Why Gates50States?

A passion for hiking, nature, wildlife and photography fuels our desire to leave home at every opportunity to explore new places far-afield and in our own backyard. Couple that passion with our love of the United States and desire to foster similar appreciation for this country in our kids, and voila – The 50 States Plan was born.

It’s hard to put a date on it. Even before we were married travel was a priority for us. Jenn was the more adventurous, but I was looking forward to fun travel experiences just the same. Sometime around 2002 we made a list of the places we wanted to visit before we died. It was our Bucket List before Bucket List was even a term. On the list was African safari, Patagonia, Alaska, China, along with many others.

Domestically, I (Ryan) recall learning of a travel strategy that the family of a friend of my sister’s put together: they hit all 50 states before the kids finished college. And not just driving through all of the states, but doing something special, something representative of each state. Jenn and I thought that was really cool, and we talked about making that a Gates Family agenda item.

America is such an amazing place- profound diversity of people, culture, wildlife and geography make the United States a truly fantastic country in which to live. Although we love the excitement and insight into other cultures we gain from traveling abroad, we feel an in depth exploration of our own country and all of its wonders is an unmatched gift we can give to our children. We hope to instill a passion for learning, an understanding and tolerance of differences among people, and an appreciation and desire to protect and sustain wildlife and the environment in our kids over the life of this plan.

We don’t want to return them to the same place year after year, and on the other end of the spectrum, we know we can’t squeeze every last attraction and jewel into their childhood. Rather, we want to give them a flavor of every state so that when they’re our age, they can decide where it is they want to return.

Sometime in 2015 we gave this whole plan some deep thought, and came to the conclusion that making it to all 50 states wasn’t a goal that would accomplish itself. It was going to take real planning and aggressive strategizing. Good thing I married the queen of planning and strategizing! Jenn went to work and the two of us started building a plan that would carry us through Lincoln’s last summer before graduating from college.

Travel, whether domestic or international, also provides countless opportunities for learning and developing skills such as money and time management, research, itinerary planning, and transportation logistics to instill into the kids. As they age, they will be more involved in all aspects of our trips beginning with the planning and research stage.

We’d already checked 2 states off the list: the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 2013, and Hilton Head, South Carolina in 2015. After giving some thought to making Michigan & Wisconsin our next stops, we settled on making a trip out west for 2016: southeastern Idaho with its rich Oregon Trail and agricultural history, Grand Teton National Park & Yellowstone National Park of Wyoming, Montana’s Glacier National Park, then back to Idaho for a drive west across the Northwest Passage and south to Boise.

I’ve blogged our family’s big milestones since just before the birth of our first in 2008, and it’s served as a type of diary. While our blogging frequency has become inversely proportional to the number of kids we have and their ascension through the grades at school (and Instagram somewhat replaced our personal blog as the family diary), Jenn and I wanted to blog our quest for 50 states to serve as…

… a diary for our family
… somewhat of (a) an inspiration for other families seeking to build memories and (b) a bank of ideas for those coming behind us in life’s journey with a growing and maturing family.

We’ve made a rough plan of our path for the next 12 or so years, and in between our travels, we’ll squeeze in notes from our marriage building trips where we leave the kids with their grandparents, ideas for helpful research, as well as pearls of wisdom from Jenn, the most conscientious planner and the most advanced amateur travel agent you can find.

Happy travels!