Mikah Meyer’s Road to Everywhere: A Father’s Car and a Journey through Grief

For Mikah Meyer, a road trip became closely connected with remembering his father. A car carried family associations as well as luggage, and the road offered a way to spend time with places and people that mattered to him.

His story gives travel a personal scale. Its significance lies in the connection he describes, rather than in a rule that everyone should leave immediately or turn a difficult period into an ambitious journey.

Whose story is this?

In the essay originally shared by this site, Meyer described inheriting his father’s Hyundai Elantra after his death and using it for road trips. He later took a longer North American journey following graduate school.

Those experiences belong to Meyer. They are not the first-hand history of Travel the Whole World’s author, and they should be read as one person’s account of finding meaning through travel.

His own biography continues to identify his road-trip-loving father as an important inspiration for his work.

The later national parks journey

Meyer went on to undertake a separate project visiting the units of the US National Park System. His website dates that journey from April 2016 to April 2019 and records its completion at the Lincoln Memorial.

This later project should not be merged with the earlier Elantra trip into one undated adventure. Each had its own route, purpose and circumstances.

For ideas at a much smaller scale, our US parks in autumn feature offers a starting point for choosing a particular place and season.

Find the meaning before the mileage

If a journey has personal significance for you, begin with that reason. Perhaps you want to revisit somewhere associated with a relative, see an old friend or spend a few days following an interest you have neglected.

Write down the one experience you most want to make space for. Then ask what the smallest satisfying version would look like. It might involve a short train ride and a shared lunch rather than a continent-wide road trip.

The practical plan can then serve the purpose, instead of the purpose getting lost in an impressive-looking itinerary.

Leave room for mixed feelings

A meaningful trip does not have to feel joyful every minute. A familiar place can bring comfort, sadness or both, and a change of scene does not guarantee relief from grief.

Choose company, pace and flexibility that suit you. It is fine to shorten a day, change a stop or decide that the right time for a particular journey is later.

Make one workable next step

Our road-trip planning guide can help turn an idea into a route with realistic driving days and useful preparation. If taking time away from work is part of the question, the career-break guide offers a separate planning framework.

You might start by contacting the friend you hope to visit, looking at a suitable date or saving a small amount towards a clear plan. Meyer’s story can prompt that attention without becoming an obligation to imitate his life. The important journey is the one whose meaning you can explain for yourself.

The Driving Miss Norma story offers another family’s account of making time for a journey, with its own circumstances and limits.

The Elantra carried a family history

In the original essay, Meyer was nineteen when his father died of cancer at fifty-eight. His father, a pastor, had looked forward to road trips in retirement and had prepared a house in Florida for that next stage. The inherited 2001 Hyundai Elantra therefore represented plans that could no longer unfold as expected.

Meyer recalled ordinary details inside the car, including a small model car near the dashboard and the lingering association with his father’s pipe. Those details explain why the vehicle mattered beyond its usefulness as transport. It carried familiarity into unfamiliar places.

The first trip made room for more than escape

His first independent road journey included visiting friends, reaching new cities and seeing landscapes beyond the windscreen. He described gradually being able to experience moments of pleasure again. That is his account of how grief and travel interacted, not a universal timetable for recovery or a claim that driving resolves bereavement.

The Elantra connected later journeys with Meyer's father through familiar objects and associations inside an otherwise ordinary car. That continuity is what makes this story particular. A reader's equivalent might be a route once discussed with someone, a place revisited or a meal shared with an old friend. The journey need not become large to carry that meaning. Let the personal connection determine what deserves time, while allowing pleasure and sadness to coexist without expecting travel to resolve either on demand.

The nine-month journey followed graduate school

Six years after his father’s death, Meyer described finishing graduate school and taking a prolonged break at twenty-five. The earlier North American journey covered about 16,400 miles over nine months. His playful description of “retiring” referred to that period away, not a claim that he had permanently ended his working life.

The miles mattered because they linked people he loved and places he had long wanted to see. The later national parks undertaking discussed above was a different project. The two journeys have their own timelines and purposes, even though both form part of Meyer’s wider story.

Urgency can lead to a measured decision

The essay’s emotional force comes from recognising that a hoped-for future is uncertain. A reader can respond by making room for something meaningful without copying the author’s scale or departure date. The practical next step might be arranging a visit with someone important rather than immediately leaving work for months.