In 2014 I was planning my dream vacation to celebrate my next milestone birthday. I was planning to visit Europe for a month and bounce around collecting cities and countries. While in travel planning mode, something I absolutely love to do, I came up with the idea of visiting all 50 states and all 7 continents. I had only visited 13 states and one continent up to that point, but I thought it would be a great goal to see the whole of The United States of America and the seven designated land masses of the world.
I created a map of the places I’d been and then started on my journey. When I met my late husband in 2016, we learned we had a mutual love of travel so although he had visited the 48 contiguous states plus Hawaii he would travel with me helping me collect states. We went on two medium sized road trips and one massive one before he passed. Travel has always been my happy place so to not focus on my grief, I leaned into travel. I went back to solo travel and took a few trips on my own. In fall 2021 my now bestie joined me on my quest and we’ve been taking trips together ever since. When planning our first trip, she made he list and we compared it to mine. I was at 27 visited and 23 to go and she was the exact opposite. Life truly is amazing at times and this was definitely one. She set out to catch up so we could takle the states we needed in common together. She eventually caught up and then blew past me. Our last trip as of this writing was an extended weekend visiting Philadelphia and a one day road trip spanning six states. I added three new states to my list to catch up to her. We both now stand at a total of 44 states visited. We have 6 states to finish our goal – North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Alaska.
- The states I had visited as of 2015. In order of visit – California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Massachusetts, Illinois, Nevada, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, and Florida.
- February 2016, I added Oregon.
- November 2016, I took a road trip and added Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama.
- 2017, Kansas and Missouri.
- 2018, I took a road trip through Tennessee, Alabama, and added Georgia.
- 2019, I took a road trip spanning nine states including adding new states Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
- May 2021, I added Utah.
- June 2021, I added Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska.
- August 2021, I added Oklahoma.
- October 2021, my bestie and forever favorite travel buddy joined in my quest, and we took a road trip to Montana, Wyoming (new for her), and Idaho.
- March 2022, we visited Hawaii. New for me but not for her.
- July 2022, we took a family road trip spanning eight states – Massachusetts (not new for me), Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
- October 2022, we added Michigan.
- Our latest trip, in early September, included Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. No new states for her, I added PA, DE, and WV. West Virginia was the 44th state I visited.