How does a place become a home? And how and why do we choose the places that become our homes? We’re two recent college grads, taking a moment to fully take advantage of this brief transitional pause in our lives to embark on and document our version of the great American road trip.The desire to traverse and explore the vast United States of America is a timeless impulse, and we want to follow in
the footsteps of Steinbeck, Kerouac, Sternfeld and Friedlander and so many others in trying to get a better grasp on the place we are from, while also exploring the notion of home through writing and photography. As we travel, first North, then stretching East across the country, and finally down South and back West, we want to talk to the people we meet, to photograph the spaces that they inhabit, or the quirks and elements of their towns and cities that make it unique to them, that make them feel like home. We will make this journey in a van that will be our home for the 6 month duration of the trip but we also hope to connect with others using CouchSurfing and possibly other sites like Meetup to see new places from a perspective that avoids tourism as much as possible and instead delves into the essence of a place. We want to invite others to share their thoughts on home and to weave together their ideas and the photographs of these places into a kind of patchwork portrait of the United States, our home country. We’ll be documenting the trip on our blog and through Social Media, sharing photos, writing, and possibly videos, but the ultimate goal is to create a book that combines written observation and photography, an account of two girls’ experiences getting to know their homeland.
