It was in early 2007 that I started my first cyber security job. It was a consulting gig, so it involved quite a bit of travel – something I had never had to do in any of my previous jobs. I hadn’t ever done much traveling for pleasure, either. In fact, when I started my cyber security career at age 34, I hadn’t been on an airplane since returning from Japan as a toddler. But I quickly became a seasoned (that is to say, garlicky) business traveler. I also received a generous vacation package, so I did some leisure travel as well. Within just the first year of my new career, I went to eleven states that I hadn’t previously visited. Like many Americans, I started tracking which states I had and hadn’t been to, with a goal of eventually visiting all 50 states. Then this happened, yo:

It was a week or two after Thanksgiving, that inglorious time of year when it’s possible (common, really) to leave for work before the sun rises and not get out of work until after the sun sets. My employer sent me to an intensive one-day training in Atlanta. I flew in the night before (after sunset), rode the light rail from the airport to downtown, walked a block to the hotel and went to bed. The next morning, I arrived at the training around sunrise. I spent the whole day indoors, then took the light rail back to the airport (again, after sunset). I had not seen any part of Georgia by daylight, and had seen very little by nightlight. So, I asked myself, can I really mark Georgia “complete” on my list of visited states? Ultimately, I decided No, I could not cross Georgia off my list.

Fast forward a few months. Oops, you went too far. Rewind a little. OK here’s the spot. I was wandering through the periodicals section of a book store (remember those?), and I picked up an issue of Trains magazine. This particular issue featured an article that listed attractions for railfans in each of the 50 states. Skimming through this article, and in light of my non-visit to Georgia, I began to think it would be pretty sweet to be able to spend a full week of leisure time in each state. I initially saw this as being an idle dream – something I could do if I ever won the PowerBall jackpot. But over the next couple years, I kept coming back to this idea. Eventually, I realized that I could easily take two weeks of vacation each year, and that visiting two states each year would get me to all 50 states in 25 years. I was still in my 30’s at this point, and it finally occurred to me that if I start at the age of 40, this “50 State Vacations” idea would be completed around the time I reach retirement age.

So that’s the plan: spend at least a week of vacation time in each of the 50 states. And blog about it. As of this writing (September 2025) I have completed “State Vacations” in each the following: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming. Twenty down, 30 to go! Of course, my Parkinson’s Disease (and future pandemics?) may interfere with this plan. Though I’m still able to travel independently at this point, there’s no way of knowing how much longer that will be true. But I ain’t givin’ up.

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