Steinbeck tells of traveling throughout the United States in a specially made camper he named Rocinante, after Don Quixote's horse.

The younger Steinbeck has said he was surprised that his stepmother allowed his father to make the trip; his heart condition meant he could have died at any time.

Steinbeck opened the book by describing his lifelong wanderlust and his preparations to rediscover the country he felt he had lost touch with after living in New York City and traveling in Europe for 20 years.

Steinbeck's exploits in saving his boat during the middle of the hurricane, which he details, foreshadow his fearless, or even reckless, state of mind and his courage in undertaking a long, arduous and ambitious cross-country road trip by himself.

The two concluded that a combination of fear and uncertainty about the future limited their discussion of the coming election between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

When Steinbeck arrived at the house on Deer Isle where he was supposed to stay, he met a terse female cat named George and ate the best lobster he had ever tasted, fresh from the local waters.

Next, he drove to northern Maine, where he spent the night in a field alongside a group of French-speaking migrant potato pickers from Canada, with whom he shared some French vintage.

At the Canadian border in Niagara Falls he decided not to cut across southern Ontario to get to Detroit faster, as he planned, because Charley didn't have the proper inoculations to get back in the USA.

Instead of small New England villages he was skirting the growing cities of great production such as Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, South Bend and Gary.

Traveling further, Steinbeck discovered that technology was advancing so quickly as to give Americans more and more instant gratification, whether it was soup from vending machines or mobile homes.

Being tired and scruffy, he makes a deal with the hotel to borrow a room which hasn't been cleaned up after its last occupant, and once in the room investigates what the previous tenant, whom he refers to as "Harry," has left behind, constructing a half-grounded, half-fictional idea of him as a traveling businessman who hires a woman to spend the evening with, though Steinbeck believes neither enjoyed their time that much.

He lamented that "It looks as though the natural contentiousness of people has died" (142) and he worried that Americans had grown too comfortable and no longer interested in risk-taking and rebellion, two of the traits that made the country great.

Steinbeck and Charley then traveled to Yellowstone National Park, a place packed with natural wonders that he said "is no more representative of America than Disneyland."

(185) Though the specialized tires were hard to come by, the problem was resolved in mere hours by the unexpected generosity of a gas station attendant.

(193) Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley region of California in Monterey County and he describes his revisit to the area after a 20-year absence in detail.

He then visited a bar from his youth where he met his old friend Johnny Garcia and learned that a lot of regulars and childhood chums had died.

He then seemed to say goodbye to his hometown, on pages 205 to 208, for the last time, making an allusion to "You Can't Go Home Again, a book by Thomas Wolfe."

Climbing Fremont Peak, the highest point in what would someday be called "Steinbeck Country," he said goodbye to the place he had made famous in his novels.

"I printed once more on my eyes, south, west, and north, and then we hurried away from the permanent and changeless past where my mother is always shooting a wildcat and my father is always burning his name with his love."

He made his way to Texas, where he and his wife Elaine attended what he called a Thanksgiving Day "orgy" at a wealthy cattle ranch near Amarillo.

After detailing his Thanksgiving at the ranch, Steinbeck drove to New Orleans where he witnessed the angry and racist protests by white mothers outside the recently integrated William Frantz Elementary School in the Ninth Ward.

After passing through Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Steinbeck finds himself back in New York where, ironically, he realizes that he is lost and has to ask for directions home.

America, it seems, is in a sense directionless and is therefore endangered as it moves into an uncertain future marked by huge population shifts, racial tensions, technological and industrial change, and unprecedented environmental destruction.

[9][10] Steigerwald concluded that Travels contains such a level of invention, and Steinbeck took such great liberty with the truth, that the work has limited claim to being non-fiction.

"[7] Jay Parini, author of a Steinbeck biography, who wrote the introduction for the Penguin edition of Travels, told the New York Times: I have always assumed that to some degree it's a work of fiction.

[7]Writer Geert Mak, who made the same trip in 2010, discovered factual inconsistencies and physical impossibilities when trying to replicate Steinbeck's traveling schedule.

He too came to the conclusion that Steinbeck had probably invented much of what happened, only to give rise to his musings about the country, which the Dutch writer nevertheless considered to be truthful and valuable.

[citation needed] Published in 2012, the 50th anniversary edition of Travels with Charley included a disclaimer by Parini, who wrote: Indeed, it would be a mistake to take this travelogue too literally, as Steinbeck was at heart a novelist, and he added countless touches – changing the sequence of events, elaborating on scenes, inventing dialogue – that one associates more with fiction than nonfiction.

It should be kept in mind, when reading this travelogue, that Steinbeck took liberties with the facts, inventing freely when it served his purposes, using everything in the arsenal of the novelist to make this book a readable, vivid narrative.

The evocation of its people and places stay forever in the mind, and Steinbeck’s understanding of his country at this tipping point in its history was nothing short of extraordinary.