'The Great American Retro Road Trip' by Rolando Pujol is available for pre-order, hits stores June 24
Take a Coast-to-Coast Journey of Retro Roadside America with The Retrologist
Check out the official press release for my book!
Celebrate the nostalgic pleasures of America's vintage signs, quirky roadside attractions, and offbeat fast-food relics with journalist, “The Retrologist” Rolando Pujol in “The Great American Retro Road Trip”
“[A] love note to the unique charms of the American landscape.”
—Dylan Thuras, co-founder of Atlas Obscura
“[A] joyful reminder that America is so wonderfully weird and quirky, charming and strange, bizarre and magical.”
—Margaret Bienert, co-author of Hotel Kitsch and co-creator of A Pretty Cool Hotel Tour
“These are the places that memories are made of, and Rolando’s depth of knowledge and enthusiasm for the quickly vanishing cool vintage places across the U.S. make this book a must-have on any road trip.”
—Beth Lennon, aka Mod Betty, founder of Retro Roadmap
“Put a crown on Rolando Pujol’s head, for this well-traveled guidebook establishes him as the king of the great American roadtrippers.”
—Charles Phoenix, pop culture humorist and historian
“[A]s enjoyable to read as it is an absolute visual bombshell to look at.” —Thomas Rinaldi, author of New York Neon
Nostalgia is a near-universal, fundamentally positive longing for the past. And nostalgia is unmistakably saturating American culture. From Barbie, Top Gun, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to commercials starring McDonald’s Grimace and Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal reenacting their famous deli scene from When Harry Met Sally to the return of bellbottoms and neon windbreakers to the resurgence of Nintendo NES and Sega Genesis, it’s clear Americans are hungry for nostalgia.
What is more nostalgic than the memory of an American road trip: the sense of freedom and exploration, adventure and an open road, connection and memories, simplicity and escape? In The Great American Retro Road Trip: A Celebration of Roadside Americana (Artisan; hardcover; June 24, 2025), join journalist Rolando Pujol on a coast-to-coast celebration of the nostalgic pleasures of America's vintage signs, quirky roadside attractions, and offbeat fast-food relics.
Armed with a camera and a fondness for history, Rolando has spent many years traveling the country telling the stories, in words and pictures, of the places Americans grew up with: mom-and-pop diners, corner candy stores, the burger stands and ice cream parlors for his popular The Retrologist and social media account. “I wrote The Great American Retro Road Trip as an act of love,” says Rolando Pujol. “I’ve loved roadside attractions and diners since I was a kid. The slow disappearance of these places hit me hard, so I hit the road, searching for what remained of them. As they disappeared, I realized a part of me – and my sense of what America was – was going with them. The Great American Retro Road Trip is my attempt to keep these feelings – and the places themselves – alive.”
The Great American Retro Road Trip is an adventure into the heart of a uniquely American strain of ingenuity and creativity. Gawk at roadside quirks, like the 21-foot Buck Atom, a Muffler Man space cowboy deposited by aliens at an old gas station on Route 66 near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Grin back at the 13-foot Smiling Peanut, inspired by President Jimmy Carter’s famous smile and constructed during his 1976 campaign, now sitting in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. Visit Sinclair Oil dinosaur Octane in Heber City, Utah, to see how local schoolteacher Christine Chappell has outfitted him (Octane has been dressed up as everything from a Utah Jazz player to Barbie to the Statue of Liberty and has promoted school fundraisers, political candidates, and helped celebrate holidays). Consider nibbling on the 9,370-pound World’s
Largest Popcorn Ball, made from real, locally grown popcorn kernels in Sac City, Iowa, and if you’re still hungry, order a corn dog at the Cozy Drive-In in Springfield, Illinois, whose founder sensationalized the 1946 Illinois State Fair when he debuted his hot dog on a stick. Enjoy a hamburger and midcentury ambience at The Red Rooster in Brewster, New York in a 1963 A-frame decorated with candy-stripes and an ice-cream-cone cupola. Burger Chef, founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1954, was at one time neck-in-neck with Burger King in the race to catch up with McDonald’s. The chain faded away by the 1980s, but one of the finest remaining former Burger Chefs is in Rialto, California, is so authentic looking it appeared in Mad Men.
