A map with dozens of landmarks can inspire a road trip. It can also make your own available week feel rather small. The solution is to borrow the idea of connecting places well, then design a journey at your scale.

Randal Olson’s widely shared US route was an optimisation project using selected landmarks. Our explanation of the original map covers the method. Here, the question is practical: how do you turn inspiration into a holiday you can actually enjoy?

1. Choose one reason to go

Write down the experience that matters most. It might be walking in a particular landscape, visiting a museum with your family or exploring a region’s food. Give that experience first claim on the available time.

If you begin with a list of states to collect, you may spend the trip crossing boundaries rather than enjoying places. A clear purpose makes it easier to decide which attractive detours to leave for another journey.

2. Choose the start and finish together

Compare a loop with a one-way route. Include travel to the starting point, rental arrangements if needed, and the journey home. A one-way route may reduce backtracking while adding a vehicle drop-off fee or a less convenient flight.

Check the terms for the actual booking. Do not assume a map’s shortest line creates the lowest overall cost.

3. Give the itinerary nights, not just pins

Try an illustrative six-night structure: two nights near the main experience, two nights at a second base and two nights divided between arrival and departure needs. This is a planning pattern, not a recommended driving distance.

Now place your selected stops around those bases. A place that adds hours of driving for a brief photograph may be less valuable than another morning at the main destination.

The exercise also reveals where you would be tired. Avoid making the longest drive follow the most demanding activity simply because the map can connect them.

4. Add the real constraints

Use official park or attraction information to check opening arrangements, seasonal roads, timed entry and the activity you intend to do. A general visitor ticket may not include a particular tour or trail permit.

Put meals, fuel, rest and the final approach to your accommodation into the day. Navigation estimates help with movement; they do not account for how long you want to spend outside the car.

If the plan is already full before those ordinary needs appear, remove a stop.

5. Keep one easy alternative

For each major outdoor day, identify something you would enjoy if conditions change. It could be a local museum, a shorter authorised walk or time in town. An alternative should feel like part of the holiday, not a punishment for bad weather.

Our North American landscape guide helps distinguish different kinds of outdoor visit, while road trip essentials covers practical preparation.

Save the final plan with addresses, booking details and enough offline information to use it without a signal. Then leave a little room to be surprised. The most useful map is the one that gets you to experiences you have time to enjoy.

Map of Randal Olson’s route connecting fifty landmarks across the contiguous United States
Map of Randal Olson’s route connecting fifty landmarks across the contiguous United States
Dark lava ground and scattered trees at Craters of the Moon in the route gallery
A stone arch bridge crossing a wooded stream in the historical route gallery
The white-columned entrance of Graceland in Memphis
Satellite view of the Cape Canaveral coastal area
Illuminated mineral formations inside a cave in the landmark gallery
The Liberty Bell displayed beneath its wooden support
An ornate stone mausoleum among trees in the historical landmark gallery
An indoor carousel with painted panels and horses
Visitors viewing an exposed fossil bed from a raised walkway
Historic buildings and flagpole at Fort Union Trading Post
Historical black-and-white view of Hoover Dam between canyon walls

The fifty-landmark loop is a route exercise

The map connects a predetermined collection of fifty landmarks across the contiguous United States. It does not include all fifty states, and “perfect” describes the enthusiasm of the headline rather than a proven best journey for every traveller. The same exercise appears in the companion Randal Olson article, where the complete list of fifty landmarks appears.

The sequence combines natural sites such as Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone, Mammoth Cave and Glacier with houses, ships, museums and urban districts. That variety is useful, but it also means a stop cannot be assigned one standard visit duration. Seeing the Statue of Liberty involves a different arrangement from looking at a roadside landscape.

Treat the loop as a route you can enter at several points, then choose a section that fits your available nights. For each promising stop, identify one thing you would actually do there: tour a house, walk a trail or spend time with a museum collection. Add that visiting time before judging the drive to the next landmark. This turns an efficiently ordered set of pins into a holiday with room for the places themselves, while keeping the larger map useful for future trips.

All 50 landmarks in the route

The complete sequence below lets you follow the map without opening a second article. The names are the labels used in the published route; they describe the historical selection, so a renamed attraction may appear under its earlier name. Start with the entry nearest your intended arrival, then read forward through the loop to see how neighbouring stages connect.

  1. Grand Canyon, AZ
  2. Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
  3. Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID
  4. Yellowstone National Park, WY
  5. Pikes Peak, CO
  6. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM
  7. The Alamo, TX
  8. The Platt Historic District, OK
  9. Toltec Mounds, AR
  10. Elvis Presley’s Graceland, TN
  11. Vicksburg National Military Park, MS
  12. French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
  13. USS Alabama, AL
  14. Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL
  15. Okefenokee Swamp Park, GA
  16. Fort Sumter National Monument, SC
  17. Lost World Caverns, WV
  18. Wright Brothers National Memorial Visitor Center, NC
  19. Mount Vernon, VA
  20. White House, Washington, DC
  21. Colonial Annapolis Historic District, MD
  22. New Castle Historic District, Delaware
  23. Cape May Historic District, NJ
  24. Liberty Bell, PA
  25. Statue of Liberty, NY
  26. The Mark Twain House & Museum, CT
  27. The Breakers, RI
  28. USS Constitution, MA
  29. Acadia National Park, ME
  30. Mount Washington Hotel, NH
  31. Shelburne Farms, VT
  32. Fox Theater, Detroit, MI
  33. Spring Grove Cemetery, OH
  34. Mammoth Cave National Park, KY
  35. West Baden Springs Hotel, IN
  36. Abraham Lincoln’s Home, IL
  37. Gateway Arch, MO
  38. C. W. Parker Carousel Museum, KS
  39. Terrace Hill Governor’s Mansion, IA
  40. Taliesin, WI
  41. Fort Snelling, MN
  42. Ashfall Fossil Bed, NE
  43. Mount Rushmore, SD
  44. Fort Union Trading Post, ND
  45. Glacier National Park, MT
  46. Hanford Site, WA
  47. Columbia River Highway, OR
  48. San Francisco Cable Cars, CA
  49. San Andreas Fault, CA
  50. Hoover Dam, NV

Randal Olson’s account of the route explains the selection and calculation. The fifty stops cover the forty-eight contiguous states, with two entries in California and an additional stop in Washington, DC. The algorithm orders the chosen places efficiently; it does not decide which destinations deserve your time.

For your own planning sheet, give each selected landmark four fields: the experience you want, the actual visitor entrance, the time you want on site and the next overnight base. This separates a region such as the San Andreas Fault from a specific admission point such as a museum. Check today’s names and access information when converting the historical labels into bookings.

Sources, photography and further reading

Original feature and image attributions: