A few months ago Shae and I decided to extend what was meant to be our 5 year, 50 state road trip to 8 years (read more about that here).
Seeing as we set off on the road trip on January 1, 2018, that means we’re at the halfway point of the trip and so have 4 years left. We sat down to plan out our remaining states and, in theory, it seems like a great plan!
Our road trip plans often change, so there’s no guarantee that what we decided on won’t change further, but here’s what we’ve penciled in for the next 4 years.
2022
January-March
We’re currently in California and will be here pretty much until the end of March. This is our 25th state, so we’re at the halfway point of the states too.
April
My parents are coming to visit from the UK for the month of April. They’re flying into Phoenix, AZ and from there we’ll be touring round some of our favorite places in that part of the US, as well as getting to experience new things together.
We’ll start of by heading to Albuquerque, NM to spend a week visiting there, Los Alamos and Santa Fe. We’ll then spend a couple of weeks in Utah visiting all five National Parks there; we’ve never visited any of those parks ourselves, so Shae and I are particularly looking forward to visiting Zion, Bryce Canyon, etc.
After that, we’re spending a week in Flagstaff, AZ to visit the Grand Canyon and go hiking in Sedona. My parents are then heading back to the UK a few days into May.
May
After my parents head back, Shae and I will head up to Salt Lake City to finish off Utah before heading back down to Arizona for a couple of days to go hiking in Antelope Canyon as that was the only date still available for that.
June
From Arizona we’ll have a fairly long drive up to Nebraska where we’re spending the month of June. We’re not expecting to be blown away by amazing things in Nebraska, but we think we’ll have enough to do for several weeks there, especially seeing as we’ll be working during that time too.
July
July will be a big month for Shae. She’s going to be riding RAGBRAI – a bike trip from the western side of Iowa to the eastern side. She’s written more about RAGBRAI before, so see this post for more about that experience.
That’s at the end of July, so we’ll spend the first few weeks exploring the rest of Iowa that we won’t see while she’s riding the race.
August
Once RAGBRAI has ended, we’ll be heading over to Chicago, IL as Shae and her mom have tickets for Elton John to celebrate their birthdays as their birthdays are a day apart.
Although we haven’t booked flights yet, our plan is to then visit the UK for a few weeks with our friends who we’ve traveled with in the past.
September-October
We’ll likely fly to the UK from Chicago, so once we’re back from the UK we’ll head up to Michigan for the fall. The weather will hopefully be good at that time of the year and should mean we’ll get to enjoy the fall colors.
November
November is a busy month for me work-wise due to one of my other websites. As a result, we’re heading down to Indiana as we don’t think there’ll be a ton of stuff that we’ll want to see there. We’re thinking of heading back up to Michigan for Thanksgiving though because some of Shae’s relatives live up there.
December
The final month of this year will be spent in New Jersey. Shae’s mom and stepdad are planning on joining us for Christmas there, then we’re all heading up to New York City for New Year’s Eve.
We’ve booked a hotel in Times Square for 6 nights over New Year’s Eve, so we’ll be close to all the festivities. We’re not sure if we want to be outside watching the ball drop though because you have to enter a pen by about 2pm and can’t leave. There are no restrooms, so having to stand there in the freezing cold for 10+ hours not eating, drinking or using the restroom isn’t much fun!
2023
January-February
Having seen in the New Year in New York, we’re going to be snowbirds and will drive down to Florida. We might end up stopping in one or two places along the way, so it’ll likely be closer to 6 weeks in Florida than 8.
We used to live in Virginia and that’s where both sets of Shae’s parents live along with some friends, so we might stop for a few days there. The route will also take us close to Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA – both cities we loved visiting in the first year of the road trip and so we’d be happy returning to see even more of them.
March-April
After Florida we’ll head north to North Carolina. Depending on the route we take, we might stop in Atlanta, GA along the way. We spent some time in Atlanta in the first year of our road trip, but our dog Truffles was sick for most of it and so we didn’t get to do much there.
