Show HN: America – Road Trip Simulator (4m3ric4.com)
APIs are a little like the open road—always waiting, full of opportunity, but hardly utilized. So here’s America, composed of several APIs that paint a vivid, real-time picture of a good old-fashioned road trip. Get local classifieds and photos. Tune into local radio stations. Talk wit other drivers. And more.
Exploring the country by car was an invaluable experience for me during my time in the states. I’ve since moved to Barcelona, and find myself missing the territory. This is my attempt at recreating the magic.
193 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 241 ms ] threadAnd then there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistics_(film)
It lasts 5 weeks (51,420 min):
> In 2008, Erika Magnusson and Daniel Andersson asked themselves where modern electronic gadgets come from. They conceived the idea to follow the production cycle of a pedometer in reverse chronological order from end sales back to its origin and manufacture. The route of the journey commenced in Stockholm, then proceeded through Insjön, Gothenburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Algeciras, Málaga, and finished in Shenzhen at the manufacturer in Bao'an.
> The project was filmed in real time during a trip to and in locations at a factory, following the route of the product's manufacture from the store in Stockholm where it was purchased to the factory in China where it was manufactured
Here's a 72 minute edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYFG0xP12yE
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32452372
At first, I thought this was some type of choose your own adventure or text adventure.
Anyway, good stuff.
"I've done 3 cross-country road trips and this captures everything I remember about Kansas excluding the IHOP in Wichita where we met an overworked waitress nearly running the entire place."
Also hundreds of teenagers in cars hanging out in a parking lot on Saturday night is a thing in a lot of small midwest towns where there's not much to do after the chorin' is finished.
"Someone here?"
Yes, I'm here.
Overall, I like it.
I do wish it had the ability to set the pace to "grueling".
As soon as I got a car as a teenager, I started enjoying the country by road-trip, but long before that, Oregon Trail taught me about the vast distances and varied scenery, all mine to discover. This seems to capture both, and it's really cool.
Somewhere I hope I still have some early digital photos from one of those trips. It would've been 1998 or 99, shot on an HP Photosmart C200, taken on I-40 westbound through Texas approaching Amarillo, as the mother of all thunderstorms barreled eastbound over us. A friend was at the wheel and I was in the back "resting" for the next driving shift, which meant futzing with the camera I had bought just before departure. I was clicking away at the lightning, marveling at the ability to simply delete shots that didn't come out, rather than having wasted expensive film. And then 46 shots into my experiment, I got it, captured a bolt of lightning in a photo, which I'd never been moneyed enough to attempt on film.
I'm now moseying eastbound on state route 36 just outside Lebanon KS, feeling an absolute flood of memories. This is masterfully executed.
1. Optionnally display other's cars
2. Mute radio when talkie talkie
3. Display talkie radius if any
4. Some way to regroup (im not sure)
5. Apk that continues in background
6. Some way to make/add plugins
It's wonderful as it is. Thanks for making this.
hahahah this got a laugh out of me. Really fun app you have here. What inspired you?
Haha, perfect!
where can i check for updates?
But, I'm glad I did. Literally every one of my favorite experiences/places of the trip was completely inaccessible through public transit, and honestly I would not have even found those places or people if I wasn't driving around aimlessly. On top of that, every one of my least favorite experiences was in a place that was highly accessible to public transit, and mobbed with tourists.
You know what I'm not going to remember? Standing in a mob waiting for a train in Cinque Terre. Standing in a mob in Rome looking at the Vatican. Standing in a mob in Dubrovnik while "Game of Thrones" tours pass.
What will I remember? Watching the sunset over Andalusia from an abandoned monastery, sharing a meal with some migrant workers on an olive orchard in Tuscany, giving Goran and his hobbled sheep a ride and subsequently living with him for a week on his lavender farm in Croatia. None of that would have been open to me without a car. But, I guess that is just the American in me talking.
Same here! I just did a road trip from UK to Italy, and standing on the platform at Vernazza was by far the worst part of the whole trip.
As a European (Italian) myself I find that odd, as for all but trips that are either to a single city, or very specific limited area with superb train/public transport access, I'll definitively use a car, as do most people I know.
But that may also come from the fact that I did not grew up in a big(ger) city, and while I took the bus and train for going into school, a car was still quite the requirement for a lot of other things anyway.
