Acrylic Fridge Magnet: United States. New Mexico. El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail View

The author of the photo: Samat Jain. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0).

An Old Sign on the Road

This souvenir from United States depicts the sign of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, which translates as the Royal Road of the Hinterland. The traveler should not be deceived by the newly designed sign because this is one of the oldest road not only in United States and North America but in all the Americas. The road crossed many lands, mostly deserts, and that is why this image is so emblematic of the nature of this long road. The horizon that can be seen at the bottom only tells about the immensity of the landscape that travelers in old times, and even new ones, needed to cross to get to connecting cities.

The Camino Real in Details

The Camino Real was the legendary route that linked two of the most important cities in Spanish colonial times: Mexico City and Santa Fe. This road was not new at the time as the Native Americans have used it fragmentarily to trade and move in earlier times. For centuries, Camino Real de Tierra Adentro was the main North American means of communication and commerce and made possible the cultural contact and exchange between distant areas of the Spanish territory in the Americas.

This road, which has been declared separately by Mexico and United States as a historical monument and by UNESCO as a Heritage Site for Humanity, traverses some emblematic cities, monuments and sites of the history of the two countries. In Mexico, the route crosses the Historical centers of Mexico City, Santiago de Queretaro, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas and Durango. Also, it passes by important churches and hospitals, as well as old haciendas. In United States, the route traverses El Paso, Las Cruces and Albuquerque. This a great travel souvenir to take back home and place on the fridge to help you imagine your next trip.