In the second half of April we might spend some time in Washington D.C. We’ve already visited there on the road trip, but there were a lot of museums and attractions we didn’t get to.
May
Another reason we’re considering stopping in Washington D.C. after North Carolina is because our next new state after that will be Pennsylvania during the month of May, so D.C. will be on the way.
I might be riding solo during this time because Shae and her mom are planning on hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain during May and June.
June-July
During the summer of 2023 we’ll be visiting New York state. We’ll have spent New Year’s in Manhattan, but there’s a lot more of the state to see.
August-October
For late summer and fall of 2023, we’ll be heading even further north to New England. Our plan is to visit New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts during this time. My parents want to see the colors of New England in the fall, so we’re hoping they’ll get to join us on the road trip again next year for that.
Even though we’ve already visited Vermont three times on the road trip, we’ve loved it there so much that we might include a few days there with my parents too.
November-December
With winter rolling in, it’ll be time for us to head south. The first few weeks of November will be spent in the smaller state of Delaware. We’re then planning on spending Thanksgiving through the end of the year in Virginia so that we can celebrate the holidays with family and friends.
2024
January
By this point of the road trip we’ll have finally visited all the states on the east coast, along with other states a little further inland. Our next new state after that will be in March 2024 (more on that in a moment), so we figured we’ll return to some previously-visited states along the way.
Due to the direction we’ll be traveling, January will be spent in Kentucky. We were surprised by how much we loved it there during year 2 of our road trip, so I’m looking forward to heading back there for a few weeks. There’s so much hiking and bourbon to still be had 😉
February
The following month we’re planning on spending the month in Tennessee. That was a state we visited at the end of 2019, but we didn’t make the most of our time there, especially seeing as we didn’t visit Smoky Mountain National Park.
March
The month of March will be spent in Arkansas. We’ve picked March because Hot Springs, AR hosts the World’s Shortest St Patrick’s Day Parade on March 17. They put on a full parade, but it only covers 98 ft of Bridge St.
We got to experience the World’s Smallest St Patrick’s Day Parade in Enterprise, AL in the first year of our road trip (the parade consists of one person), so it’ll be fun to have another unique St Patrick’s Day experience.
April
The new states continue after Arkansas as we’ll head directly north to Missouri.
May-June
We’ll head north once again after that, skipping through Iowa as we’ll have visited there already and on to Minnesota. It’s a fairly large state and the late spring/early summer weather should be beautiful.
July
From there we’ll head westward to North Dakota seeing as that’s not somewhere we want to visit during the winter!
August
Shae and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary in August 2024, so we’re planning on heading to the Maldives to celebrate. We’ve blocked out the entire month of August, although we won’t be spending that long there due to how expensive it’d be. It’s a long journey though, so we’ll likely visit another country or two on the way there and/or on the way back.
September
It’ll be quite the change after returning from the Maldives as we’ll be spending September 2024 in South Dakota. We’ve picked September not only because the weather should still be fairly good, but Custer State Park hosts a buffalo roundup on the last Friday of September each year.
October
From South Dakota we’ll head westward to Wyoming so that we can visit Yellowstone National Park (hopefully) before the weather turns.
November-December
It’ll likely be getting very cold in Wyoming by the time we leave there, so we’ll be hitting up Nevada for the last couple of months of 2024. That’ll likely include seeing in the New Year in Las Vegas.
2025
JanuaryÂ
Provided nothing goes horribly wrong in the next few years, 2025 will be the final year of our road trip! We’ll only have a few states left to visit by that point, but they’re all further north and so aren’t ideal places to visit in the winter.
We’re therefore planning on returning to California to visit some places we’ve missed during our latest visit like Death Valley National Park. A trip up to Portland, OR might also be on the cards to visit our friends who live there.
