Where I've been and where I ain't

I’ve traveled reasonably broadly, though far from thoroughly. As I plan how I’m going to use my vacation time this year, it occurred to me that there’s one vast region of the country I haven’t even touched: the South.

My travels have taken me to the Southwest, to the Northeast, to the entire Midwest, to parts of the Inter-Mountain West, to the Mid-Atlantic, and, through Washington State, to the Pacific coast. (California, Oregon, Nevada and Utah is the other major hole in my American travels.)

Here’s a visual look:

This fall, I’ll hopefully be swinging over from Texas to visit some friends in Atlanta, knocking off five more states from my checklist in the process. Though some of those states — chiefly Ohio and Pennsylvania — I was very small when I passed through, and if I can I’d like to hit them again for good measure.

(​As you can tell from the map, I’ve never visited either Florida or California. I don’t consider this a huge deal, but certain Disney-loving friends of mine say this is a crime against humanity. Tough — even if and/or when I get around to going to those states, I doubt I’d waste money and time going to an amusement park.)

I’ll be sure to plan future years’ road trips to take me up into Maine and down to California — and who knows, once evening last year I plotted out how exactly a road trip through Canada to Alaska would go. Visiting every state in the country isn’t a terribly important goal, but it’s one I’d like to check off sooner rather than later.

UPDATE: Here’s a states-visited chart that’s current as of November 2015: