In a series to celebrate XPENG’s partnership with new movie A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, four writers share memories of the journeys that made them who they are.
There’s always an air of nostalgia to a road trip. That feeling of throwing your bags into the boot, piling into the car with friends and hitting the open road, not caring if you’re going to a beach an hour away or on a drive that’ll take the whole day. The destination doesn’t matter – the journey always feels like a familiar adventure.
The smallest sensation can unlock a memory, too. Your friend’s arm pressing against yours in the middle seat. The stereo cranking out the opening bars of a song you loved in 2003, or that sense of satisfaction that comes from perfectly packing everyone’s bags into the boot like Tetris. Those feelings of deja vu that wash over you whenever you get a familiar scent, or sight, or sound.
The moment I climb into a car with my oldest friends, I feel exactly as I did when I was 17. Each school holiday was an opportunity to set off on long drives down to Bude, where we’d pitch our tents poorly, try our hand at surfing and say yes to all the unexpected pitstops our parents would have refused, such as trips to a roadside gnome museum or the ice-cream van parked in a layby.
Those trips were our first taste of freedom, a sneak peek into the adult years that were right on the horizon. Looking back, it was so sudden – that leap from adolescence to adulthood, but at the time it felt like we’d been waiting for it forever.
Nowadays, I take similar trips with those same friends and I feel like we’re 17 all over again. Even when their kids are now sitting in the back of the car, singing along to Catatonia and Bowling for Soup, just as we did 20 years ago. When I see a roadside stall selling fresh strawberries, or a cute little coffee shop I want to stop at, I still look around for a grownup to ask, before realising that we’re the adults now.
Our road trips have been upgraded a little since those early years, though. The days of paper maps, boiling hot cars and noisy engines have been replaced with satnav, air con and blissfully silent drives.
But even though the technology has been modernised, even though we’re now kept cool and heading in the right direction, that feeling remains the same. I still feel as if we’re setting off on an epic adventure, even if it’s to the same stretch of sea we’ve visited dozens of times. Because although we’ve grown older, and the backseat is now filled with kids that we’re somehow responsible for, the beach has stayed the same, the route feels just like it did, and those ties are as strong as ever.
We still pile out of the car, the twigs snapping underfoot as we figure out the best place to pitch our tents. And even though we’ve upgraded our cars and our camping rigouts (now complete with memory foam sleeping mats and blackout eye masks), the morning light still looks as it did all those years ago, as it filters through the canvas at dawn. We still gather bedraggled by the kettle on the camping stove, only now with a few more lines on our faces and kids running around our feet.
We spend the morning chatting – enamel mugs filled with coffee (the good stuff) – and plan how we’ll spend the day, pumping up the paddleboards that I’m pretty sure didn’t exist in 2003, as we work out which beach or lake we’ll explore that day. If anything, we’re more adventurous now, eager to spend the whole day on the water, packing dry bags with sandwiches and water bottles, hoping the sun will keep on shining.
If I’m lucky, I’ll hop on a board with one of the older kids who’ll do all the paddling, so I can sit on the back and watch the sea as we move over the ripples, thinking about the chats I used to have with their mothers when we were the very same age.
And soon, in a few short years, those kids will be setting off on their own adventures. I just hope they’ll still let us come along for the ride.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
Some doors bring you to your past. Some doors lead you to your future. And some doors change everything. Sarah (Margot Robbie) and David (Colin Farrell) are single strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and soon, through a surprising twist of fate, find themselves on A Big Bold Beautiful Journey – a funny, fantastical, sweeping adventure together where they get to re-live important moments from their respective pasts, illuminating how they got to where they are in the present … and possibly getting a chance to alter their futures.
XPENG, the high-tech global mobility brand, collaborates with A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, the highly anticipated romantic adventure, only in cinemas 19 September 2025. Together they share the spirit of discovery and transformation through cutting-edge technology, reflecting on defining moments and life-changing adventures. Just as the film’s protagonists Sarah and David embark on a fantastical journey that allows them to revisit pivotal moments from their past, XPENG’s ultra-smart vehicles are designed to take drivers further – enabling your very own big, bold, beautiful journey. Discover more
