Haiku About Travel and the Road

Travel haiku are rarely about arriving. They tend to be about the middle of a trip, when the body is moving and the mind is somewhere else. Rob Goss sets the poem on a HIGHWAY BUS, where rain on the windows is OBSCURING TEARS, and the weather does what a stranger on a bus cannot, which is to give the speaker some privacy. Chris Gusek counts HIGHWAY LINES through ADOLESCENT DREAM and VISIONS OF AMERICA, a way to measure a long drive when there is nothing else to count.

Guy Traiber goes the slow way: it takes days to find the rhythm, and the last phrase is WALKING HOME BAREFOOT. John MacDonald stays still on an ABANDONED ROAD, USELESS FOR DRIVING but not for dreaming, a road kept for what cars cannot use it for.

The map and the stars

Joseph J. Kozma asks for THE ROAD MAP because THE STARS STOPPED TALKING TONIGHT, and settles for the fact that the rivers keep flowing. It is a night when the traveler has to find a way on paper. Edward Huddleston stops at a crossing where ROADSIDE CROSSES stand and LINGER LIKE HITCHHIKERS, an image that makes memorials into figures waiting for a ride.

Questions readers ask

Do travel haiku have to follow the 5-7-5 pattern?

No. The pattern is an English adaptation of the Japanese form, which counts sounds rather than syllables, and a 5-7-5 English haiku is usually longer than the original. The poems here run shorter and looser, and this journal looked only to the content of each poem.

Why do travel poems keep returning to the roadside?

The roadside is where the traveler is least in control: the bus window, the shoulder, the abandoned lane. Poets who stand there see what the destination hides.

More themes to read

City LifeHomeMemoryLonelinessPeace and StillnessAll themes

Last reviewed November 2026. Poems are the work of the poets credited and link to their pages in the original issues.