When Allison’s sister rescheduled her wedding from September 2020 to June 2021 due to COVID-19 (like so many other people), we had two choices. We could either fly from Oakland to NYC and double mask on the plane (since vaccination rates were very low at that time), or we could use it as an excuse to drive across the USA.

Since we always wanted to do a cross-country road trip, we decided to go for it. It would allow us to get out of the house after being cooped up for so long and see much of the country we’ve never seen before. Once we got our coronavirus vaccines, we felt we were ready to get back out into the world!

The plan started modestly - we would take a southern route there and northern route back, so we could see different states and national parks each way. It slowly got longer and more elaborate. For example, we figured that while we were in NY with our own car, why not do a loop around the New England states and visit Acadia National Park (one of the most remote NPs in the system)? 

 

50 By 50

As we continued mapping out our routes, we realized we could zig zag a little and hit the final states we needed to get to all 50. Our mantra became #50By50 (50 states by age 50)!

The trip ultimately evolved into an 8-week adventure covering 41 states (the other nine we had already been to). Throughout the trip, we stayed at a combination of Airbnbs, hotels, hostels, and friends’ and family members' homes. Needless to say, it was quite an adventure!

As with any major trip, we learned a lot about the places we visited, about the people we met, and perhaps most importantly, about ourselves.

Here are the 9 main takeaways from our journey…

 

The Places We Visited

In addition to 41 states, we also visited nine National Parks, two National Monuments, loads of local restaurants, museums, and even a football stadium (Lambeau Field in Green Bay).

 

1. America is Vast & Diverse

We ended up driving over 12,500 miles, and we still only touched 82% of the states in our country. We experienced deserts, mountains, hills, forests, plains, oceans, lakes, and rivers.

Along the way, we met people from all walks of life: Navajos in New Mexico, cowboys in Montana, a Southerner lawyer in Mississippi (shades of John Grisham!), bikers in South Dakota, and city slickers in New York and Boston.

The weather and climate was diverse as well. While most places were hot (northern states such as Maine and Montana experienced record breaking heat spells while we were there), some were dry and arid, and others were humid and wet with thunderstorms. If we went during spring or fall, we probably would have experienced a much wider range of temperatures as well.

 

2. Delicious Food Can Be Found Everywhere 

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, we have been spoiled with great food and restaurants for many years. So we were pleasantly surprised to discover tasty food and drink in many other areas throughout our journey.

For example, in Maine, not only did we eat many delicious lobster rolls, but we also discovered their home-grown blueberries. They had blueberry iced tea, root beer, craft brews, sauces, and pies. In Montana, we experimented with bison and elk, along with their own local berry, the huckleberry.

One of the best meals we had was actually in Tupelo, Mississippi (the birthplace of Elvis Presley). We went to a southern soul food restaurant that used a variety of different flavors (such as coconut), ingredients (cauliflower to make bread), and colors (red, yellow, and green tomatoes). While talking to the chef owner, we learned that he developed his food profiles from Colorado and Santa Barbara.

And of course I had to sample many of the local craft beers. Some of the best were in New England, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Cheers!

 

3. The National Parks are Awesome

One of the best travel deals you can find out there is the annual National Park pass, which covers all passengers in a vehicle at all parks and monuments for only $80!

We used our pass at nine parks: Acadia, Badlands, Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, and Zion. We also used it at the Mount Rushmore and Devils Tower (of Close Encounters movie fame) National Monuments.

The natural beauty and wildlife at these parks is amazing! We saw mountain goats and marmots in Glacier, bison and elk in Yellowstone, and deer and wild turkeys in Zion. We got caught up in several “bison jams,” where the giant animals would walk alongside cars, meander through traffic, and cross the road wherever and whenever they felt like it.

We hiked up mountains in Glacier, frolicked in the Atlantic ocean in Acadia, and waded through the chilly Virgin River in Zion.

 

The People We Met

Besides getting to 50 states and seeing all the diversity and beauty of the country, the other reason for doing this trip was to meet up with people again. After a year and a half of mostly staying away from people due to COVID-19, we were ready to reconnect with humanity.

Note: Everyone we stayed with on the trip had been vaccinated, and almost everybody we met up with were vaccinated (except for two of my relatives, who we shared meals with). Also, the Delta variant didn’t start getting bad until the second half of our trip.

 

4. Most People Aren’t A**holes

When we were planning this trip, Allison’s mom was (understandably) concerned about the recent cases of “Asian hate” that were being spotlighted in the news around the country. We assured her we would be cautious, and we even hid a few weapons in the cab of the car just in case.

Fortunately, we didn’t experience any issues of racial animosity (ironically, it seems to be limited to NY and the Bay Area). In fact, we interacted with people in every region of the country, and the vast majority were very friendly. Perhaps it was because we were always cordial with  others, or maybe most people aren’t as bad as the news media makes them out to be.

We had some great conversations with people from all walks of life, and we totally forgot that we had a knife stashed in the glove box for emergencies (hmm, we should probably take that out of the car now that we’re back home…).

 

5. Seeing People in Real Life is So Much Better than Virtually

We all obviously needed to practice social distancing in 2020 to reduce its spread, but doing so has had negative effects on our psychological well-being. Social isolation can increase the risk of a variety of health problems, including heart disease, depression, dementia, and even death.

After many months of seeing only the same small circle of people, it was amazing to travel and physically interact with so many friends and family members that we hadn’t seen in many years (30+ years in some cases).

