In the late 1960's, two bikers, Billy and Wyatt, (Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda) take the cash that they made from smuggling coke, and go searching for America. They pick up a hitchhiker and experience several drug induced adventures, from New Orleans to the American Southwest. They get arrested for riding in a parade without a permit and they are defended by a lawyer, George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), who works for the ACLU and happens to be an alcoholic. They take George with them, and when stopping in a restaurant in Louisiana, they run afoul of some local thugs who come to their camp in the middle of the night and murder George with a machete.