The philosopher [Plato] believed the meaning of life could and should be studied. Yet if you went to any university, museum or other cultural institution in the UK today and said you’d come to study “how to live”, you’d be politely shown the door. Why should this be considered so ludicrous? Surely the question of how to live is still the most important one we can ask. Last year Anthony Kronman, professor of law at Yale, published a passionate polemic, Education’s End: Why our colleges and universities have given up on the meaning of life. “Why did the question of what living is for disappear?” he asks. “Our lives are the most precious resources we possess and the question of how to spend them is the most important question we face.”

Motorways are strangely alluring; we spend so long on them, but don't know much about them. This holiday reveals why the M1 is such an extraordinary work of architecture, design, sociology and peculiar gastronomy. We explore the length of this great tarmac institution, meeting architects and historians, artists and truckers. We unearth the story of the motorway’s construction, reveal the poetry of its monumental architecture, dine in its historic service stations and recover the utopian thrill of its early days. We also, of course, meet those who are campaigning against the expansion of the M1, and hear their stories.

Rather than always being a chance to escape reality, perhaps holidays should offer us a chance to make ourselves more at home in the world we actually live in, even down to its half-terrifying, half-sublime motorway systems.