The Optimal Route for Visiting Every U.S. National Park

Randy Olson, a researcher at University of Pennsylvania Institute for Biomedical Informatics, has taken his genetic algorithm previously used to find Waldo, and has applied it U.S. National Parks. In August, the National Parks Service is celebrating their 100th year, and Olson has calculated the optimal route to hit every single park in one monster road trip.

The trip would take 14,498 miles, which is only 9.29 days of pure driving time with no stops and no sleep. A bit longer if you want to see any of the sights.

A great thing about Olson's posts is he open sourced his original code, so you can dig in and make your own route. Plan your own trip and support his patreon if you want to see more work like this.