Looking to have more retro fun? Have a “gay old time” at Bedrock City, an attraction based on the classic 1960–66 animated television series The Flintstones, located near Williams, Arizona, and visit Fred and Wilma’s house, the Rubble family house, the Bedrock post office. At the Sip ’n Dip tiki bar in Great Falls, Montana, watch mermaids, and occasionally mermen, swim and frolic from behind a massive glass wall behind a swanky bar. A paradise found—or better yet, crafted— flourishes at Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg, Florida, a once ugly four-acre sinkhole that plumber and horticulturist George Turner and his wife, Eula, turned in a glorious tropical garden with an apiary, a visitors center and gift shop, and more.
Admire the spectacular Shell sign in Cambridge, Massachusetts which no longer occasionally spells out HELL, thanks to its 2011 LED replica. The Schrafft’s neon sign—atop a former candy factory and legendary purveyor of sweet goods that invented the jellybean —is another Boston, Massachusetts skyline favorite. For hundreds of miles along Interstate 95, witness a barrage of billboards promoting South of the Border in Dillon, South Carolina, including “Pedro’s Weather Report!: Chili Today—Hot Tamale!”
Ready to relax? Check into the Big Idaho Potato Hotel in the middle of a 400-acre field in Boise, Idaho, a 6 ton, 28 feet long, 12 feet wide, 11.5 feet tall hotel with a nearby silo that houses the bathroom and a spa with a skylight and a fireplace. Far from Manhattan, The New Yorker in Miami, Florida is a 1953 motel that’s a beautifully preserved example of MiMo and the work of the prolific and talented Norman Giller. The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, has 110 rooms each with a unique, outlandish, fantastical design scheme, including the popular caveman-themed room with rock walls, a rock pond, and waterfall in the stone shower.
Growing up a child of recent Cuban immigrants, Rolando struggled to find his place in America. It was through places like classic diners, fast-food chain restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King, and stores like Woolworths, that he felt an unconditional welcome that he did not experience elsewhere. These places as an escape, a refuge from my sense of alienation and otherness, symbols of an America he yearned to join. The Great American Retro Road Trip is an ode to the places that made him feel like an American, giving him the acceptance that one felt so elusive. These lingering traces of America’s past are an archive of disappearing roadside signage and architecture, and they tell a story of American ingenuity, creativity, and community.
Whether you pick up The Great American Retro Road Trip for the nostalgia-inducing photos, the heartwarming stories, or
as a reference for planning your own trip, you’ll be encouraged to, as Rolando says, “Let your curiosity guide you.”
About the author: Rolando Pujol has made a name for himself as a journalist in the newsrooms of several newspapers and television stations in New York City over three decades. Fueled by a passion for storytelling and a love of the American roadside, Rolando has an adventurous spirit that often takes him far from the traffic-choked streets of Manhattan to the bucolic roads of the Heartland. This is all thanks to his long-term project, The Retrologist, where he shares captivating stories and photos from the American roadside. His love of small towns and their history was formed growing up in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown, suburbs of New York City rendered magical by the tales of Washington Irving. Pujol created and is at the helm of The Retrologist Instagram account and his The Retrologist Substack newsletter. When he’s not on the road, Pujol is the executive producer of digital content, innovation, and strategy at WABC-TV Channel 7, the flagship station of the ABC television network. His television work has earned him several honors, including Emmys, and awards like the Edward R. Murrow, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi, and the Deadline Club. He lives in New York.
The Great American Retro Road Trip
A Celebration of Roadside Americana
By Rolando Pujol
Published by Artisan Books on June 24, 2025
Hardcover: $35.00; ISBN: 9781648293719
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