Travel Ethics and Authenticity: The Thematic Core of America the Beautiful?

Defining the Thematic Claim

Blythe Roberson’s America the Beautiful? interrogates the ethics of modern travel, especially the tension between seeking authentic experience and participating in systems that commodify place and identity. The book’s central claim is that authentic travel is impossible within the existing structures of national parks, tourism marketing, and social media, yet the attempt to travel ethically—by acknowledging complicity, building community, and staying alert to history—is itself worthwhile. Roberson neither celebrates nor condemns her road trip; instead she dwells in the discomfort of being a tourist who loves the parks while recognizing the violence that created them, who posts photos while doubting the performance, and who craves adventure while following well-worn scripts. This essay traces that claim across three key phases of her journey, connects the characters and symbols she encounters, and addresses the contradictions she refuses to resolve.

Phase One: The Ethical Legacy of National Parks

From the opening chapters, Roberson confronts the foundational violence behind the national parks. At Wind Cave National Park, she learns that the cave is sacred to the Lakota people, who believe they emerged to the surface there. Yet the park’s official history celebrates a white settler “discovering” the cave in 1881 and filing a homestead claim on the entrance. Roberson writes: “when I hear that an activity I enjoy was first done by a white male colonialist settler, it makes me wonder if what I’m doing is in fact morally bankrupt” (chapter 4 evidence). She extends this critique to all parks, noting that “parks were established around the country for the benefit of European American tourists” and that Indigenous people were forcibly removed so that Anglo vacationers could enjoy “untouched paradise.”

This ethical reckoning is embodied in the bison. Roberson traces how the U.S. government slaughtered bison by the millions to starve Plains Indians, enabling westward expansion. When she later camps at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a bison stares her down, turning the symbol of conservation into a living accusation. The Junior Ranger badge, which she pursues at every park, becomes an ambiguous symbol: it forces her to learn about the land, yet it also reduces complex Indigenous histories to children’s activities. She calls badges “vacation homework” and admits that earning them makes her feel she has “done the work” of visiting—a performative authenticity that papers over deeper ethical questions.

Phase Two: Social Media, Performance, and the Tourist Script

In the Northwest parks, Roberson turns her critical eye on her own behavior. At North Cascades National Park, she describes her ritual of doing three things at each park: get a Junior Ranger badge, go on a hike, and post photos to Instagram. The caption she repeatedly tries to upload—“Thunder Knob is what I call my dick”—is both self-deprecating and deliberately unserious, a way to undercut the earnest nature-adventurer persona. She reflects on Susan Sontag’s concept of seeing the world as “a set of potential photographs” and admits that “I was seeing the views through my phone instead of with my actual eyeballs.”

This performative cycle is driven by social pressure and internal anxiety. Roberson realizes she is both a participant and a critic: “I think all this annoyance and anger with Instagram and with travel photography might come from recognizing how much our selfhood has become enmeshed with the version of our life we present on social media.” The bear spray she forgets on Isle Royale symbolizes her rejection of the “Don’t Get Murdered Industrial Complex,” but her reliance on Instagram betrays a different kind of safety behavior—curating an image of freedom and competence.

Later, in Utah, she meets Professor Josh and other tourists who are “working from the same vacation script.” She observes that “we tourists wanted to spend our few days at these parks wisely, so we did the hikes and the activities we had seen other people post about doing. And then we would likely post about it ourselves, inspiring yet more people to do the exact same thing.” This self-reinforcing loop is at the heart of overtourism, and Roberson implicates herself fully. The Prius, her stepfather’s car, is both a practical vehicle and a symbol of borrowed middle-class mobility—a tool that enables her journey while also tethering her to the very systems she critiques.

Phase Three: Community as Counterpoint to Scripted Travel

A crucial counterpoint to the tourist script emerges in Cisco, Utah, where Roberson visits her friend Eileen. Eileen has built a community in a ghost town, creating a place where people gather to build structures, share meals, and support each other. Roberson contrasts this with her own “survey course of America”: “I was staying in one place and helping, in my own not-very-good-at-construction way, to build something, instead of showing up somewhere, getting a badge, and rolling out.” The Cisco experience feels authentically connected—not because it is untouched by tourism but because it prioritizes mutual care over consumption.

