Longest Trip That is Only on State Highways

[ethanhopkin14]

What is the longest trip you can take in this country only using state highways?  The qualifiers are:

1) The state highway must go across the state (not at it's widest breadth, but it must enter from a state and exit to another state, excluding the termini).  It can't be a collection of state highways to get across the state.  Maybe after round one we will get into a cross country state highway trip, but no for now. 

2) They don't have to have route number consistency.  X State Highway 8 can turn into Y State Highway 43 once you cross the state line.  They just have to be agreeably the same stretch of pavement that otherwise, if a jurisdiction line weren't there, would be the same route. 

3) Cosigning is allowed.  To get from one side of the state to the other, the state highway can ride on US and Interstate highways.  I guess states like Georgia will count since all interstates have a hidden state highway number across the states.

4) The states that have state highways with disjointed segments are discouraged for this game. 

[hotdogPi]

ID/MT/ND/MN 200

[jlam]

A Colorado example that comes to mind is CO-NE-SD 71 from La Junta to Hot Springs, but that has a lot of concurrencies with US and Interstate Highways.

[NWI_Irish96]

If you're going to go E-W across the country and want to go through Indiana, you'll likely use IN 28. It's the only state highway that goes border to border and connects to state highways in both Illinois and Ohio.

It does look like you can get from IN 44 at the Ohio line to IN 62 at the Illinois line through a very circuitous route.
It also looks like you can get from IN 8 at the Ohio line to IN 2 at the Illinois line through a circuitous route.

[SectorZ]

For the northeast, I imagine PA 29, NY 7, VT/NH/ME 9 would win that battle.

74.8 miles in PA
180.3 miles in NY
47.0 miles in VT
109.9 miles in NH
289.1 miles in Maine

701.1 miles total Ashley PA to Calais, ME. Bonus 17.7 miles for NB 170 to Waweig, NB.

(I know as well there are two segments of PA 29, but the southern part was excluded for this exercise)

[SEWIGuy]

So just playing around, I got from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to just about the Colorado / Utah border using highways in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and Colorado again.

As the crow flies about 1,100 miles but probably more like 1,500 when all is said and done.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

So just playing around, I got from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to just about the Colorado / Utah border using highways in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and Colorado again.

As the crow flies about 1,100 miles but probably more like 1,500 when all is said and done.

This wouldn't be valid under the OP's criteria.

[SEWIGuy]

So just playing around, I got from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to just about the Colorado / Utah border using highways in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and Colorado again.

As the crow flies about 1,100 miles but probably more like 1,500 when all is said and done.

This wouldn't be valid under the OP's criteria.

Oh.  Nevermind then. 

[MATraveler128]

Starting in Torrington, Wyoming...

WY 92 - 16 miles
NE 92 - 489 miles
IA 92 - 279 miles
IL 92 - 106 miles

End in Lamoille, Illinois.

[ran4sh]

I guess states like Georgia will count since all interstates have a hidden state highway number across the states.

Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama also use hidden state numbers for Interstate and/or US routes.

I haven't found one using hidden numbers that beats IL-WY 92, but some long ones I have found are

FL 57, GA 3, TN 8, total 444.5 miles. (These overlap different US routes, at the FL/GA line it is US 19, at the GA/TN line it is US 41.)

FL 93, GA 401, total 825.8 miles. (These are generally the hidden numbers for I-75, except that FL 93 uses I-275 through Tampa instead of I-75.)

AL 2, TN 27, GA 1, FL 63, total about 592 miles (Again using different US routes, US 72 in AL, TN, US 27 in TN, GA, FL)

[hobsini2]

One thing I am seeing that is going to be an issue is the various crossings of the Mississippi/St Croix/St Louis, Missouri, Ohio and Red Rivers since most of those crossings from one state to the next are either Interstate or US Hwy. So just for shits and giggles, here's the crossings that you can use to go on state highways only. This is not using ferries.

Using the Mississippi funnel system first:
St Louis River
MN 39/Wis 105 - Duluth, MN
MN 23 - Duluth, MN (This is a bit of a cheat since MN 23 crosses into Wisconsin on land for about 2000 feet before going back into Minnesota.)