We met up with friends in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Nevada. We saw old friends, former classmates and co-workers, old and new family members, and even my favorite teacher from high school.

Along the way, we gave away or signed about a dozen of our books to various folks who either wanted one for their kids or themselves.

 

6. FIRE Folks are Everywhere

In addition to friends and family, we also got a chance to meet up with a variety of people from the FIRE community.

Our friends, Amy and Tim Rutherford, recently started a really great Facebook group called GoWithLess. It’s for people interested in early retirement, nomadic living, travel hacking, and house sitting. Amy is probably the most social person I’ve ever met, and her goal is to connect like-minded people as much as possible.

Our first FIRE meetup was fittingly with Amy and Tim. They were house-sitting in Chappaqua, NY, between NYC and Connecticut. We decided to meet up in Greenwich, CT for an afternoon of fancy French pastries and walking around the chichi downtown and marina.

We went on to meet up with Bob H., who lives near the small beach town where my family lives in southern New Jersey. Later in the trip we met up with Chuck H. in Missoula, Montana and Jillian Johnsrud, who has a money course and retreat in Montana.

We wrapped up our FIRE visits with our good friends Dave M. and Robb H. in Las Vegas and Tommy T. and Boris W. in Palm Springs. We all met on our 30-day transatlantic and Panama Canal cruise, so it was great to discover that the friendships we forged on a ship were able to survive on dry land!.

 

Ourselves

One of the best aspects of travel is the self-growth and actualization you experience from going outside your bubble and comfort zone.

 

7. We Don’t Need Much to be Happy

We’ve done some long trips before (10 weeks in Europe to South America and 5 weeks in Southeast Asia), so we know how to get by with minimal belongings. Allison is a bit of a hoarder, so this trip would provide us another opportunity to see if we really need all those random items to be happy.

To reduce temptations of potential car break-ins, we wanted to keep most of our luggage out of plain sight. So, that meant stuffing eight weeks of clothing (including a suit, dress, and formal shoes for the wedding), electronics, toiletries, and miscellaneous items into our trunk.

Although it was a pain to pack and unpack at each of our many stops, we got the hang of it after a while (packing cubes are a must!). And the great thing was knowing that, no, we really don’t need 90% of the stuff in our home and storage to be totally content in life. Maybe one day we could do the nomadic lifestyle - we’ll see!

 

8. We’re in Pretty Good Shape

Hitting age 50 doesn’t have to mean becoming a couch potato and letting your health and fitness decline. In fact, now is that time to increase your efforts to stay in shape!

We have been doing our best to stay fit, even during the pandemic. We walk at least 2-3 miles per day, we do strength exercises (usually weightlifting) 3x per week, we stretch, and I swim 3x per week.

So, when it came time to explore a city or hike around a National Park, we were ready! The two days we were in Boston we walked 9 miles each day (in 90+ temps and 90+ humidity). In NYC, we averaged about 6 miles each day tripping around our old haunts.

And once we got to the National Parks, we hiked close to 8 miles per day on rocky terrain. On one particularly challenging day, we climbed 66 floors (the equivalent of ⅔ of The Empire State Building)!

 

9. We’re Not Sure Where We Want to Live

One of the secondary goals of our big trip was to scout out possible places to live when (and if) we get tired of living in the Bay Area. With the onset of longer, more extreme droughts and wildfire seasons, and the super high cost of living, we occasionally think about moving elsewhere. We’ve been in the Bay Area since 1996, and while we have loved it for the most part, nothing lasts forever, right?

We were kind of hoping that a particular region, state, city, or town would get us excited enough to uproot our stakes. Alas, while we did enjoy many of the places we visited, nothing really stood out as a place we really must move to.

Wildfires aside, the weather in Oakland is almost perfect (typically 60-70s year-round). In fact, in the 7.5 years since moving from SF to Oakland, we’ve never used our heat, and we only used our air-conditioner a handful of times (when the wildfire smoke got too bad last year to open our patio door).

It’s also hard to beat the natural beauty (ocean, mountains, redwoods, etc.) of Northern California. And while we do get knocked for being too liberal sometimes (yes, the homeless problem is a bit out of hand), we do prefer the culture here to many parts of the country.

That said, someday we’ll most likely find a place to go. It may be overseas, or a nomadic lifestyle, but the beauty of the FIRE lifestyle is the flexibility it allows us to determine where to live.

 

Conclusion

Would we do a cross-country road trip again? While we really enjoyed this trip, in the future if we do another big road trip, we would try to do it in spring or fall. The heat and crowds in summertime were a bit too much at times.

We would also probably focus on and spend more time in certain areas of the country (mountains, coasts, and cities) and skip others (like the Great Plains). While our car, Lola the Corolla, did a great job, it got tiring driving so many hours day after day. Perhaps we’ll upgrade to a camper van or RV next time and slow travel in comfort!

What were our favorite states? After hitting all 50 states, our favorite ones are on the coasts: California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, and the states in New England (CT, VT, CT, MA, NH, and ME). We do like the mountains too, so the Rocky Mountain states are close behind.

What’s next for us? First, we will be in Austin, TX for FinCon2021 at the end of September (assuming COVID-19 doesn’t derail it again).

And then our next big travel goal is getting to 60 countries by age 60! We’re halfway there with 10 years to go, so as soon as more countries open up again, we will get back to international travel. #60By60

How about you? What are you doing during the pandemic to keep yourself happy and sane? Do you have any big travel or experience goals when things open back up?