Driving through history: the car,The Open Road, and the making of history tourism in Australia, 1920–1940

This article analyses the role the car played in the development of history tourism in Australia prior to the rise of the heritage industry in the 1960s and 1970s. It suggests that through both practical and symbolic means the car encouraged motorists to seek out historical sites and to imagine Australia as an historic landscape. Drawing on The Open Road, the motoring journal of the National Roads and Motorists Association (NRMA), I show that motorists themselves, rather than the emerging tourism industry, took the lead in encouraging the growth of history tourism in Australia.