In August 2016, the National Park Service celebrates their 100th year of managing the United States’ system of beautiful national parks. So what’s a better way to celebrate 100 years of stewardship than to visit all of the national parks in one epic road trip?

If you’ve followed my blog for the past year or so, you’ll know that I’ve made a hobby of optimizing various road trips around the U.S., so I couldn’t pass up on this opportunity to optimize yet another road trip.

U.S. National Parks

If you’re unfamiliar with the U.S. national park system, it consists of 59 protected areas across the U.S. that are managed by the U.S. National Park Service. Many of the national parks are known for their natural beauty, unique geological features, unusual ecosystems, and/or recreational opportunities, which makes them ideal spots to visit if you need a break from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

12 of the national parks are in Alaska, Hawaii, and other U.S. territories, which can make them difficult to drive to unless you have a flying car. Thus for road trip, we’re going to focus on the national parks that span the 48 contiguous states in the mainland United States. Don’t worry: that limitation still leaves us 47 national parks, which should be plenty for one road trip.

The optimal road trip to the U.S. National Parks

In total, this road trip spans 14,498 miles (23,333 km) of road and will take roughly 2 months if you’re traveling at a breakneck pace. I’ve designed this road trip to form a circle around the U.S., so you can hop on at any point and proceed whatever direction you like. Just make sure to follow the agenda from that point on if you want to follow the optimal route!

Here’s the Google Maps for the full trip: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Here’s the full list of national parks in order:

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona Saguaro National Park, Arizona Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico Big Bend National Park, Texas Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee Everglades National Park, Florida Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida Biscayne National Park, Florida Congaree National Park, South Carolina Shenandoah National Park, Virginia Acadia National Park, Maine Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio Isle Royale National Park, Michigan Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota Badlands National Park, South Dakota Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado Canyonlands National Park, Utah Arches National Park, Utah Capitol Reef National Park, Utah Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah Zion National Park, Utah Great Basin National Park, Nevada Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Glacier National Park, Montana North Cascades National Park, Washington Mount Rainier National Park, Washington Olympic National Park, Washington Crater Lake National Park, Oregon Redwood National and State Parks, California Lassen Volcanic National Park, California Yosemite National Park, California Kings Canyon National Park, California Sequoia National Park, California Pinnacles National Park, California Channel Islands National Park, California Joshua Tree National Park, California Death Valley National Park, California

Want to make your own road trip?

If you like the idea of taking an optimal road trip but don’t like the locations I chose, don’t fret: you can make your own road trip!

This time around, I used the Gurobi TSP solver to optimize this road trip. Check out Nathan Brixius’ blog post to learn how to make your own, or check out my alternative methods to optimizing road trips using Python and Google Maps.

If Python coding is beyond you, there are web sites like RouteXL.com that will do it for you. They optimize road trips with up to 20 stops for free, and 20+ stops for a nominal fee.

Happy road tripping!