It may take a month or more, but if you are wanting to get the most out of a summer road trip around the lower 48 American states, then data genius Randy Olson has mapped out the quickest route.
He used an algorithm, the same one he designed to map out the best way way to find the famous Waldo from “Where’s Waldo.” Olson mapped a driving route that has 50 stops at national parks, monuments, historic sites and natural landmarks in all lower 48 states, and he included Washington D.C. and a second stop in California.
The route was calculated in under a minute with Olson’s algorithm.
The 13,699 miles of driving on the route would take 9.33 days if done without traffic, rest stops or sleep. In reality, it is a trip that would take about 2-3 months to complete comfortably, perfect for a summer road trip excursion.
Since Olson had to use the best continuos route for the trip, some states you’ll drive through the middle, and in some you’ll only hit corners and outer edges. The Tennessee stop, for example, is Graceland in Memphis, the museum/home of Elvis Presley, and that’s really the only part of Tennessee on the landmark route.
Olson did map another route for great American cities, though, in which case Nashville makes the list for Tennessee. The great cities route is a bit shorter at 12,290 miles. And on this route some states like West Virginia and North Dakota are left out while other states have multiple stops.
“Out of the top 400 recommended cities to visit on TripAdvisor, none were from North Dakota, Vermont, nor West Virginia. This is especially interesting because TripAdvisor reviewers recommend cities like Flint, MI — the 7th most crime-ridden city in the U.S. — over any city in North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia. I’ll leave the interpretation of that fact to the reader,” Olson says on his website.
For interactive Google maps click these links:
American Landmark Route
Great American Cities
View Washington Post‘s article
Read more Entertainment news
