Between 1947 and 1950 Sal Paradise, a young writer from New Jersey, crosses America again and again — hitchhiking, by bus and in borrowed cars — usually in pursuit of his wild, magnetic friend Dean Moriarty. Jack Kerouac typed the story on a continuous scroll of paper in three weeks in April 1951, and it was published in 1957. Sal is Kerouac, Dean is Neal Cassady, and most of the trips really happened.
The route picks out the places the novel names, from a rainy false start on the Hudson to Mexico City and back to a New York street corner. The novel gives towns and streets rather than addresses, so most pins mark areas, not doors.
Krishna's legend is set across northern and western India: born in Mathura, raised around Gokul, Vrindavan and Govardhan Hill, then his city of Dwarka in Gujarat, the battlefield of Jyotisar and his last place at Bhalka.
The seven stops follow the story from birth in a prison cell to his death by a hunter's arrow. Most sites are traditional identifications, so the labels say how firm each pin is.
Saint Nicholas, the early Christian bishop of Myra, was born at Patara, served at Myra (modern Demre) and now rests in Bari, with more relics in Venice. This route follows his legend from Lycia to Nicaea, Gemiler Island and Apulia.
Historians know little of the real man, so the route follows the traditional story and the journey of his bones. It ends in 1087, when sailors carried them across the sea, and in the Venice church that holds more.
Japan's legendary prince Yamato Takeru rides east from Ise Grand Shrine, escapes a burning plain at Yaizu, crosses Ashigara Pass and meets his end on Mount Ibuki. His sword ends up at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya.
The route follows the legend, told in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki chronicles, through five places. Several are traditional identifications, so the pins mark shrines and mountains tied to the tale, not proven battlefields.
Momotarō, Japan's peach-born ogre-slayer, is tied to Okayama through the legend of the ogre Ura, Mount Kijo's fortress, Kibitsu Shrine and Megijima, the island of caves linked to Onigashima.
The route follows the Ura legend from the hilltop fortress to the shrines of Prince Kibitsuhiko, then the island of ogres and the statue at Okayama Station. The Okayama link to the tale is modern, and some stops are traditional identifications.
The legend of Romulus and Remus begins at Alba Longa in the Alban Hills and ends on Rome's Palatine and Aventine hills, with a she-wolf's cave and a fig tree along the Tiber in between. The bronze Capitoline Wolf still carries the story to visitors on the Capitoline Hill.
The route follows the myth from the twins' birth to the quarrel that leaves Romulus as founder. Most sites are traditional rather than proven, and the stops say so.
The Olympian gods' birthplaces are scattered across Greece: Zeus in a cave on Crete or on Mount Lykaion, Apollo and Artemis on Delos, Apollo's oracle at Delphi, and the gods' home on Mount Olympus.
The route follows the myths from Zeus's cradle to the mountain where the gods live. Ancient authors disagreed about where Zeus was born, so those first two stops are traditional claims, not proven sites.
The Irish legend of the Children of Lir runs from Lough Derravaragh in Westmeath to the Sea of Moyle off County Antrim, the mouth of the Bann, and Erris and Inishglora on the Mayo coast.
Four children of the sea-lord Lir are turned into swans by their jealous stepmother and spend 900 years on Ireland's waters. The route follows the three 300-year sentences to the bell that ends them. Several pins mark traditional areas, not exact spots.
The Mabinogion, Wales's medieval collection of myths, is set across Narberth in Pembrokeshire, Harlech, Tomen y Mur, Segontium and Dinas Emrys in Gwynedd. Its tales of Rhiannon, Branwen, Lleu and two fighting dragons have all been tied to real hills, forts and castles.
This route follows three of the Four Branches and two native tales, from Pembrokeshire to Gwynedd. Several identifications are traditional rather than proven, and each stop says so.
Egil's saga is set in Iceland, Norway and England, and begins at Borg, the farm where Skallagrim settled near today's Borgarnes. Its hero Egill is a poet and warrior whose road runs through the ale feast on Atløy, the battle of Vínheiðr, the Gulating assembly and York.
The route follows the saga from Skallagrim's settlement to Egill's old age, ending with the legend of his hidden silver near Mosfellsbær. Several places are only approximate, because the saga's sites are not firmly identified.
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell toured Scotland and the Hebrides in 1773, visiting Monboddo House, Raasay, Inch Kenneth, Iona and Auchinleck. Johnson was sixty-three, Boswell thirty-two, and the journey took eighty-three days.
The route follows five places where their two books touch real ground: a philosopher in farmer's clothes, a dance on Raasay, island hospitality, the ruins of Iona and Boswell's family seat in Ayrshire. The sources do not give exact dates for each stop.
Isabella Bird's 1873 ride through Colorado, told in A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, runs from Greeley and Fort Collins to Estes Park, Longs Peak and Manitou Springs. She lived out of doors and on horseback, and climbed a 14,700-foot peak with the guide Rocky Mountain Jim.
