# Topics > Off the Beaten Path >  Capitals Road Trip

## Hc Charities

I am planning a road trip for the spring of next year.  We will be visiting the Capitals in the 48 contiguous states.  I have used an online map to get the trip to about 12980 in a round trip meaning starting and ending at the same city.  Given that I am doing this in one continuous loop I was wondering if anyone has tried to map this trip out and if they have managed to get it lower than that.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Will

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## Mark Sedenquist

> I am planning a road trip for the spring of next year. We will be visiting the Capitals in the 48 contiguous states.


Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum, I've seen several routes that included parts of all 48 states in a loop, but I've not seen one to the state capitals.  Even more intense would be a trip to all county seats in all 48 contiguous states -- there's probably more than 5000 county seats....

This is a classic "challenge" kind of road trip.  What was the motivation for this trip?

Mark

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## Hc Charities

My fiance and I are big fans of the Long Way series with Ewan McGreggor and Charlie Boorman and have been thinking about doing this trip for a long time.  We are motorcyclists ourselves and amateur foodies.  We thought it would be a great adventure (before we got too old) to do a motorcycle tour around the country, visiting local diners and the like and also doing some work at shelters.  We figure the trip will take us around 60 days giving a day in each capital city and one in DC and a few overnights to break up some of the longer rides on the western legs of the trip.

I've been using the trip planner on the HD website but it is a little unwieldy when it comes to altering routes.  So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

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## Midwest Michael

A couple of years ago we did the 48 state capital challenge in theory, but it was done as a linear trip, not a loop. Even that the best I could do is about 12,000 miles, so if that's what you are coming up with 13000 as a loop, I suspect you are on the right track.

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## Mark Sedenquist

> I've been using the trip planner on the HD website but it is a little unwieldy when it comes to altering routes.  So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


The online routing program on the RTA Map Center is limited to a total of 10 points (8 waypoints and start/finish) so you'd have to make (at least) five maps, but it has the advantage of choosing the exact routing you'd like.  And you can optimize the route for the most effecient.

Mark

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## Foy

> Even more intense would be a trip to all county seats in all 48 contiguous states -- there's probably more than 5000 county seats..
> 
> Mark


Not to pick nits against The Boss's statement, but according to the County Highpointers website, there are some 3,140 counties in the US.  The number moves about somewhat as some areas of Alaska are referred to as boroughs, some counties are merged or otherwise legislated out of existence all over the country, and Virginia in particular is notorious for adding "independent cities", which the highpointer crowd wants to consider separate governmental units for the purposes of their various tallies as to how many county highpoints they've bagged.  They've probably got a point with respect to VA, as once the independent city is created by legislation, that area is no longer part of the county which surrounds it and instead has a separate identity from the county.

Oh, and in case you're interested, Texas has the greatest number of counties at 254, and Delaware the fewest, with 3.  My home state of NC has 100, with some interesting political history as to why some of the counties in the northeast corner of the state, which was settled first, are so very small when compared to some of the western NC counties.

If you ever need any entirely useless GIS trivia, I'm your guy................

Foy

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## AZBuck

And what would you do about Rhode Island which has 'counties' in the sense that there are lines on a map, but no governmental agencies at the county level, and thus no county seats to house these nonexistent agencies?

AZBuck

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## Foy

........there are 5 counties in Rhode Island, and a number of trip logs detailing their locations and summiting by various members of the organization are on the www.cohp.org website.  I suppose it's somewhat of a different question when it comes to getting to the high point of a county and visiting its (nonexistent) county seat.

Notably in Virginia, there are a number of counties with no incorporated towns, and some with one or more incorporated towns but having the county courthouse and its principal offices in an unincorporated community.  These locales are typically named "Buckingham Court House", "Amelia Court House", and "Cumberland Court House", just 3 examples which immediately come to mind.

The highpointers are quite earnest (obsessive? eccentric?) about all of this.  Some of the members have bagged an incredible number of county highpoints.  Inasmuch as reaching all of them involves little knolls such as Denali in AK, Gannet Peak in WY, and Granite Peak in MT, I don't think this particular 56 year-old guy is going to complete the list, but the dedication of the group towards identifying the targets and getting to them is impressive!

Foy

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