50 Hikes. 50 States.

A hiking project to hike one hike in every state in the U.S.

Hiking the USA was the most thrilling way we could imagine to experience our own backyard. There is a map at the end of the post for how to drive the entire USA, one state at a time that shows this hiking project.

Lucky. I live in a beautiful country filled with millions of miles of trails through thousands of beautiful places organized around 50 states. As a resident of the United States, I am more than lucky to have the freedom to move around this great country to explore its grandeur. And now, I’m off to see it again. But first, some back story. (Jump to the bottom of the post to see the driving map.) 

50 States by age 35

By 35, I had visited all 50 states. I grew up in a family with a father who insisted I see the US before I ventured into other countries. Our family vacations put my sister and me in the back of the car as my dad bulleted the car as fast as he could from point A to point B on our two-week long family vacations each summer.

We’d leave from San Diego and head north or east–the only two choices available to us–and journey for a week then turn around. The only things I really saw during the trip were my sister’s dirty looks. We would draw a line with shoe string in the back seat of the car.

Her side. My side.

Crossing the line with even a pinky resulted in fights and nastiness. The bickering bellowed from the back seat non-stop. One time my dad even threw us out of the car and made us walk. Along the highway. In the heat. We had to promise to “be good” before we could get back in the car.

Recently, I stumbled upon my old journals and found evidence of this crazy memory. It simply stated, “Dad was mad. He threw us out of the car and made us walk.”

The Beginning of a Travel Writing Career

But they were great times.

My journal of gas prices, national parks, swimming pools and meals launched my writing career. It’s fun to look back and see how mad mom and dad were or how much a Big Mac cost. The miles flew by on some days, dragged on during the others. If we fell asleep, dad would pull the car over and demand we wake up. After all, we were there to SEE the country, not sleep through it. He was a bit of a tyrant, but his heart was in the right place.

Through these family trips from San Diego to Vancouver, San Diego to Wyoming, and San Diego to West Virginia, we clicked off about 35 states. I picked the rest of them up through business travel or personal visits to friends.

To the World and Beyond!

From there, I jumped into the rest of the world and covered over 50 countries by the time I was 50. I’m currently at 62 countries. But after my jaunt through Latin America for 5 months, I discovered I missed my beautiful U.S.A. and decided that it’s time to revisit this amazing land, again. Thus, I launched my 50 Hikes 50 States Hiking Project.

50 Hikes 50 States Hiking Project

Here’s the goal: to hike one hike in each state over the next two years. How will we do it?

My wonderful husband has a companion pass on Southwest Airlines, so we’ll fly Southwest as often as we can. He’ll come with me on most trips. We’ll do 2-4 states every time we land, and we should be able to do one trip a month. The only state we won’t be able to do via Southwest is Alaska. We’ll fly someone else for that trip.

We’ll stay in a combination of AirBnBs or hotels we book, and we’ll rent cars or use public transit to get around.

Hiking and Traveling in the Time of COVID

We started the project in May 2019 and finished almost half of our hikes in 2019 an early 2020. Then COVID hit. Despite shutdowns and quarantines, we continued to do one trip a month. Most of the time during COVID, we drove, knocking out many of the western hikes in that time frame. When COVID wasn’t spiking, we flew. You’ll see we didn’t fly from November 2020 to January 2021. In March 2021, we got vaccinated. The entire COVID time, we masked, socially distanced, and carried food with us so we avoided restaurants for the most part.

Who Are We?

I am in my early fifties, fit, active, and I walk 16000 steps a day. He is in his late fifties, fit, active, and bikes regularly. We are not super athletes. We have knee problems, toe problems, and hearing problems.  We like a good hike which is 4-6 miles long, has some elevation, allows for some gain (where we might use poles), and affords great views. We’re not scramblers, extremists, or record breakers. We just want to get out on the trail and enjoy some fresh air.

How Do I Pick Our Hikes?

I started this project by reading Outside magazine’s 50 trail recommendations. I then combined that with several similar lists, added in Southwest airport geography, and routed logistics so we could knock out 2-4 hikes each time we fly and not end up driving more than 3 hours to a trailhead. It hasn’t been easy, and it’s certainly not perfect.