St Croix River
MN 48/Wis 77 - Danbury, WI
MN/Wis 70 - Grantsburg, WI
MN/Wis 243 - Osceola, WI
MN 36/Wis 64 - Stillwater, MN

Mississippi River
MN 60/Wis 25 - Wabasha, MN
MN 43/Wis 54 - Winona, MN
IA 9/Wis 82 - Lansing, IA
IA/IL 136 - Clinton, IA (On the Iowa side, it dumps onto US 67 as a cosign. Can't go further west by that rule of "Only".)
IA/IL 92  - Muscatine, IA (On the Iowa side, it dumps onto US 61 as a cosign. Can't go further west by that rule of "Only".)
MO 51/IL 150 - Chester, IL
MO 74/IL 146 - Cape Girardeau, MO

Missouri River
NE 14/SD 37 - Niobrara, NE
NE 15/SD 19 - Vermillion, SD
NE 51/IA 175 - Decatur, NE (Dumps on to US 75)
NE/IA 2 - Nebraska City, NE (Dumps on to US 75 HOWEVER Bus NE 2 allows the through connection.)
KS/MO 92 - Leavenworth, KS (Dumps on to US 73 and cosigned)

Ohio River
OH/WV 807 - St Marys, WV
OH/WV 833 - Mason, WV
OH 775/WV 106 - Huntington, WV (Dumps on US 60)
OH/WV 527 - Huntington, WV (Dumps onto US 60 and I-64)
KY 10/OH 253 - Lloyd, KY (Dumps onto US 52)
KY/OH 852 - Portsmouth, OH
KY 1039/IN 101 - Warsaw, KY
KY 79/IN 135 - Brandenburg, KY
KY 69/IN 237 - Hawesville, KY (KY 69 does become KY 1389 at US 60 so there is an outlet.)
KY 2262/IN 161 - Owensboro, KY (KY 2262 does have an outlet to KY 54 & 81)
KY 56/IL 13 - Old Shawneetown, IL


Red River (ND/MN)
ND 59/MN 171 - Pembina, ND (This crossing dumps out on I-29 and US 75 and in reality is just to connect the 2.)
ND 5/MN 175 - Joliette, ND
ND 66/MN 11 - Drayton, ND
ND 17/MN 317 - E of Grafton, ND
ND 54/MN 1 - Oslo, MN (Dumps out on I-29)
ND/MN 200 - Halstad, MN (Dumps out on US 75 and is cosigned)
ND/MN 210 - Wahpeton, ND (Dumps out on US 75 and is cosigned)
ND 11/MN 55 - Fairmont, ND

Red River (TX/OK/AR)
TX/OK 6 - Quanah, TX
TX/OK 79 - Byers, TX (Dumps on to US 70)
TX/OK 78 - Yuba, OK
TX/OK 37 - Albion, TX
TX 8/AR 41 - New Boston, TX

[andrepoiy]

Canada: BC 1, AB 1, SK 1, MB 1, ON 17 - that will get you to Arnprior ON

[GaryV]

The longest one I can find coming out of Michigan is M-66 to IN-9. 456 miles.

[MATraveler128]

Coming out of Massachusetts...

MA/NY 23 194 miles.

[ran4sh]

Can't go further west by that rule of "Only"

Did you make up this rule or am I misinterpreting something? OP in their rule #3 specifically said cosigning is allowed (what's not allowed is changing to a different state route)

[Occidental Tourist]

Homer, AK to Prudhoe Bay, AK via Tok: 1,236 miles.
AK-1 to AK-2 to AK-11.

[michravera]

What is the longest trip you can take in this country only using state highways?  The qualifiers are:

1) The state highway must go across the state (not at it's widest breadth, but it must enter from a state and exit to another state, excluding the termini).  It can't be a collection of state highways to get across the state.  Maybe after round one we will get into a cross country state highway trip, but no for now. 

2) They don't have to have route number consistency.  X State Highway 8 can turn into Y State Highway 43 once you cross the state line.  They just have to be agreeably the same stretch of pavement that otherwise, if a jurisdiction line weren't there, would be the same route. 

3) Cosigning is allowed.  To get from one side of the state to the other, the state highway can ride on US and Interstate highways.  I guess states like Georgia will count since all interstates have a hidden state highway number across the states.

4) The states that have state highways with disjointed segments are discouraged for this game.

All US- and I-tagged highways in California are State highways (and have the same number, so the trick is to get to one of the many longer border crossing routes: I-5, I-8, I-10, I-40, I-80, US-101, US-395 via another state's SR or SH.

[webny99]

When I first clicked on this thread, I thought it was going to be the longest drive that you personally have taken on only state highways.

Can't confirm for sure if it's the longest, but I've been from Rochester to Southwick beach on NY 104, NY 104A, and NY3, a roughly 2-hour, 110 mile trip. It would certainly be feasible to go another 40 miles up to the Cape Vincent ferry, but I believe I've used I-81 on the trips when I've used the ferry.