Six stops follow her letters from the Plains into the mountains and on to Colorado Springs. Most pins mark towns, because her letters rarely name exact buildings.
Captain James Cook's third voyage ran from Plymouth Sound by way of Table Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound and Christmas Island to the Hawaiian Islands, where he first landed at Waimea on Kauai and later died at Kealakekua Bay.
The route follows the ships across seven stops: the Cape, a New Zealand anchorage, a coral atoll, and the two Hawaiian landfalls that ended the voyage for its commander. Positions for the bays and the atoll are approximate.
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado's 1540–42 expedition went from Montezuma Pass to Hawikuh, the Grand Canyon, Bernalillo and Kansas in search of a golden city. It found no gold.
The route follows six places tied to the journey, from the border memorial to Coronado Heights. Several routes and sites are only approximate, and the captions say so.
Pole to Pole with Michael Palin is a 1992 BBC series that follows the 30-degree east line of longitude from the North Pole to the South Pole, through Spitsbergen, Chernobyl, Istanbul, Wadi Halfa, the Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Tanganyika and Victoria Falls.
The route picks eight stops from the eight episodes, in order, ending at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Several are named only as towns or regions in the series summary, so those pins are approximate.
Long Way Down follows Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's 2007 motorbike ride from John o' Groats in Scotland through Silverstone, Tunisia and the pyramids of Giza to Cape Agulhas and Cape Town.
The route picks five stops along the 12 May to 4 August 2007 journey, from the Scottish start to the southernmost tip of Africa. Pins at Tunisia and Giza are approximate.
The Trans-Siberian Railway runs 9,289 kilometres from Moscow's Yaroslavsky Station across Krasnoyarsk, Lake Baikal and Khabarovsk to Vladivostok, crossing a record eight time zones.
The line was begun in 1891 and finished only when the Amur bridge opened in 1916. This route follows it west to east through five landmarks: the two matching terminal stations, the great Yenisei bridge, the loop line around Baikal and the long Amur crossing.
In 1648 Semyon Dezhnyov sailed from the Kolyma River past Cape Dezhnev and through the Bering Strait, eighty years before Vitus Bering entered the strait in 1728, and ended up wrecked near the mouth of the Anadyr.
The route follows the voyage from Srednekolymsk to the cape, the Diomede Islands, the Anadyr mouth and the winter quarters at Anadyrsk. Some details, including the exact route, are debated, so most pins are approximate.
The Burke and Wills expedition of 1860–61 set out from Royal Park in Melbourne to cross Australia from south to north, by way of Menindee, the Dig Tree on Cooper Creek and the swamps near the Gulf of Carpentaria. Only one man of the four who made the dash north came back alive.
The route follows the journey in order, from the crowd-watched departure to the tree where a carved message and a buried cache were missed by hours, and ends at the Melbourne General Cemetery, where a state funeral was held in 1863. The Gulf pin is approximate: the party's last camp, not a proven shore.
Francis Drake's circumnavigation ran from Plymouth through San Julian, Valparaíso and Callao to California and the Spice Islands of Ternate. The voyage lasted from 1577 to 26 September 1580.
This route follows seven stops, from the storm-hit departure at Plymouth to treasure at Callao and a royal welcome on Ternate. Several places are approximate, and the California landing is only traditionally identified.
John Muir's 1867 walk from Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico passed Mammoth Cave, the Cumberland Mountains, Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery and Cedar Key. He told it in A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf.
The route follows the book from Louisville to Florida, then on to Yosemite Valley in 1868. Some stops are general areas rather than exact spots, as marked on each point.
In 1970 Thor Heyerdahl sailed the papyrus boat Ra II from Safi in Morocco to Barbados, with reed from Lake Tana, builders from Lake Titicaca and a finish in Barbados. Today the boat sits in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.
The route follows the boat from its materials and builders to the departure, the landfall and the museum. Most stops are approximate: sources name the lakes, the port and the island, not exact docks.
The 1789 mutiny on HMS Bounty began about 30 nautical miles south of Tofua, after five months at Point Venus in Tahiti, and ended on Pitcairn Island, where the ship was burned. Bligh's launch took in Restoration Island and Kupang on Timor.
The route follows both halves of the story: Captain Bligh's 41-day open-boat voyage to Timor, and Christian's search for a hiding place. Most stops are remote; the caveat is that the mutiny spot at sea can only be marked by the nearest island.
Roald Amundsen's Gjøa expedition of 1903–06 was the first to sail through the Northwest Passage, from Beechey Island and Gjoa Haven in Arctic Canada to Nome in Alaska. Today the little herring boat sits in the Fram Museum in Oslo.
The route follows the voyage stop by stop: the Franklin memorial at Beechey Island, two winters at King William Island, a long ski trip to the telegraph at Eagle, the arrival in Nome, Gjøa's decades in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and her return to Norway.
