Picture this for a moment. You are in a car going on a trip somewhere. Out in front of you stretches a strip of asphalt that goes on past the horizon toward some distant place. You are traveling down that road surrounded by the vast expanses of open country racing past towns, rivers, and mountains chasing that elusive horizon. You know your destination lies ahead of you, but you are soaking up the trip observing the sights as they pass and watching the clouds roll by. You are on the great American road trip.

There are few images so distinctly American as that of the open road. From the pioneer invocation of “Go west young man,” to Bruce Springsteen’s declaration “Baby we were born to run,” the concept of the open road and its power to take you somewhere has captivated the popular imagination. With the rise of the interstate highway network and the spread of affordable automobiles that fascination morphed into the phenomena of the road trip. Every vacation, families would pile into the family car and go on a trip someplace whether it’s to see relatives, visit a remote corner of the wilderness, or tour some popular destination.

Growing up the road trip was an integral part of my childhood. Every summer without fail, my family and I would load into the car and drive the three days from Los Angles to Kansas City to visit our relatives. The trip would take us through a large slice of the country from the stark southwest, to the majestic Rocky Mountains, and to the vast emptiness of the Great Plains. I got to know a lot about the county I inhabit on these trips. I saw how people lived, be it in the major cities or small towns. I gained an awareness of other peoples lives that I wound never have otherwise.

This is something you miss if you only travel by plane, flying from one metropolitan area to another. Those few hours of flight belie the vastness of the world you are traveling through. A vastness you only truly grasp if you have to journey through each and every mile of it, passing nondescript towns and unnamed mountains as you go. It also underscores just how dynamic this nation really is changing from one region to the next.

Only traveling by car do you get a sense of just how different other parts of the country are than where you’re from. A road trip can take you past ritzy residential districts, conformist suburbs, and desolate trailer parks. It makes you reckon with the diversity of this nation and become more aware of how you fit within it. With this knowledge you can become a better citizen by understanding how people live, seeing them firsthand. Also, it allows you to avoid making a complete fool of yourself with some blanket stereotype of how other people live.

While travel may not be fatal to prejudice, it is the gateway to understanding. And in a world where we shout more and listen less we need all the understanding we can get.