February-March
Another reason we’re considering visiting Portland, OR after California is because our next state will be due east of there – Idaho. I don’t think the late winter/early spring weather will be great in Idaho, but hopefully we get lucky.
April
We’ll likely start in the south of Idaho and work our way north as the weather gradually gets better. Once we’re done there, in April we’ll head across the border to visit the eastern part of Washington state. We’ve heard the climate on that side of Washington is much better than the western half due to the mountains separating the two, so places like Spokane should be nice in April.
May-August
At this point of our road trip things will be getting truly epic! We’ll be driving all the way from Washington state up to Alaska where we’ll spend the summer. Along the way we’re hoping to visit Banff National Park in Canada as it looks beautiful.
It takes 40+ hours to drive from Washington state to Alaska, so the journeys there and back will take a long time. I’m sure it’ll be worth it though because everything we’ve seen and heard about Alaska suggests it’ll be amazing.
August-October
Having made the long drive back from Alaska, the natural beauty will continue as we’ll be visiting our penultimate state on the road trip – Montana. That’s one of the states we’ve been most looking forward to on the road trip, particularly Glacier National Park.
October
The first part of October will be spent in Montana, with us then moving on to the western side of Washington state. We spent a few days in Seattle for a friend’s birthday recently, but there’s a lot more for us to see both in Seattle and the rest of that side of the state.
November-December
We’ll have one last state to visit at that point and it’s the one that we can’t drive to – Hawaii. Shae, Truffles and I will therefore fly over, but we’re hoping to ship our car there so that it’ll have made it to all 50 states.
Not only is it fun that Hawaii will be our final state, but we’ll get to ring in the New Year there too. It should mark a fitting end to an incredible – and almost 100 month long – road trip.
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Knowing how frequently we’ve had to change plans on the road trip for one reason or another, the order of our remaining states isn’t written in stone. However, it’s nice to have a good idea of how things will hopefully play out over the next four years.
Seeing as it’s a lot of information to take in, here’s a table that Shae produced to make it a little more digestible.
It sounds like a great plan! I will be hitting Utah a month before you. I’m going In mid March and checking out Zion, Bryce, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. We went to Salt Lake City/Park City in October 2021 and I highly recommend Antelope Island State Park to see the herds of buffalo and Homestead Crater in Midway to float in the Hot Springs. I’m going to have to make another trip to Utah at some point to hit Moab and go to Arches. This summer, I’ll be headed to Glacier National Park and then driving down to Yellowstone. You’ll be back in my neck of the woods in April 2024 (well sorta). I missed when you came through IL and visited the Ketchup bottle…that is really my neck of the woods. MO has a lot to offer, let me know if you need any recommendations in a couple years!
Thanks for all those suggestions – I’ll make sure they’re on our list 🙂
Just a note about Nebraska in June – Omaha hosts the NCAA College Baseball World Series from mid-June to late-June, and I imagine hotels are in short supply and expensive during that time.
Ooh, that’s good to know. I think that’s when we we’re likely to be in Omaha, so hopefully I can find something to book using points that’s not expensive.
Well, you’ll be hitting NJ in December when our outdoors does not shine…check out whether or not Cape May has its holiday house tour in December. It’s very pretty-especially at night when there are a number of older Victorian homes decked out. From what I can recall, you can walk through them. It is about 35 miles south of Atlantic City if you are heading there to get your $100 (dinner). Tonewood Brewing in Barrington just opened a new facility-they have good craft beer, as does Spellbond Brewery in Mount Holly. Asbury Park is a cool town-they have a pinball museum where you can play pinball, as well as an indoor beer garden. Princeton is another cool town-there is a beautiful campus and some interesting places to eat. You might also want to check out the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, which is a cool place. We visited there when it was cold-they have a food service area where you can get tea, coffee or hot chocolate to warm up. E-mail me if you need additional ideas or if you do reader meetups.
Awesome, thanks for all of those suggestions 🙂