If all goes well, before I get to bed tomorrow night, I will be capping a long-time goal of mine: to visit all 50 states in the USA. I’m accompanying my son on a 30+ hour drive to California and swinging by Idaho on Friday to check the box on my last state. It will be a patriotic highlight of Independence Day weekend! 🇺🇸
Reaching all 50 states became a goal,of mine when I was about 30. My wife’s grandparents were visiting and her grandpa Harold – who loved to travel – had been to all 50 states. He was telling me all about it. That prompted me to add up where I was at that point – probably a few dozen states – and get cracking on the ones I needed to collect.
Related: 50 States Quest
Many of the states I was able to reach through business travel at MegaCorp. Still, I’ve probably taken at least a half-dozen trips just to ‘check off’ states I hadn’t gotten to. We did a big trip through the New England states (RI, VT, NH, ME) one summer and road tripped from Charleston to New Orleans to cover off a few missing states in the Southeast (SC, AL, MS). My 49th state was Wyoming.
Hawaii and Alaska?
We knocked out both of them in a 5-month span of 2010.
What’s next? To go to McDonald’s, of course. I’ve actually never had a Big Mac and always told my son I’d have one when I reach my 50th State. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there is one in the corner of Idaho we are going to hit (by Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons), so maybe that will wait until we reach Las Vegas for Fourth of July.
How many states have you reached? Have plans to reach them all?
Image Credit: Pixabay
MrFireStation 
As a Canadian, proud to tell you I’m at 44 states and counting! Once the border opens up that is.
Question for you – how many Canadian provinces & territories have you enjoyed?
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44 – that’s great! You are much further in US States than I am in Canadian Provinces/Territories. I’ve been to 5 so far: Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia, and the Yukon. My next aim would be Banff, so that would get me Saskatchewan. I’m unlikely to prioritize getting to the eastern provinces versus traveling to more countries around the world.
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Oops. Points for spelling Saskatchewan correctly, but last time I checked Banff was on the west side of Alberta!
Maybe rethink a visit to the Eastern provinces – it’s an experience unrivaled by the rest of Canada, and even the US – although Cape Cod comes close.
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Oops!! My son corrected me after I posted that. I forgot about Alberta! I most associate Alberta with Calgary. The big mall there is the corporate cousin of our Mall of America. Happy Canada Day by the way!!
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My dad used to do the same thing, and he would even travel a little out of the way to check a box. Oregon was the last one for me and I visited that one in 2013.
Does it still count if I was too young to remember some of them?
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Yes – I think visiting when you are a kid definitely counts. That said, I’ve hit them all as an adult. We didn’t travel too much when I was a kid.
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Bravo, Chief! I’ve been stuck at 46 for 5 years. I have tentative plans to get the last 4 by 2024. Previous plans were knocked out of kilter by a bicycle accident, a new grandchild, and pandemic. “I’ve always found that plans are useless, but planning indispensable.” – General Dwight D. Eisenhower
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My original goal was ‘50 by age 50’. I could have gotten there but was stuck 3 short. ‘50 by age 55’ isn’t too bad. Which ones do you need?
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North & South Dakota; Oregon; Mississippi. Two missing continents: Africa; Antarctica. Last year, I had arranged a two week photo safari to Kenya and Serengeti. Pandemic scotched that. Next year is potential, but I think my window for safari travel has closed. For Oregon and Mississippi, I’d like riverboats but not sure when (if ever) I’m willing to board closed vessels with other people.
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The pandemic has screwed up quite a few trips hasn’t it? We’ll be reaching ND about 11:00am this morning and driving straight west across the state. We’ve been to Fargo in the past. Hometown of NY Yankee Roger Maris, I believe. They have a shrine for him in the local mall.
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Continents? I need South America, Australia, and Antarctica. I have 33-35 countries, depending on how you count them. I’d also like to get to 50 countries. Australia/NZ or Ireland would be our next ones.
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Congrats on 50! We drove from Seattle to Virginia in May/June earlier this year, and we knocked off a few states with that trip. We have 40 states checked off, so we still have 10 to go. We are planning to knock out a few more next year if all goes well!
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40 is very solid, but too close not to go for 50! Which areas of the country do you need to get to?
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There are pockets all over the US. We still need to visit VT, AK, HI, CO, NM, UT, MI, WI, ND, and KS.
We will definitely be checking them off over the next couple of years. We also have a bucket list of countries to visit. Hopefully as COVID continues to improve, we can check a few of those off too.
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I still need both Dakotas, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Northwest Territory, Newfoundland , Nunavut and PEI
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I see that Nunavut is the land around Hudson’s Bay … I’d plan that one in the summer for sure!! 🙂
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