With No Direction Home

With No Direction Home is a poignant coming-of-age story inspired by true events. In the summer of 1976, three teenagers from a small California beach town set out to accomplish what had never been done before: become the first skateboarders to cross America. In an era before cell phones, GPS, and the internet, Jack, Jeff, and Mike leave behind family, friends, and the familiar comforts of home to experience the America they had only glimpsed in textbooks and on the evening news. Many dismiss their dream as reckless, foolish, or simply impossible. What begins as an adventure quickly becomes a test of endurance. They face treacherous roads, speeding traffic, exhaustion, and strangers who see them as little more than drifters passing through. Yet along the way they discover the breathtaking beauty of the American landscape and the unexpected kindness of small-town America. As the miles roll by, each young man is forced to confront challenges far greater than mountains or weather. Family struggles threaten to pull two of them home, while Jack—raised on military bases and never truly rooted anywhere—finds himself searching for something he has never had: a place to belong. That search becomes even more complicated when he meets a young woman who makes him question whether the journey he needs most is the one taking place inside himself. Set against the backdrop of America's Bicentennial summer, With No Direction Home is a story of adventure, friendship, love, and the search for identity on the open road. About the Author Jack Smith has spent much of his life chasing horizons on wheels. In 1976, at age nineteen, he joined Jeff French and Mike Filben in completing the first skateboard push across America, a journey that would shape the rest of his life. A lifelong skateboarder, writer, filmmaker, and historian, Smith has continued to explore the American road through a series of cross-country adventures, including skateboard, electric skateboard, electric vehicle, and electric bicycle journeys. His 1976 skateboard and 2018 electric skateboard are part of the collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. With No Direction Home began as a feature film screenplay inspired by that first crossing, then became a novel about youth, friendship, freedom, and the open road. Smith lives in Morro Bay, California, with his wife, Cathy.