Here’s Our Itinerary and Where Hiked

Below is our itinerary. It changed drastically from when we first started planning. In fact, although I had preselected 50 hikes, we only actually did 3 of the preselected hikes. Geography, flights, and logistics played more of a role in picking our hikes than listicles of great hikes. None the less, we did our best to stick to our criteria for hikes (see above) and our criteria for travel restrictions (see above, too.)

See the map here.

Date	Season	State	Airport City	Name of Trail
June 2019 July 2019	Summer	Nevada Indiana Illinois Rhode Island	Las Vegas Chicago Boston	Valley of Fire Indiana Sand Dunes Midewin Prairie Cliff Walk
July 2019	Summer	Connecticut	Boston	AT Lions Head to Bear Mountain (Could’t find trail!)
July 218	Summer	Massachusetts	Boston	Bash Bish Falls
August 2019	Summer	Montana	Billings	Four Dances
August 2019	Summer	Wyoming	south pass city	South Pass City Loop
August 2020	Fall	Colorado	Denver	South Valley Trail
February 2020	Winter	Utah	Denver	Fisher Towers
September 2019	Fall	New Jersey	Philadelphia	great swamp national wildlife refuge orange trail
September 2019	Fall	Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	tyler state park
September 2019	Fall	New York	Philadelphia	Harriman State Park
November 2019	Fall	Ohio	Cincinnati	Mt Airy
November 2019	Fall	West Virginia	Cincinnati	Beech Fork State Park
April 2020	Fall	Texas		Atlanta State Park
February 2020	Fall	Utah	Denver	Fisher Towers
August 2020	Fall	Maryland	Washington DC	C&O Canal
August 2020	Fall	Virginia	Washington DC	Prince William Forest Park
December 2019	Winter	Mississippi	New Orleans	Sand Hill Crane NWR
December 2019	Winter	Louisiana	New Orleans	Barataria Preserve trails of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park
January 2020	Winter	Alabama	New Orleans	Dauphin Island
January 2020	Winter	Florida	Tampa	Cape Canaveral NS
February 2020	Winter	Texas	Little Rock	Atlanta State Park
February 2020	Winter	New Mexico	Santa Fe	Rio Grande Norte NM
April 2021	Spring	Hawaii	Honolulu	Hau’lua Loop Trail
April 2020	Spring	South Carolina	Atlanta	Yellow Branch Falls
February 2020	Spring	Georgia	Tampa	Okefenokee Swamp
November 2019	Fall	Kentucky	Lexington	Jefferson Memorial Forest
April 2020	Spring	Arkansas	Little Rock	Hot Springs NP
June 2020	Summer	North Dakota	Bismark, ND	Teddy Roosevelt NP
June 2020	Summer	South Dakota	Rapid City	Notch Trail
July 2020	Summer	Minnesota	Duluth, MN	Superior Hiking Trail
July 2020	Summer	Michigan	Grand Rapids	Presque Isle River Trailhead
July 2020	Summer	Wisconsin	Madison, WI	Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
February 2020	Winter	Arizona	Phoenix	Water Wheel Trail
August 2020	Summer	Delaware	DC	Cape Henlopen
September 2020	Summer	Vermont	Manchester, NH	Hurricane Forest
September 2020	Summer	New Hampshire	Portland, ME	Red Hill Fire Tower
September 2020	Summer	Maine	Portland, ME	Rachel Carson NWR
October 2020	Fall	Kansas	Denver	Tall Grass Prairie
October 2020	Fall	Nebraska	Denver	Scott’s Bluff
November 2020	Fall	Idaho	Boise	Military Reserve
September 2020	Fall	Iowa	Tulsa, OK	Sunset Ridge Trail
March 2021	Winter	California	San Diego	Torrey Pines
January 2021	Winter	Oregon	Portland, OR	Portland Urban
January 2021	Winter	Washington	Seattle	Lime Kiln Point
July 2020	Spring	North Carolina	Hendersonville	Cove Creek
July 2020	Spring	Tennessee	Knoxville	West Prong Trail
May 2021	Summer	Alaska	Seward	Harding Icefield Trail
September 2020	Fall	Oklahoma	Tulsa	Riverside Trail
November 2019	Fall	Missouri	St Louis	Lewis & Clark Tail

Come Along on this USA Map of All 50 Hikes

I’ll be blogging about each hike here and posting in social media under my EatWalkLearn handles. You can also follow the hashtag #50hikes50states. First up, Nevada.

See you on the trail,

~Chris