Big Butt Road Trip May 2026

If you are planning a trip for those with ample behinds, do not listen to the “ergonomic” racing seat people. You want a flat bench, or a couch on wheels. We should have rented a 1970s Cadillac. Instead, we made it work with pillows. The Snack Situation (A Delicate Balance) A road trip requires snacks. But a big butt road trip requires strategy. You cannot eat a whole bag of Cheetos and a gas station hot dog without consequences. The consequence, in a cramped car, is that you become a human space heater.

The sensible choice was to fly. But the fun choice was to turn our wide-load anxiety into a manifesto. We invited my brother-in-law, Dave (6’4”, 280 lbs, affectionately known as “The Lovable Fridge”), and the Big Butt Road Trip was born. Our first stop wasn’t a gas station—it was an auto parts store in Harrisburg. We bought three things: a gel-infused memory foam cushion for Dave in the back, a “purple” honeycomb seat cover for Lisa up front, and a seatbelt extender for me (no shame in the game).

4 out of 5 stars. (Deducted one star because the Honda Fit’s cup holders are a crime against humanity. Added one star for the sheer joy of ordering a T-shirt that reads “I Survived the Big Butt Road Trip.”) big butt road trip

Happy trails—and wider seats.

By Hank O’Hara, Special to The Asphalt Jungle If you are planning a trip for those

Spoiler alert: No. But we had a blast trying. It started as a complaint. My wife, Lisa, slid into the passenger seat of my 2018 Honda Fit and immediately yelped. “These bolsters are digging into my glutes like a pair of angry salad tongs.”

There is something deeply bonding about sharing the specific, low-grade misery of not fitting into the world’s default dimensions. We complained. We adjusted. We ate too much. And somewhere around the 800-mile mark, we stopped thinking about our butts and started thinking about the sky, the music, and the asphalt rolling by. Instead, we made it work with pillows

She wasn’t wrong. We are a family of “comfortable dimensions.” We like cheese fries. We have sturdy Dutch ancestry. And we had a wedding to attend in Nashville, 1,000 miles away from our home in Philadelphia.