Looking For The Best Road Trip? Scientists Say This Is The Most Perfect Road Trip You Can Take.
By Michele
Are you ready to plan a trip for this summer, but not sure where to go? Well here is the amazing road trip mapping out some of the best tourist spots. This trip would take about 2 - 3 months to complete, but what an adventure it would be!
The map, created by Randy Olson with help from Tracy Staedter, pinpoints a mix of 50 major national landmarks, national historic sites, national parks, and national monuments. If you follow the route suggested, you’ll travel across all 48 contiguous states and never leave the country.
Olson used a genetic algorithm that found the best routes with little backtracking. The result is a map using “true distance,” which is the “shortest route by road between every landmark.”
If you’re more into seeing cities than, say, Mount Rushmore, Olson also created a similar map that prioritizes TripAdvisor’s most recommended metros. This trip is only 12,290 miles but excludes cities from North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia, since TripAdvisor says there’s nothing worth stopping for in those states. Here’s what the journey looks like:
Here is a list of what you will see along the way:
1. Grand Canyon, AZ
2. Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
3. Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID
4. Yellowstone National Park, WY
5. Pikes Peak, CO
6. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM
7. The Alamo, TX
8. The Platt Historic District, OK
9. Toltec Mounds, AR
10. Elvis Presley’s Graceland, TN
11. Vicksburg National Military Park, MS
12. French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
13. USS Alabama, AL
14. Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL
15. Okefenokee Swamp Park, GA
16. Fort Sumter National Monument, SC
17. Lost World Caverns, WV
18. Wright Brothers National Memorial Visitor Center, NC
19. Mount Vernon, VA
20. White House, Washington, DC
21. Colonial Annapolis Historic District, MD
22. New Castle Historic District, Delaware
23. Cape May Historic District, NJ
24. Liberty Bell, PA
25. Statue of Liberty, NY
26. The Mark Twain House & Museum, CT
27. The Breakers, RI
28. USS Constitution, MA
29. Acadia National Park, ME
30. Mount Washington Hotel, NH
31. Shelburne Farms, VT
32. Fox Theater, Detroit, MI
33. Spring Grove Cemetery, OH
34. Mammoth Cave National Park, KY
35. West Baden Springs Hotel, IN
36. Abraham Lincoln’s Home, IL
37. Gateway Arch, MO
38. C. W. Parker Carousel Museum, KS
39. Terrace Hill Governor’s Mansion, IA
40. Taliesin, WI
41. Fort Snelling, MN
42. Ashfall Fossil Bed, NE
39. Terrace Hill Governor’s Mansion, IA
40. Taliesin, WI
41. Fort Snelling, MN
42. Ashfall Fossil Bed, NE
45. Glacier National Park, MT
46. Hanford Site, WA
47. Columbia River Highway, OR
48. San Francisco Cable Cars, CA
49. San Andreas Fault, CA
50. Hoover Dam, NV
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