In 1978, after separating from his wife and losing his job as a teacher, Heat-Moon, 38 at the time, took an extended road trip in a circular route around the United States, sticking to only the "Blue Highways".

He outfitted his van with a bunk, a camping stove, a portable toilet and a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks.

The book chronicles the 13,000-mile journey and the people he meets along the way, as he steers clear of cities and interstates, avoiding fast food and exploring local American culture.

Stories that arose from Least Heat-Moon's research as well as historical facts are included about each area visited, as well as conversations with characters such as a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist hitchhiker, a teenage runaway, a boat builder, a monk, an Appalachian log cabin restorer, a rural Nevada prostitute, fishermen, a Hopi Native American medical student, owners of Western saloons and remote country stores, a maple syrup farmer, and Chesapeake Bay island dwellers.

Robert Penn Warren called the book "a masterpiece," writing that "[Least Heat-Moon] makes America seem new, in a very special way, and its people new.