50 States in One Year - What have I gotten myself into here?

I may receive commissions when you click links and make purchases at no extra cost to you.What metrics will I use

I started doing some quick math. Fifty states, 52 week, a week in each plus an additional week for Hawaii and Alaska? (not exactly an algebra problem, but let’s continue). Well THAT won’t work as I can’t take the ENTIRE year off (yet) …

So I was thinking a bit on my walk this evening. What am I going to justify as a visit to a state. Driving through it? Flying into it? A one nights stay in it? A meal on the go?

Having already been to several of these states already and the fact that I am not exactly taking the whole year off to travel, I started to think I might need another plan. One thing I DON’T want to do is travel like a madman the way I did whilst backpacking Europe in my 20’s and 30’s. The goal back then was to see as much as possible. Sure it was fun, but as I turn 60, well, let’s just say that the knees might have other plans.

A possible plan – 36 hours in each state

Thirty Six hours. That has a nice ring to it. That could be the key to this. Of course, I am not going to completely immerse myself into the experience of an entire state in 36 hours, but it’s a good metric to use I think. Might be tough in Texas and California, but Rhode Island? Maybe. Targeted location travel and a deeper immersion into that location, for 36 hours, in each state. This might be coming together now!

Although it’s an aggressive bucket list, I still think it is doable. As I mentioned, I HAVE been to several of these states before and have seen a lot so the only way to do this the more that I think of it is the idea of taking a deeper dive into a smaller amount of locations. In fact, I found a book that just might be a great resource for this.

The New York Times book called 36 hours; USA and Canada

I just received my copy the other day. Here is a link to the book right here if you are interested. I’m about to do some research myself after I post this! I decided to buy this the other day as I noticed the Europe version on my bookshelf. I read a few articles from that version for one of my last trips there and think that this might be a good resource and at times, a key to the success of this venture.

So that’s the plan! Of course I haven’t started ANY of this yet, so there is that.

I also plan on making this site live the beginning of February and then plan to start releasing some posts of “must see’s” on each state. I am using AI to help me research and format these as well as create some really cool collages for each state. Here is a sneak peak at one below!