FINISH

START

Our journey began long before we actually took to the road. Routes and schedules had to be figured and sponsors found.  After all the planning we decided to start on the east coast so as to be able to best control when we went through major cities and thus potential traffic congestion. Since the three of us live in Salt Lake City we had to drive most of the way across the country before we could even begin our record attempt.

After a night in Boston with some friends we drove to our starting point just inside the border of Vermont. With no idea what would come of the trip, or how much interest we would generate, we hit the road. We had a goal of 120 hours, that being the only record we were aware of.

Some time on the morning of day two, emails started flooding in and then we began taking phone calls from reporters. To our surprise, a story that had been done in one of our local papers had been picked up by the AP and had spread worldwide. We did interviews for newspapers and radio stations all across the country and at least one radio station in Canada.

With all the exposure it wasn’t long before we were made aware that the record of 120 hours had been broken already. A few emails and phone calls later and we found out that two State Farm agents from Texas held the last record certified by Guinness of 118 hours. That was quite a downer. We had followers counting on us to break the record and we had figured everything on a faulty premise.

We resolved to just keep at it and hope for the best. We received lots of encouragement from friends, family and fans and we couldn’t let them down. After many miles and a few adventures (which can be found here) we finished our crazy trip at four corners. We beat our expectations by a long shot, hitting all 48 contiguous states in 106 hours and 43 minutes. Even though we had five more hours of driving to get home, we were ecstatic.

After we wrapped up we found out how many people had heard about our Great American Road Trip. We had as many as 25,000 hits on this site in a day from dozens of countries from every continent except Antarctica.  We were mentioned in magazines ranging from a Christian Magazine to Car and Driver. We continued to do interviews and we found news articles in Chinese, German, and many other languages. We were astounded.

So many people connected with our trip in so many ways and we have been an inspiration to many to hit the road or follow their dreams. Some of those we inspired were inspired to beat our record and accomplished just that. The trip was great, the sense of accomplishment was wonderful but knowing we might have made a difference in someone’s day, let alone life, is better than any record.

To anyone we inspired, to all those that enjoyed our journey, to our families and to our friends, thank you.

Joshua Keeler and The Great American Road Trip Team

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