Planning and budgeting Outsmart this enormous piece of land by visiting the Four Corners Monument.
As long as a rule makes sense to you and whoever is accompanying you on your adventure, it works. They have their own official definition of what it means to actually visit a state, and as it turns out, my parents’ rule is quite close to that.Īccording to the All 50 Club, you’ve only visited a state after having “set foot on the ground of that state and breathed the air.” They’re also adamant that neither layovers nor flying over a state counts as visiting.ĭepending on how hard you want to make things for yourself, you can either stick to this definition (or any other you find out there), or come up with your own. I later discovered there’s a membership organization called the All 50 Club, which helps travelers achieve and celebrate the goal of visiting all 50 states. Sure, that’s a pretty low bar-but it’s the one I grew up with and I’ve stuck to. Googling the topic will lead you down a deep rabbit hole, but my family’s rule of thumb has always been simple: Visiting a state means at least getting out of the car (or leaving the airport) and buying something, even if it’s just a snack from a gas station. The debate always centers around questions such as whether or not it counts if you don’t spend the night, if you only drive through a state, or if you just have a long layover. That’s up to you to decide, but you’ll definitely run into a lot of people with lots of opinions about it. What does it mean to “visit” all 50 states? Does seeing one of these go by while you’re driving count as visiting? We don’t know. I visited the remaining 10 before I turned 22, checking that item off my bucket list, and now, I’m reliving the experience as my husband and toddler cross states off their lists. There, my parents had written down the years I first visited each state, and I realized I was well on my way to spending time in all 50 of them. When I was a teenager, I stumbled across a Xerox copy of a blank U.S.
Visiting all 50 states can seem daunting. We don't need to remind you that the U.S.