Maybe you have seen various surveys on Facebook tracking now many states people have visited. At some point, I did some accounting, and realized that I was close to reaching all of the states. I had been to 48 states, all but New Mexico and Idaho. I had been meaning to make a trip to both places to get them checked off my list. Lots of business travel all over (but not there or anywhere particularly close), plus the birth of my daughter, and a new house had prevented a trip from moving forward very quickly.
For the record, for me to consider a state visited, I need to actually spend time there, or do something. Flying over doesn’t count. My visit to Idaho is a bit of a cop out, as I spent less than an hour in the state. Typically I have at least spent the night, or spent a lot of time driving through.
This idea sort of came back to me in late 2015, when I had a business trip to Albuquerque, so after that I only had one state to go.
Still I made no plans for Idaho. As much as I’m gone, I didn’t want to make a special trip just for that. Eventually the plans for a ski trip to Utah with some high school friends came together. I checked my geography, and realized we were only staying about an hour from the Idaho border. While we discussed visiting a ski place in Idaho, we couldn’t pass up better options and ski conditions closer to where we were staying.
Road trip to Idaho
Being that close, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get my 50th state. Driving more than an hour just to visit a new state may seem like a waste to some (certainly not Sriram), but to me it was worth the hassle.
Number 50, Idaho!
I wanted to visit some filming sites from Napoleon Dynamite in Preston, Idaho. Since it was dark by the time I made the trip, so I decided not to extend my it any more. I just drove to the first exit with any services, and had an exciting meal from Subway, then headed back.
Visiting all 50 states is kind of an odd milestone to reach, but I’m certainly happy to have that notch in my belt. Another ongoing project I’m still working on is adding countries to my list. I’ve visited nearly the same number of countries as states. Obviously percentage wise and in terms of physical distance I have much further to go on that quest.
How many states have you visited?
