Conde Nast Mag Folds, Editor Hits the Road!

“At once people thought we were insane to attempt such a trip; others thought it was a ‘corking’ thing to do! The majority looked upon our undertaking with typical New York apathy. ‘Why do anything so dreary?’?” -- Emily Post, who drove from New York to San Francisco in 1915

A few weeks ago, I moved out of my one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn into a storage unit. I said goodbye to my friends and my job, rented a Chevy Cobalt, and started driving across the country. I’ll be on the road until mid-October. It’s technically the economy’s fault, but the truth is, this is pretty much my dream.

A year ago, I had a full-time job as a senior editor at Domino, a glossy Conde Nast shelter magazine with a circulation of about a million. Then one day in January, like other publications before and after it, Domino folded. When I got the news, I walked back to my desk and closed all the open windows on my computer — there were dozens, the to-do list of the vaguely disorganized. I didn’t cry, though I worried about paying my rent.

A month or two later, I was lucky enough to find a full-time freelance job, but all the friends I would have called a year ago for better job leads were out of work themselves. I ran into four friends at the Brooklyn unemployment office when I filed in the weeks after the magazine folded. I had five “exploratory” interviews with publishing houses that told me they weren’t hiring at all. I started stashing away as much money as I could, and by spring I realized that my one asset was the fact that I had a lot of time on my hands. Driving a rented car out to cousin’s wedding in Pittsburgh one weekend, I had to resist the urge to just keep driving westward. It suddenly seemed pretty clear what I should do, so picked a date and made a plan.

That plan is to drive across the country to LA, then up the west coast, and then come back to New York via a Northern route in the middle of October. I’ll stay with friends and family where ever I can, and the rest of the time in cheap motels. Occasionally I may camp, if it feels safe. At one or two spots, friends will join me for a few days of driving, but most of the time I’ll be on my own. I’m going to write and take pictures, but really I’m just doing this for my own pleasure, to be on the road, both to do it and to say that I’ve done it.

When I return to New York in the fall, I’ll be looking for a full-time job. But for the next few months, I’ll have the luxury of seeking out historical homes, small protestant churches, big national parks, excellent burritos, local-history museums, and quixotic lifetime projects like the world’s largest ball of twine. (Suggestions for any of these are welcomed via e-mail.) I guess I’m interested in pretty much anything that makes Americans happy. For me, this is it.

[Next episode: One President, Two Guns, Three Graves]