner's lifelong dream. Michelle Gross
Driving cross-country was never something I had planned on doing, but it was my partner's lifelong dream. Michelle Gross
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Driving cross-country is an ambitious journey that always sounded a bit more romantic to me in theory than in practice.
But when my partner convinced me to expand my horizons a few years ago, we started planning with the Ralph Waldo Emerson adage "it's not the destination, it's the journey," as our guiding principle.
We drove a total of 6,036 miles cross-country from New York to my hometown of San Diego and back — and I figured we might as well see as many cool and quirky things along the way as possible.
Here are the places we stopped that I would go to again and the spots I'd skip next time.Author: Michelle Gross. Source
