shortest road trip to include all lower 48 states and DC

[prenatt1166]

I have been trying to figure this out, but would anyone else like to to find the shortest road trip (by mileage) with the following criteria ?

1)  you can start and end anywhere in the U.S.

2)  you must drive through all lower 48 states and DC at least once

3)  all roads should be signed routes

[agentsteel53]

3)  all roads should be signed routes

this might add miles because sometimes the easiest way to clinch a state is to just drive down a short unsigned road across a state line.

to generally answer your question, see what the Iron Butt motorcycle riders consider to be the best path ... though theirs is optimized for speed, not distance.

[corco]

This would be pretty close
http://wot.motortrend.com/5-days-48-states-7500-miles-the-great-american-road-trip-761.html

[agentsteel53]

This would be pretty close
http://wot.motortrend.com/5-days-48-states-7500-miles-the-great-american-road-trip-761.html

with three drivers?  that's not even cake - that's mush from a tube optimized to provide essential nutrients!

[oscar]

See also http://www.barrystiefel.com/50_states_in_a_weeks_vacation/50_states_in_a_weeks_vacation.htm

His trip was solo, but skipped D.C. (came close, though).  Leaving out the plane trips to Alaska and Hawaii, his trip through the lower 48 states took seven full days and parts of two others, and covered 8,649 miles. OTOH, he was constrained by having to start and end his trip in San Jose.  He could've cut the mileage a lot, and saved about a day, by starting at Lake Tahoe and ending in northeastern Arizona at the Four Corners. 

On a separate trip, he did the legendary 21 states in one day (from Maine to Mississippi) tour. 

[agentsteel53]

On a separate trip, he did the legendary 21 states in one day (from Maine to Mississippi) tour.

I see he got tripped up by the Turnpike/95 junction in Philly.

yeah, that's a loser of an interchange all right.

[corco]

with three drivers?  that's not even cake - that's mush from a tube optimized to provide essential nutrients!

Yeah, the fact that they were even able to get a little bit of sponsorship for that to offset expenses makes me wonder if most of us aren't doing roadgeeking wrong

I remain convinced that there has to be a way to roadtrip on routes of choice (i.e. not a truck driver) full time and make money simultaneously, but I haven't figured it out yet.

[NE2]

I remain convinced that there has to be a way to roadtrip on routes of choice (i.e. not a truck driver) full time and make money simultaneously, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Get one of those fucking rolling billboards.

[Jim]

It would be very difficult if not impossible to find the optimal such trip (it sure sounds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-hard to me).  But given a graph to work with, this could be fun to try (as this CS prof thinks how he can work this into a class this year).  There are many related and well-studied graph problems that could provide an answer to a similar question, but I'm not coming up with one offhand that is exactly this problem...  I bet there is one almost if not exactly equivalent to this.  The tricky parts I am thinking about are that we don't care where we start and finish, the best such points would certainly be different and probably nowhere near each other, we don't want to visit every place (graph vertex) but just at least one vertex in each of 48 subsets (the points within each state).  We could think about additional restrictions like not using the same road twice or not visiting the same place twice.

I have tools to create a graph using CHM data, but that doesn't yet have all of the state routes.  It has the advantage of being a much smaller data set than, say, all of what the major mapping services use, even if you were able to filter out just the I, US, and state highways.  But even using just interstate and US highways from that project, we're looking at a graph with about 161,000 vertices and 174,000 edges.  Enough to choke any brute force approach by a lot!

[agentsteel53]

I remain convinced that there has to be a way to roadtrip on routes of choice (i.e. not a truck driver) full time and make money simultaneously, but I haven't figured it out yet.

for about 6 months in 2009-2010, I was buying and selling highway signs full time.  I basically got to go wherever I wanted to, and turned a tidy profit doing so.

[cpzilliacus]

to generally answer your question, see what the Iron Butt motorcycle riders consider to be the best path ... though theirs is optimized for speed, not distance.

According to Wikipedia, the Iron Butt "tour" includes routing across British Columbia to Hyder, Alaska, so it touches all U.S. 49 states on the North American continent.

[vdeane]

It would be very difficult if not impossible to find the optimal such trip (it sure sounds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-hard to me).  But given a graph to work with, this could be fun to try (as this CS prof thinks how he can work this into a class this year).  There are many related and well-studied graph problems that could provide an answer to a similar question, but I'm not coming up with one offhand that is exactly this problem...  I bet there is one almost if not exactly equivalent to this.  The tricky parts I am thinking about are that we don't care where we start and finish, the best such points would certainly be different and probably nowhere near each other, we don't want to visit every place (graph vertex) but just at least one vertex in each of 48 subsets (the points within each state).  We could think about additional restrictions like not using the same road twice or not visiting the same place twice.

I have tools to create a graph using CHM data, but that doesn't yet have all of the state routes.  It has the advantage of being a much smaller data set than, say, all of what the major mapping services use, even if you were able to filter out just the I, US, and state highways.  But even using just interstate and US highways from that project, we're looking at a graph with about 161,000 vertices and 174,000 edges.  Enough to choke any brute force approach by a lot!

Don't forget to show the Hitler video.

[jeffandnicole]

This would be pretty close
http://wot.motortrend.com/5-days-48-states-7500-miles-the-great-american-road-trip-761.html

The biggest problem is, you end nowhere near where you started. I guess if you want to fly to your starting point, and fly home from your end point, this type of trip is fine.