2016
2 new states · 2 of 48
Before the van. A roadtrip through Colorado and Utah, back when all of this was still a maybe.
- Colorado
- Utah
The Years
The Slow Version
Eight years of the lower forty-eight, in the order the van found them.
The map on this page starts empty, the way ours did. Scroll, and it fills in the order it actually happened: two roadtrips before there was a van, one enormous loop, and a few years that added nothing to the map and everything to us. The dates come straight from the timestamps on eight years of photos.
2017
2 new states · 4 of 48
Still pre-van. Arizona and Oregon, and the maybe getting harder to ignore.
- Arizona
- Oregon
2018
1 new state · 5 of 48
We moved into the van that October, in Colorado, and learned to winter in it. Wyoming was the first state the van gave us.
- Wyoming
2019
18 new states · 23 of 48
The big loop. South for Mardi Gras and a season on the Florida panhandle, then north all the way to a sunrise on Cadillac Mountain. Eighteen new states in one year.
- Arkansas
- Florida
- Georgia
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Missouri
- New York
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Vermont
- Virginia
2020
no new states · still 23 of 48
No new ink. We stayed with the places we already loved: Colorado, Utah, Arizona.
2021
2 new states · 25 of 48
Two new states, opposite ends of everything: Montana's glacier country and the white dunes of New Mexico.
- Montana
- New Mexico
2022
4 new states · 29 of 48
The West Coast year. California, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, and the 101 driven the slow way.
- California
- Idaho
- Nevada
- Washington
2023
1 new state · 30 of 48
Illinois joined the map.
- Illinois
2024
7 new states · 37 of 48
The Great Lakes run. Seven new states between the Dakotas and the Jersey Shore, and Lake Superior showing off the whole way.
- Maryland
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- New Jersey
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
- Wisconsin
Today
48 of 48
The other eleven were drive-through states that never got a photo. They count all the same.
The odometer reads 129,783.
The van is parked in New York City.
Open the full map →