{"id":3782,"date":"2016-09-16T04:40:16","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T04:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.carro.sg\/?p=3782"},"modified":"2025-11-05T17:21:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T09:21:39","slug":"perfect-national-park-american-road-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/perfect-national-park-american-road-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perfect National Park American Road Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"In honour of the National Park Service\u2019s 100th birthday, Randy Olson, a senior data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, used the traveling salesman algorithm and Google Maps to connect all 47 national parks in the contiguous U.S. into one magnificent\u00a0adventure.\r\n<div class=\"content-list-component text\">\r\n\r\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3783\" src=\"https:\/\/carro.sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1930\" height=\"1142\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am.png 1930w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am-300x178.png 300w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am-768x454.png 768w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am-1024x606.png 1024w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am-696x412.png 696w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am-1068x632.png 1068w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-06-at-5.43.05-am-710x420.png 710w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1930px) 100vw, 1930px\" \/>\r\n\r\nThe United States national park system consists of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_national_parks_of_the_United_States\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">59 protected areas<\/a> 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.\r\n\r\nAccording to Olson,\u00a012 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 the road trip, he\u00a0focused on the national parks that span the 48 contiguous states in the mainland United States. That limitation leaves us\u00a047 national parks, which should be plenty for one road trip (or more).\r\n\r\nThe trip, which optimises the amount of time it would take to go from one park to the next, covers a whopping 14,498 miles of road and should take about two months to cover, depending on your pace.\r\n\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_3784\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3784\" style=\"width: 7350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3784\" src=\"https:\/\/carro.sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o.jpg\" alt=\"Grand Canyon\/ Flickr: screamingmonkey\" width=\"7350\" height=\"4902\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o.jpg 7350w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o-696x464.jpg 696w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o-1068x712.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/14796942951_d5dfe71b5e_o-630x420.jpg 630w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 7350px) 100vw, 7350px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3784\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grand Canyon\/ Flickr: screamingmonkey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nFor all you coding geeks out there looking to make adjustments to the proposed itinerary, the original source code can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/rhiever\/Data-Analysis-and-Machine-Learning-Projects\/blob\/master\/optimal-road-trip\/Computing%20the%20optimal%20road%20trip%20across%20the%20U.S..ipynb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. So what are you waiting for (besides the next time you can take\u00a0leave from work)? Get traveling!\r\n\r\n*To support Dr. Randy Olson's patreon so that he'll keep sharing more amazing road trips like this, you can pledge your support to his work <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/randal_olson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.\r\n\r\nSource: Randy Olson","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In honour of the National Park Service\u2019s 100th birthday, Randy Olson, a senior data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, used the traveling salesman algorithm and Google Maps to connect all 47 national parks in the contiguous U.S. into one magnificent\u00a0adventure. The United States national park system consists of 59 protected areas across the U.S. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[725],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle-car-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16328,"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3782\/revisions\/16328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carro.co\/sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}