Easy Rider

1-LAX | 2-Needles | 3-Monument Valley | 4-Arroyo Hondo | 5-Las Vegas
6-U.S. 84 | 7-West of Paris (TX) | 8-Madame Tinkertoy's | 9-Highway 1

Shot on a budget as thin as a coke straw, and written under the influence of various controlled substances, this 1969 road-buddy classic nevertheless managed to become one of the most important films of the sixties.

The route:

The dismally picaresque movie follows two drug-dealing motorcyclists, Wyatt (Peter Fonda), and Billy (Dennis Hopper) on a road trip from California through the American Southwest to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Critics praised its choppy narrative, quick camera cuts, terse dialogue, incoherent drug sequences and catchy rock soundtrack and viewed it as a commentary on all sorts of pressing questions of the time: freedom, violence, LSD, hippies, personal responsibility, and the ultimate futility of complete liberty. The title (and the theme-song, "Born to Be Wild") has since become an emblem for exuberant motorcyclists everywhere.

But its original meaning was less savory. The original screenwriter, Terry Southern, explained that an "easy rider" was slang for the boyfriend of a prostitute who didn't have to pay for her sexual favors--he therefore had an "easy ride." Peter Fonda took it one step further, telling an interviewer, "That's what happened to America, man. Liberty's become a whore and we're all taking an easy ride."

Recreating the allegorical journey from a California dope deal to a Louisiana road-rage homicide will take some time and patience because, like many road movies, the shooting locations are not necessarily in a logical geographical line. With that in mind, here's a rough idea of how you can head out on the highway in the zigzagging path of Wyatt and Billy. Just click on each of their marked pit stops along the route and get location information as well as movie trivia.

Back to the Great American Road Trips introduction page