I've been contemplating a road trip the past few days and I know others have done it before me. What I'm trying to do is figure out a route that would allow a person to drive through all of the "lower" 48 states of the USA in the shortest distance possible. The route does not need to start and end in the same place, you simply need to complete the task of entering all 48 states and the District of Columbia (Washington, DC). There is no minimum distance you are required to travel in any state, you could simply pass the "welcome" sign at the border and turn around and backtrack if you need to.

The shortest route I've been able to cobble together is 6,782 miles. I've heard online that others have done it in 6,700, but I've thus far not been able to push the route lower than 6,782.

If I return to the origin I've only been able to get it down to 7,759 miles.

I'm curious if any of you can come up with shorter routes to accomplish the task?

--LT

I couldn't just cross the border and then score it and drive away. That's like many people who claim to have visited a country if the plane stopped there and they got off to stretch their legs. But the idea of driving through all 48 is terrific. I'm going to get out a map and see how best to go through all of them in the least amount of mileage. Wow! Thanks for the interesting suggestion.

It wasn't easy getting the miles down to 6,782. I had to really finesse the route to get it.

I'm going to try another starting point and see if it makes a significant difference. Florida, Texas, and California make it difficult, though California allows you to keep a large part of the west out of your driving since it is so far to go north to south across it.

--LT

I know a friend who did drive through the lower 48 but he was not trying for the shortest route and he did it over a period of years.

The Pacific Northwest and the Northern Rockies were the hardest and loneliest part of his drive as I recall.

in the summer of 1963 my folks and I drove around the USA, we skipped the deep south, and the north west. 9 weeks and 11,000 miles, that includes parts of Canada.

River

In their Chevrolet??? sounds like you had great parents...Jackie

I'd love to be able to do something like this. But my immediate feeling is that just popping into any given state is a bit of a cop-out. I think I'd want some more defined aim, like visiting each State Capital.

Incidentally, by any criteria calculating an optimal route is an NP-hard problem in combinatorial optimization: aka the classic travelling salesman problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling ... an_problem).

I tried something empirical with Google Maps directions function and the capitals of European countries. The maths utterly defeated me and computer programs claiming to solve it too expensive for just a bit of fun. If I remember right the best plan I managed was just under 10,000 miles.

Matthew

butterflyjack (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:07 am In their Chevrolet??? sounds like you had great parents...Jackie

I did, dad was retired, mom worked for the school board so we had all summer, it was a Dodge. but yes.

River

butterflyjack (imported) wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:07 am In their Chevrolet??? sounds like you had great parents...Jackie

I wonder how many make the connection in what you wrote?

Brings back visions of Dinah Shore.

River