Definitively agree, when I went camping with a few friends in tents around Sweden in 2017 we met some wondeful people in quite remote areas, and it just wouldn't work with trains or the like, that was only OK when staying in Göteborg for a few days.
Same in Madeira, we rented a car there and without that we'd have been confined to basically the main city Funchal only, but with the car we could explore the whole island nicely, basically spending a day or two in each corner.
> You know what I'm not going to remember? Standing in a mob waiting for a train in Cinque Terre.
Well, it seems it left an impression ;-P
That said, I went to Cinque Terre in 2020 by car, parked in Monterosso and was fine using the train between the five towns, but then most US/UK tourists did not visit that year, so it may have been quite a different experience. I really do not think that traveling between the towns using a car would be better than the train, as Monterosso is the single one that is _somewhat_ car accessible, at least for smaller ones.
You don't have to stick to pre 80s for quality country. Charley Crockett visits the topic in his song Music City USA (read the deep dives posts about that song).
These days we have some good options for country and there are even gangsta rap collabs with bluegrass (Gangstagrass):
Blew my mind when I moved there, and still does. This was a long time ago, I would be surprised if there is still so much polka radio.
Exact numbers notwithstanding, it's UHF so the wavelength (roughly 70cm) is small enough to penetrate the window-sized openings in the car's metal shell, unlike the larger wavelengths of CB (27MHz, 11 meter wavelength) which require an external antenna.
I've used both FRS and amateur 70cm (440MHz) on roadtrips, and it's much more convenient than CB owing to precisely that -- simple whip antennas on handheld radios, no magnet-mount mess with a coax cable pinched in a door seal somewhere.
The audio is also somewhat unrealistic in that if multiple users are pressing push-to-talk simultaneously, their voices mix together. Realistically only the strongest one would get through, owing to the "FM capture effect", and the others you'd never know were there until they keyed up at a non-conflicting moment.
http://radio.garden/listen/103wkdf/S7xSIpaS - In Nashville
http://radio.garden/listen/want-fm-98-9/2I82DH2y - Nearby in Lebanon, TN
If you want the truly authentic experience, stick to stations that have their four letter code in the title (starts with a W), because those are 100% real FM radio stations. Enjoy the authentic country music experience. As you head toward the central US, you'll find more and more country music.
I really like how when you are road tripping through Europe that there’s such different cultures and languages along the way, and old historical villages if you’re into that sort of thing. Mountains, forests, farms.. deserts in Spain, too, which I really want to see one day. That will probably be my next road trip.
The huge difference is that we don't have all the vast empty spaces the Americans do, so it never really ends up feeling the same.
Has anybody figured out how to take pictures yet?
I'm traveling at about 1 mile per minute in the motorcycle, so 60MPH. Is there a speedometer or fuel readout?
It takes pictures automatically as you progress. For the current speed you can check the "vehicle" application. There is no fuel data, but you can read tailpipe CO2 emissions in "metrics".
- Are there any goals, high scores, etc?
- I noticed there is a meter showing what % I've explored and I'm curious if that is for the current route or the total number of drive-able routes, or if it corresponds to an achievement.
- Is there a way to know when I'm near other drivers who can hear my talkie or should I just give a holler and see who can hear me?
- How often does the camera take pics? I've gone 11 miles and it still says I haven't taken any pictures.
The total for exploration percent is the US highway mileage according to the Federal Highway Administration, many many miles.
That's a good idea to indicate drivers nearby, let's see what I can do. Thanks!
You should have new pics every few miles, like 3 or 5. Perhaps traffic is limited, experiencing HN effect at the moment. Try to reload the page.
your site here remins me of this flash designer called cymru i think, who had a very similar layout with a little grey alien who'd morph into different poses when you interacted with the screen. https://the389.net/8/1/
I'm seeing another possible bug, or maybe I just misunderstand what is happening. If I refresh the page everything is silent and the vehicle is moving, which seems fine. The vehicle window however has a button labelled "resume". When I click that the button disappears, nothing obvious seems to happen other than static starts coming out my speakers. There doesn't seem to be any way to stop the static other than refresh the page. Is that expected?
The classified are probably my favourite part, some of them are hilarious!
Reminds me of apolloinrealtime.org