This encounter transforms Roberson’s understanding of freedom. She had begun her trip seeking the romantic ideal of solo adventure, but by the end she concludes that “the deeper freedom lies not in individual adventure but in collective responsibility and love.” The characters she meets along the way—Emmy, Greg, and her brother—are not just travel companions but evidence that “finding people I loved all across the country” is the most authentic outcome of travel. Even the Buddy Young Catholics (a crowd she encounters) serve as a reminder that travel can produce accidental intimacy, not just Instagram grids.

Roberson also revisits Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy, noting how his conservation work coexists with racism, sexism, and eugenics. She learns that after his mother and wife died on the same day, Roosevelt went west and later pawned off his parenting obligations. The Junior Ranger badge she earns there is thus tainted, but she does not refuse it. Instead, she holds the contradiction: “His legacy of conservation… explains why some people consider him a president worthy of… his likeness dynamited into the side of a mountain. But the more I learned about Roosevelt, as is so often true when I learn about any historical man basically ever, the more I realized how much of what he did was both racist and sexist.”

Complexity and Contradiction: The Unresolvable Tension

Roberson never claims to have resolved the ethical dilemmas of travel. She ends her journey not with a triumphant conclusion but with a quiet return to her father’s home in Wisconsin. The final chapter, “Returning to the Toilet Women,” explicitly names her desire as “culturally conditioned rather than unique.” She suggests that true patriotism means “thinking rigorously about the meaning of what we stand for” rather than uncomplicated celebration. This is the opposite of the marketing copy that sells national parks as pristine escapes: it demands that visitors engage with the ugly history and their own complicity.

The book’s structure reinforces this tension. The opening Disclaimer changes names to protect privacy, an ethical gesture that also acknowledges the limits of representation. Roberson cannot give a voice to everyone she meets; she can only tell her own story, which she does with relentless self-awareness. The Praise chapter that concludes the book, filled with accolades, sits awkwardly next to her critiques of the very tourism industry that sells memoirs like hers. This contradiction is intentional: Roberson knows she is part of the problem she describes, and that knowledge is the most honest form of authenticity her genre allows.

Study Questions and Answers

1. What ethical argument does Roberson make about the national parks’ origin? How does she use the bison as a symbol?
   Roberson argues that the parks were created through the violent dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and that visiting them without acknowledging that history is unethical. The bison symbolizes both the genocide of Plains Indians and the ecological damage caused by the U.S. government, but also the possibility of conservation—a living reminder that the land’s beauty is inseparable from its history of violence.

2. How does social media complicate Roberson’s search for authentic travel? What does her Instagram caption “Thunder Knob is what I call my dick” reveal?
   Social media turns travel into performance, making Roberson see landscapes through her phone rather than with her own eyes. The self-mocking caption undercuts the heroic nature-adventurer persona, revealing her awareness of the absurdity of posting while claiming to seek authenticity. It is a deliberate act of deflation, admitting that she is both participant and critic.

3. In what ways does the character of Eileen and the Cisco community offer an alternative model of travel? How does this contrast with the Junior Ranger badge system?
   Eileen’s ghost-town community values dwelling, building, and mutual care over quick acquisition of experiences. Roberson participates in construction projects rather than earning badges. The Junior Ranger system provides structured, individual learning that can feel like “vacation homework,” whereas Cisco fosters shared, improvised living that resists commodification.

4. Why does Roberson refuse to fully resolve the tension between loving the parks and critiquing their history? What might this say about authenticity in travel writing?
   Resolving the tension would be dishonest, because the contradictions are structural: you cannot enjoy the parks without benefiting from dispossession, and you cannot write a travel memoir without participating in the tourism economy. Roberson instead models a practice of constant questioning, arguing that authenticity lies not in purity but in acknowledging complicity and still choosing to engage.

5. How does the Prius function both as a practical tool and a symbol in the narrative?
   The Prius enables Roberson’s cross-country journey on a budget; it is reliable, fuel-efficient, and borrowed—reflecting her middle-class privilege and dependence on family. As a symbol, it represents the tension between ethical intent (low emissions) and the environmental impact of long-distance driving. It is a practical compromise, not a heroic solution, much like the book’s stance on travel ethics overall.