Rob Wittig's El Dorado tells the story of a road trip in six scenes. Each scene takes the reader through a segment of the trip, represented as a horizontal timeline that must be read by scrolling from left to right. The story is mostly told through the dialogue of the riders. The reader scrolls to the right along a single black line, representing the road, in order to read the dialogue. Pictures, drawings and diagrams are interwoven with the dialogue, and often "asides" are found along the black line road underneath the dialogue.

The images used to illustrate the story range from photos of the proverbial trip, to hand drawn illustrations to inserted images of a radio dial. Each radio dial has a drop down menu underneath it so that the reader can "choose" a station. The station choice does not attach to any actual music; rather, each fictional station has a name which describes the type of music each station plays.

The story begins from an unspecified starting point and concludes Hamburg, Illinois. The reader experiences the trip themselves by being witness to the conversations among the group and viewing the pictures and diagrams presented. For example, one character says, “Time we get serious about looking for a motel,” and then another follows with, “Can we make sure and find a really trashy serial-killer-on-the-run motel?” The reader is never quite sure exactly how many people are on the trip, or who is talking at any given time. The design of the work is intended to give the reader the experience of the group as they travel.