Originally Posted by
Long Train Runnin
Finished all 50 states back in 2019. It was always a goal of mine, and through work/life I was able to get to 47.
Once I booked my first trip to Alaska, I decided that should be my 50th state, and booked trips to South Dakota and Oklahoma to do them before I arrived in Alaska.
During COVID I went back and revisited certain states that I had only been to a major city. Like Minnesota I had only bein the MSP metro area, so I took a 10 day road trip through MN and visited lots of smaller towns through out the state.
Of course, the way life works I ended up going to Oklahoma for work at this point, and I am just missing another trip to North Dakota and then I've been to all 50 more then once.
Also during COVID I worked on flying into/out of all 50 states and am only 3 states away from achieving that too. My only other state related side quest if you will was riding an Amtrak train in every state served by them. There I am just missing Michigan.
I don't think most US citizens are actively pursuing the goal. There are some amazing parts of the US, but also plenty of forgettable parts.
Enjoyed reading that.
Alaska in March is my 50th and final one also. Juneau. I paid a little bit more to fly there instead of Anchorage. I stupidly thought Anchorage was the only real option, but the place doesn't look particularly nice, whereas Juneau looks charming (to me anyway).
Your comment on Minnesota is an interesting one. I went to Minneapolis for one night and didn't enjoy it. Thought it was a nothing-ness city. Nothing that stood out for me, but I do agree with you about all the other little towns dotted about the state. They look really good. If I had more time and money, I'd make a point of going back there and spending a few days travelling about the other parts of the state.
I do like Amtrak. I made reference to it a couple of times in previous posts on here. I was wanting to do Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota by Amtrak but it doesn't cover those states (in fact I've noticed it covers Fargo but I don't think it matched up with the rest of my trip).
I'm getting a Greyhound bus from Omaha Nebraska up to Sioux Falls, South Dakota then next day the same bus from there up to Fargo, North Dakota then flying to Jackson's Hole, Wyoming the day after that. Jackson looks very nice (similar to Bozeman, Montana when I was there) but it's very expensive for hotels and Uber's. Every now and again I accept it, bite the bullet, pay what I have to and just embrace it and booked a very, very nice hotel for the night for £160 (225-Dollars) - there were cheaper hotels around the £100 mark that are a massive downgrade on where I'm staying and Uber's to and from the Airport are about £30 each way, whereas my hotel has a free Airport shuttle so it literally works out the same (plus getting to stay in one of the nicest hotels). Edit, plus Booking.com gave me a 15% off my next hotel stay against a booking of my choice - obviously applied it to that one to get myself almost £25 off a future hotel rate (to be honest I rationalize by just applying that £25 against the £160 and pretend to myself that the £160 hotel room is now £75
- £160 minus x2 £30 Uber's to and from the Airport and the £25 future credit - it makes me feel better about spending a lot of money haha).