Happy 40th Birthday, ‘Easy Rider’

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  07.21.09 | 5:21 PM ET

The road trip classic celebrates its 40th anniversary this month, and even though I’ve had my differences with the movie I didn’t want to miss the chance for a birthday shout-out.

“Easy Rider” has a couple of the key ingredients for a great road trip movie (and, for that matter, a great road trip) in spades: delectable scenery for the vicarious traveler, and plenty of contemplative fireside chats between driving sequences—the sorts of conversations that you’d find around a hostel common room, or share with your Couchsurfing host. It’s not a perfect movie, but it helped to define and then spread the idea of finding freedom on the open road. For that, I’m grateful.

Here are a couple of favorite scenes:

First, one of the aforementioned campfire chats, starring a young Jack Nicholson:

And, of course, some serious road trip porn:

Happy birthday, “Easy Rider”!

Tags: Easy Rider, Movies, Pop Culture Travel, Road Trips, News and Briefs

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


2 Comments for Happy 40th Birthday, ‘Easy Rider’

Zach Everson 07.22.09 | 5:46 PM ET

I bet that’s a birthday that’s making a lot of people feel old.

TambourineMan 07.23.09 | 3:14 AM ET

“Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ‘cause then they’re gonna get real busy killing and maiming to prove that they are.”

Thanks for the birthday salute, Eva. You caught me in a groovy hippie mood.

If you will allow, please let me add a R.I.P for the late great Laszlo Kovaks.

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.