Unguided Road Trip

More about the book

When embarking on a road trip, we often focus on the destination, overlooking the mundane objects that populate the landscape. Swiss photographer Roland Iselin aims to change this with his project, Unguided Road Trip. Traveling through Switzerland and the United States without a set destination, Iselin captures the often-ignored structures and objects that define our surroundings. In the densely populated Swiss landscape, as well as in the vast American expanses, he finds a surprising variety of roadside attractions, from bus stops and gas stations to unique landmarks like a sixty-three-foot-tall neon cowboy named “Wendover Will.” Iselin's photographs highlight objects that serve specific purposes—benches, phone booths, mailboxes, and signs—that we often use and quickly forget. Others, like wayside crosses memorializing car accident victims, reflect deeper cultural values. He argues that these elements of a landscape are not incidental; each object is intentionally designed and placed, revealing insights about the society it belongs to. With 130 beautifully reproduced photographs and eight short essays by Nadine Olonetzky discussing Iselin’s motifs, this book invites readers to explore and appreciate the often-overlooked aspects of our inhabited spaces, whether they are longtime fans or newcomers to Iselin’s work.