I could write a book.
But I'll just mention one experience.
In the early fifties we drove from Southern California in an old Mercury sedan with a homemade roof rack to New York City (3,000 miles one way) for the big assembly at Yankee Stadium. This was Mom, Dad, Sis, me, Uncle, Aunt & Cousin, that's 4 adults and 3 children. At 5 yrs and 10 mos of age, I was the oldest kid. We were very poor. Imagine making that trip today with, say, $250.00 to get you there and back, plus food and shelter for 7 people for almost two weeks. Gasoline was about 19 cents a gallon. We had an old green canvas Army surplus tent and cots and a small Kerosene stove. When the adults got tired of driving we would pull off the highway wherever we found a suitable location. Usually this was behind a big billboard. The only food we had was wheat, canned milk and brown sugar. The wheat was bought in bulk at feed stores, raw and unprocessed. The folks would roast it in an iron skillet over the kerosene burner, then they put it into an old coffee mill and ground it into a fine powder. We got about two tablespoons of wheat in a bowl with a little canned milk and a pinch of brown sugar. That's about all we ate on the whole trip. Once in awhile they would buy a watermelon at a stand and that was heaven. This was July, very hot and humid. At night I remember having to sleep completely under the blanket because the mosquitos were horrible. I think this is when a became clostrophobic! My Dad and Uncle repaired the car several times- patching innertubes and cleaning sparkplugs with an emory board. We kept a Watchtower in the back window and every so often someone would honk and wave as they passed us. When we got to New York we stayed in a Tent City in New Jersey and listened to the program piped in on loudspeakers from Yankee Stadium. It rained so much they brought in bails of straw to throw on the muddy, temporary "streets" so you could walk to the huge plywood shower/toilet structures without sinking in up to your knees in mud.
This is getting long. Maybe I'll write that book someday.