
After discovering that his late father has gone through most of the family fortune, Tod Stiles hits the title trans-America highway in his Corvette in search of adventure with friend Buz Murdock, a survivor of New York's mean streets. The two work odd jobs as they meet and interact with colorful characters and find themselves plunged into one situation after another, some of them romantic, some of them very dangerous. Later, Linc Case, a Vietnam war hero trying to find himself, takes over as Tod's travel companion.

A psychotic man fools his cousin into committing armed robbery.

Tod enlists horror-film actors (Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr.) to get back at Buz, who won't share his hotel escort duties.

A masked, young woman (Tuesday Weld) comes to a Texas town and announces memorial services for a long-dead girl; guest Cloris Leachman.

Tod and Buz, heading toward Dallas, stop to help a girl whose car has broken down; the three are kidnapped at gunpoint; the kidnappers are associates of a wanted embezzler who has come back to the U.S. to stop his daughter from becoming a nun.