I have a personal travel goal to visit all 50 states by the time I turn 50. It’s good to have travel goals, right?

I grew up in California, and as a kid, I made it as far as Nevada and Oregon. Then I decided to go to college in New York, so made my way to the East Coast. After college, I joined a consulting firm and started traveling for work. That’s when I started to make progress on visiting the 50 states.

One of the perks we got when we traveled for work is that we could choose to stay at the work location or use our flight allowance home to fly somewhere else. I was single without kids, so instead of going home for the weekend, I would take the opportunity to travel. Because of this work travel perk, I traveled to just under 30 states by the time I turned 30.

I define “traveled to” as having done/seen something in the state. This does not include flying/driving through, stopping for gas, or eating a meal at a fast food restaurant that you can find anywhere in the US. However, I would count Kentucky if the only thing I did was go to the original Kentucky Fried Chicken, which was a disappointment by the way. In any case, we drove through the entire state of Kentucky on the Bourbon Trail, so Kentucky is checked off the list of 50.

Soon after I turned 30, I was married and living in Singapore, and when I had to travel for work, which was not as often, it was primarily in Asia. Also, we were living on the other side of the world, so we took advantage of seeing as much of Asia as we could. We stopped traveling in the US for these years and ended up racking up the number of countries visited instead.

When we returned to the US in 2016 and set up residence in Florida, we said we wanted to travel more in the US and see more of our country, which is full of natural beauty and its own brand of diversity. However, with friends all over the world and a sister that lives in Switzerland, we were still visiting more destinations internationally and not adding any new states to the list.

Then came the time when the world shut down and borders closed. International travel was no longer an option, and as a couple with some serious wanderlust, we could not stay put. So we started doing road trips. At first, just up to Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Then further away, where instead of driving our own car, we’d fly and rent a car for our multi-state road trips.

Friends, including ones who travel a lot, think this is a bizarre goal. Who would want to go to North Dakota, for example. Well, my response, specific to North Dakota, is that Theodore Roosevelt claimed that this is where “the romance of my life began”. He traveled there to mourn the loss of his mother and wife, and said “I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota.” I had to see the place that had the ability to transform someone for myself. Stories like these are why I’m on my 50 states journey.

We have learned so much traveling and going to places, the US is no different. Traveling in the US, we have learned US history we were never taught in school, discovered new foods to try, and met people with different backgrounds and perspectives even though we are from the same country.

“One must travel to learn.”

– Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

On the road, we have met others with the goal to travel goal to 50 states, so this goal is not really unique. But I only have one friend who has done it. She’s a single mom who wanted to give her son the best experiences during his school breaks. So they would travel together with the goal of getting to all the states by the time he finished college. She made it to all 50 states by the time she turned 50. He still has Hawaii.

For inspiration, I am reading books, articles, and lists written on the most beautiful places to visit in each state or the oldest continuously running restaurant. I enjoy travel planning almost as much as I enjoy the actual travel. It’s all part of the learning process and allows me to curate travel experiences that are tailored to my interests and tastes.

We’ve counted up Brian’s number of states, and he’s not far behind, so once we finish my list, we’ll probably revisit his – though he doesn’t really care. However, I’m ready to revisit places that I haven’t been to in a while, as places and perspectives change.

Currently, I have 8 states to go and I will check off a few more this year. Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Washington, and Wisconsin – here I come!