Let’s go.
There are many accidental factors that contributed to my career change from teaching to college fundraising, but one of the most compelling reasons I remember was the fact my new fundraising position paid me to travel.
It was something I couldn’t afford to do very much on a high school teacher’s salary, and even when we had the money, we were more often than not bound to the school calendar. We traveled on school breaks–the time when it’s more expensive to travel. Getting paid to travel (and yes, do my job as a fundraiser) sounded like a dream.
I learned to travel efficiently. Even if I had fundraising work scheduled throughout the day, I could often sequester off a few hours on every trip to do something on my own agenda. Sometimes it was a baseball game (I visited lots of cities with ballparks), other times it was a museum or historic site. I tried to experience each place I visited with an open, curious mind. When I would call on donors, I asked about where we were and what made it special. What do you love about here? I wanted to know.
At some point, a Facebook meme inviting you to tally up the number of states you’d visited became popular, and I realized my total was about halfway complete. Then, more than half. I began to think about what it would be like to pull off the whole bucket list–to visit all 50 states. It wasn’t a new or necessarily novel goal to have in life, and the privilege of even trying wasn’t lost on me. I lost momentum, though, as our family grew, and after I changed jobs and started two graduate programs, extra opportunities and time and money to travel weren’t as abundant.
Now, as I race around the year to clock my forty-third lap, I think it’s time to recommit. Even though I normally make life commitments on New Year’s, I think this is the sort of thing that ought to take a little extra time, so my goal is to visit all fifty states before my 50th birthday.
Here are the states I’ve visited: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington D.C. (I’ll count it), Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
That leaves: Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
Thirty-eight states visited, 12 to go, and roughly seven years to get it done. Two states per year, and I’ll leave a year to spare.
For the most part, this entire list forms a large, upside-down “U” shape in the mid-west. I admit that some of these states don’t immediately jump out as incredible destinations. (Google “Iowa tourist attractions,” and you’ll find a trucking museum in the top four results.) And it’s awfully tempting to hack the mission a bit, say, and travel to a strategic corner of a state where I can cross several borders in just a few hours’ driving. I have very few standards in what counts as an official visit to a state–some people define that as spending a night, others as anything that’s not an airport. I have a more biological definition: did I stay long enough to use the bathroom?
Some of these will require a bit of planning and resources, especially Hawaii and Alaska. Both are destinations in their own right, and both make it feel less like cheating if I spend a long weekend border-jumping four flyover states to preserve time and capital for them. But there are other adventures to be had. A thorough exploration of Yellowstone could help me knock off Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. There’s a whole trail of national parks in Utah and New Mexico. Mom is from Nebraska, so there are likely some ancestral experiences to be had there.
And who knows? If I approach every state with curiosity, I’m sure somewhere, something will spark some wonder. The Iowa 80 Trucking Museum did average 4.9 stars online, after all.
Richard Robbins
There are several national parks in Utah that make it worth visiting, including Zion’s and Arches. Flights to Las Vegas will get you within an easy drive of those two places.