AP Photo

For a few days every year—those magical chunks of time off that contain Thanksgiving and Christmas—tens of millions of Americans are homeward bound. They’re hailing cabs, weathering nightmarish TSA lines, cramming into the middle seat between the guy with the chip-stained t-shirt and the mom with the baby whose mouth is already starting to contort in rage behind that pacifier. They’re reading the paper on Amtrak. They’re on road trips where the destination is not a storied landmark or a promising new city, but some iteration of Home.