As of this writing (Oct. 11, 2025), I will begin my annual Fall Road Trip a week from now. This year’s plan is to travel the entire length of one of Illinois’ longest state highways: Route 1.

Route 1 largely follows a historic trail connecting the southern area of Lake Michigan to Fort Sackville in Vincennes, Indiana. This was important before and during the Revolutionary War, when the British could access the areas west of the Appalachians from Canada, especially along the Wabash River to the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. The British took control of this area after winning it from France in the French and Indian War in 1763, but control was short lived with the Americans taking it over in 1777.

Indiana was settled largely before Illinois, making the strip from Lake Michigan to Vincennes one of present-day Illinois’ first much-traveled corridors. It’s fitting that when the state highway system was formed in the late 1910s, that this connection became known as Route 1.

At 323 miles, Route 1 is the largest ORIGINAL state highway. It held the longest overall distinction until Route 110 was reestablished as an auxiliary route for the Chicago-to-Kansas City (CKC) Highway in 2010 as 328 miles. The CKC, however, is multiplexed with other highways for its entirety, and Route 110 name is never really referred to as a true highway distinction.

Route 1’s original length was a little bit longer. In the beginning, it shared a distinction with the historic U.S. Route 66 in having the same starting point: Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard in downtown Chicago. Route 1 used to go south on Michigan, left for a few blocks at 59th Street, then south again for a short distance on State Street, and then veering onto Vincennes Avenue before turning south on Halsted Avenue, where it traveled downstate. Route 1 was eventually truncated to 95th Street (U.S. Routes 12 and 20) in the late 1950s. It’s tough to follow the Chicago path now because much of its length on Michigan is now one-way, and the State-to-Vincennes intersection was wiped out with the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway (Vincennes now begins at Wentworth Ave.).

[Update 10/16/25: My journey will begin in the town of Beecher in Will County, going south to the end, and then back up again to the northern terminus in Chicago later in the week. I will need to be back home on Thursday evening. Oh, and I do have my ID with me (see bottom of post)]

Some of the towns and cities along the way include Chicago Heights, Momence, Watseka, Danville, Paris, Marshall, Lawrenceville, Mt. Carmel, and the terminus in Cave-in-Rock, where there is a state park and a ferry on the Ohio River to Kentucky. The Wabash River makes up Illinois’ southeast border south of Marshall, and I plan to veer off from Route 1 to see some of the old river towns (Old Shawneetown included), and maybe the really large things in the town of Casey.

Trips like these can be done different ways. Many people prefer scoping out places first and making them their predetermined destinations. Others, like me, prefer a wandering approach with little scoping out and running into surprises along the way. In my past experience, if I took the approach of planning to be at certain places at certain times, I’m likely to miss out on many neat things along the way in order to beat the clock. With my wandering approach, I can discover it all and leave potential places behind for subsequent trips later in life. I find that I’m more engaged that way, and I get the most out of my trip, too.

This will also be my first real journey into eastern and southeast Illinois, not counting cut-acrosses to Indianapolis and from Evansville.

With any wandering road trip, things are done on the fly and history lessons are learned. It’s something that works out for single-guy me on solo trips.

Follow along on social media

I use the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to post live updates on my most recent trips – and then I write about them for features on this website later. This will be the case for my Route 1 Road Trip. X users can go to #CodysRoadTrips to check it all out!

I also will be making public Facebook posts along the way with some – but not all – of my pictures and in-depth details.

The full trip logs will be posted to this website some time after the trip, as well as the full photo album onto the website’s Flickr page. Keep up with new posts on this, and every trip I make, by subscribing to email updates.

What’s a Fall Road Trip?

I go on several road trips throughout the year, but there are two weeks out of the year when I am able to plan multiple-day trips: one in April and one in October. This is because of the publication and work schedule with my day job; these two weeks are gaps in the schedule. I take two of my four “vacation weeks” for the Spring Road Trip and the Fall Road Trip.

Because of my seniority at my job, I am allowed to utilize, technically not “four vacation weeks,” but 20 “vacation days” in the calendar year. The ultimate goal is to find a way where I can take five stretches from Tuesday to Friday and utilize it that way. That will depend on how fast I can accomplish work tasks and having everything flow faster. It’s been a five-year work in progress, however, and I’m not there yet.

The 2021 Fall Road Trip featured my worst road trip disasters to date. No, I didn’t wreck the car, but it prematurely ended after just 1 day when I realized – while trying to check in at a hotel in New Castle, Indiana – that I left my driver’s license at home. That nixed the next few days of travel because I didn’t have my ID to stay at hotels. I was, however, able to arrange for a stay in Anderson, thanks to my parents, but had to go back home. Then, while evading a thunderstorm at LaFayette Trace State Park in Perkinsville, I left my battery running while taking a nap for 3 hours. I had to get a jump start, but I couldn’t shut off the car for the rest of the drive home because I was told that battery was nearly done for. This trip did feature visits to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and the Hoosier movie gym in Knightstown, but it’s full plan was accomplished with my Spring Road Trip in 2023 to Milan, Indiana, Cincinnati and Owensboro, Kentucky.

I make it a point for each of the couple of days before driving away on these trips to remind myself constantly to have my driver’s license on me.

Let’s see what Route 1 brings!