Those who grew up in the ’70s or ’80s will know what a real road trip looked like.
Back then, the family car could well have been a Holden Kingswood; you could fry an egg on the vinyl seats by 9am, the seatbelt buckle would give third-degree burns, and the air conditioning was winding down the window (a manual operation).
Luggage got strapped to the roof rack with optimism and the phrase, “That isn’t going anywhere.”
In our car, navigation was Dad’s domain and Dad’s alone.
As a backup that was never required, there was an out-of-date AA map that still featured some of Captain Cook’s early guesses at the geography of the West Coast.
Getting lost wasn’t a mistake — it was an adventure.
“We’re taking the scenic route,” Dad would announce, while Mum looked awkwardly at the petrol gauge.
Or Dad would explain, “Don’t worry, this is a shortcut the townies don’t know”.
Entertainment came in the form of sing-alongs because Dad grumbled that the radio was all ads and static.
For those with siblings, there were regular outbreaks of violence in the back seat over who’d crossed the imaginary line.
Every now and then, a game of “I Spy” would drag on for three hours because no one could guess “air”.
The food was... a choice.
Tomato sandwiches in Glad Wrap. Hard-boiled eggs that spent too long in the chilly bin.
We had Mum’s famous bacon and egg pie on our road trips, with a thermos of tea that somehow tasted like petrol.
For the lucky, there’d be a roadside café with net curtains, and a lamington or a Fanta on offer.
And then there was the Great Toilet Conspiracy: everyone suddenly needed to go the moment they’d left the last town behind.
Compare that to now, where the average road trip resembles a Nasa mission.
The car has dual-zone climate control; the kids are in noise-cancelling headphones watching Bluey, and the boot is packed with colour-coded containers.
There’s even an app on the navigation system that tells you where the next ethically sourced espresso is.
Google Maps has replaced the navigation philosophy of old, with a polite voice that says “Recalculating route” instead of “Bloody hell, where are we?”.
Toilet stops used to be at the side of the road, with one adult acting as lookout and one child refusing to go.
Now it’s a planned rest area with Instagrammable signage and ambient music piped into the cubicle.
The modern road trip is quieter, smoother, and cleaner.
The kids arrive fresh. The adults arrive with nerves mostly intact. It’s all very civilised.
But here’s the thing: the magic hasn’t gone. It’s just changed shape.
People might miss the burnt legs from the hot seatbelts, or the chorus of “He touched me first!” from the back seat.
But they’ll still make memories.
They might be Bluetooth-enabled and oat milk-fuelled, but they’ll stick.
Years from now, kids of today will turn to their kids and say, “Back in my day, we had to download our movies before we left the house”.
Because the Great Kiwi Road Trip isn’t about the snacks, the playlist, or the GPS.
It’s about getting properly lost together — whether that’s down a gravel road or in fits of laughter — and telling the story for the rest of your life at family Christmases for the rest of time.
