Automobile Touring
In the late 1800’s the first automobiles that were purchased were driven around the estate or to the local town as a novelty or to show off.
By the early 1900’s the automobile was becoming more than a novelty and people actually started to use automobiles for transportation.
Up until this time people used the horse and buggy for trips around town and very often the horse knew where to go.
For longer trips between cities most people traveled by rail. Because of this many attempted to follow the train tracks to get to nearby cities, but often had to turn around when they encountered a river or other obstacle.
As a result, the first person who successfully made the trip to a particular place, wrote down the route they used and the landmarks they passed and shared it with other automobile owners.
When automobile owners began to meet as groups and joined clubs they shared their trip stories and routes with others, and eventually these routes were published by the clubs in book form.
Here is an interesting article about Route Books
Just in case the above link becomes unavailable I have a link below to a PDF I uploaded to my server.