A NATION ON WHEELS

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 54, 27 November 1926, Page 24

A NATION ON WHEELS

AMERICA GOES ON HOLIDAY It mav look to the Europeans as if the whole of America spent its summer holiday abroad, but as a matter of statistical fact, scarcely more than 300,000 Americans out of a total of 120,000,000 have crossed the area this season. It is true that they spend per person far more than the holiday-makers left behind. The Department of Commerce estimates that American tourists are leaving in Europe £2lO each, or a total of £72,000,000 this summer. The home-staying citizens in by far the greatest single group have been taking this year’s holidays in motorcars. The American Automobile Association estimates that 9,000,000 motorcars will have carried their owners,, families, and friends on pleasure bent bv the end of the summer, a total of 36.000 000 ■ persons, taking the moderate average of four to the car. The expenditure of the 36.000.000 holidaymakers is placed at £100.000,000 for the season, which is extraordinarily low for America.

Motorists take with them a camping outfit and halt for the night or for as long as thev desire wherever the mood strikes them. They prepare their own food either wholly or in

part, and improve their health by leading the open-air life, now so popular in America. There is scarcely a city or town of importance in the United States that has not adequate camping areas for summer motorists. There are between 5000 and GOOO of these open fields scattered throughout the country, where motoring visitors pull up for the night, unstrap' their tents, and sleep under the protection of law and order. New York Citv has a splendid camp for motorists in Palisades Interstate Park, just across the Hudson River. Still another way of spending the summer out of doors is tramping. It has lone been the custom, of course, for manv Americans to go forth on walking tours, but the summer traniper tinder modern conditions is a boy, 1-1 to 16 rears old, who, with his chum—tlicv .almost always go in pairs—sets forth from home to mingle tramping with “hitching.” To “hitch” is to solicit free rides from passing motorists. By this means a summer journey of 1500 miles from home is no unusual experience,