Here’s the ultimate road trip to visit most of the national parks

Anyone up for a road trip? This one travels through 47 of the national parks in the U.S. and will take you two months to complete. But hey, if you’ve got plenty of vacation time saved up — why not?

The route is just under 14,500 miles, according to The Washington Post. The Optimal U.S. National Parks Centennial Road Trip map was designed to commemorate the 100^th birthday of the National Park Service, which was in August of 2016, and it hit all of the national parks (at that time) in the contiguous 48 states — so it doesn’t include parks in Hawaii and Alaska, for example.

The map was created by Randal Olson, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. He had a little help from the Traveling Salesman Problem, which calculates the shortest route you can take to hit up a number of different cities before ending up back where you started.

National Park Service properties are constantly in flux, so it’s no surprise that some new parks have been added since Olson first put this road trip together. But you could easily add some of the new parks to the route: For example, New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, which was designated a national park in 2021, isn’t far off the route to Shenandoah National Park.

MORE: 5 National Park road trips to take this summer

So, if you’re looking for a road trip and want to hit most of the national parks (again, excluding those in Alaska, Hawaii and other U.S. territories), then this would be the shortest, fastest way to do it. Olson recommends setting two months aside to take in all the sights.

Olson designed a circular route so that you can hop on at any point and still stay on track. To learn how the trip was calculated or to create your own trip, check out his blog.

MORE: Spend a whole year in 70-degree weather with this road trip

Here’s a list of all the national parks the route covers, in order:

1. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
2. Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
3. Saguaro National Park, Arizona
4. Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas
5. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico
6. Big Bend National Park, Texas
7. Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas
8. Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky
9. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
10. Everglades National Park, Florida
11. Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida
12. Biscayne National Park, Florida
13. Congaree National Park, South Carolina
14. Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
15. Acadia National Park, Maine
16. Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio
17. Isle Royale National Park, Michigan
18. Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota
19. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota
20. Badlands National Park, South Dakota
21. Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
22. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
23. Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado
24. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado
25. Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado
26. Canyonlands National Park, Utah
27. Arches National Park, Utah
28. Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
29. Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
30. Zion National Park, Utah
31. Great Basin National Park, Nevada
32. Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
33. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
34. Glacier National Park, Montana
35. North Cascades National Park, Washington
36. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
37. Olympic National Park, Washington
38. Crater Lake National Park, Oregon
39. Redwood National and State Parks, California
40. Lassen Volcanic National Park, California
41. Yosemite National Park, California
42. Kings Canyon National Park, California
43. Sequoia National Park, California
44. Pinnacles National Park, California
45. Channel Islands National Park, California
46. Joshua Tree National Park, California
47. Death Valley National Park, California

Now, time to set your sights on the open road!

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