About This Trip

Al & Ro - Greece 2025

Who Are These People and Why Are They Doing This?

Every great road trip needs an origin story. Ours starts with a bloke from the King Valley in north-east Victoria, Australia, who has spent an embarrassing number of years convinced that BBQ is the pinnacle of human achievement. That bloke is Al. This is his fault.

Me - Al, BBQ tragic, and the kind of person who will drive two hours out of his way for a good brisket — has been plotting this trip for longer than anyone cares to admit. His partner Ro, a woman of great taste, excellent cocktail instincts, and a quiet but firm preference for things that don't moo, has agreed to come along. She is, diplomatically speaking, the reluctant carnivore of the group. She will eat the meat. She will probably enjoy the meat. But she will also locate the best cocktail bar in every city we visit, and nobody will stop her.

Joining Al and Ro are Liddy and Mikey, an Australian and a Brit, who traded the King Valley for the snow fields near Lake Tahoe, California, and haven't looked back. Liddy is the group's de facto logistics commander. She is organised, decisive, and not afraid to tell three grown adults which lane they should be in. We are grateful for this.

Mikey is the group's resident professor — a lover of darts, chess, and a well-timed one-liner. He will spend the trip calculating the optimal meat-to-stomach-capacity ratio and losing at absolutely nothing.

Together, the four of us are about to embark on a 16-day road trip through the heart of American BBQ country — from Dallas, Texas, all the way to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We will eat at legendary smoke houses, hole-in-the-wall joints, and places with names that have absolutely no right to be as good as they are.

We will drive through Oklahoma, Kansas City, St Louis, Memphis and Nashville. We will listen to live blues on Beale Street. We will ride rides at Dollywood. We will almost certainly eat too much.

The salad will not be joining us.

Follow along as we eat our way across America. New posts going up daily from 30 May. Pull up a chair. It's going to be delicious.

Liddy & Mike - Somewhere!