The Steady-State Question

June 3, 2008 7:26 PM

How far can you travel in a particular state (geographical, not emotional) without leaving it? I was thinking about this the other day when travelling from Asheville to Kitty Hawk, NC, and I realized that it was an amazingly long journey to take all within a relatively small (but long) Eastern state.

One can actually travel about 625 miles within NC, from Wehutty (out there in the far west corner by Tennessee) to Cape Hatteras (on the Outer Banks), but of course that pales in comparison to the 850 miles from Perdido Bay to Key West, FL, and that can't compete with the Western states or Alaska. And let's not get started on Hawaii.

Still, this is the kind of thing that internet road geeks should have figured out by now. Is there a web site that has a state-by-state guide to the longest road trip one can take without ever leaving the state? It's perfectly OK to make up rules as you wish (no back roads? no ferry rides?) and also wild conjectures; mine is that the longest two drives east of the Mississippi are in FL and NC (although I'm a little worried about Michigan's upper peninsula and NY's Long Island).

posted by math to travel & transportation (21 comments total)

Texas would win it by far, I think. It's 856 miles on I-10 from Orange, TX (louisiana border) to El Paso Tx.
posted by SpecialK at 7:34 PM on June 3, 2008

I-10 through Texas took me over two solid wake-up-and-drive-til-bedtime days and then some to get across.
posted by jessamyn at 7:37 PM on June 3, 2008

Alaska?
posted by ihadapony at 7:40 PM on June 3, 2008

Does Alaska have enough roads to qualify?

According to googlemaps, it's 760 miles from Yreka, CA to San Diego, and neither of those is right up on the state line...
posted by rtha at 7:44 PM on June 3, 2008

Oh, you're not even trying! Fort Bidwell to Bard, CA is 891 miles, and Texline to Port Isabel, TX (running roughly north-south from the panhandle down to the mouth of the Rio Grande) is over 900 miles of pure Texas driving.
posted by math at 7:45 PM on June 3, 2008

Araz Junction, CA to Crescent City, CA? Google Maps says 985 miles.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:48 PM on June 3, 2008

It's about 2250km from the northwestern border of Ontario (near Kenora) to Windsor. According to Google that's 1400 miles. Not that it's a state but it still probably kills anything in the US.
posted by loiseau at 7:48 PM on June 3, 2008

I think California would be your winner. You can fit just over 1000 miles of driving (by the Google maps selected route) between the NW corner and the SE corner. Alaska doesn't have particularly long roads and all the other states have shorter distances corner to corner.

Of course, if you allow winding routes, then you can fit much longer drives.
posted by ssg at 7:49 PM on June 3, 2008

And yes, Alaska has enough roads... from Homer to Prudhoe Bay (all road, but not all paved) is well over 1000 miles, and if you allow ferry trips you can actually start at Unalaska, out on the Aleutians, and make it a total of about 2100 miles (roughly the distance from San Francisco to Chicago, by the way).

OK, I have to stop answering my own posts.
posted by math at 7:53 PM on June 3, 2008

Wyndham Western Australia, to Eucla Western Australia, staying in the state (and not popping out through South Australia, the fastest route is 4533.50 kms 55:31 Hours
posted by b33j at 7:58 PM on June 3, 2008

If we extend the rules to ask for the longest road trip within a given nation, I think that Canada's a real contender for the champion of the Western Hemisphere. From Inuvik, NT to St. John's, NF is about 5880 miles. Although this includes a ferry ride, it's clearly entirely within the territorial boundaries of Canada.

The US, on the other hand, only can provide 3670 miles from Key West, FL to Neah Bay, WA, and while it could up the ante with Alaska, you have to either take a ferry through international waters (from Seattle to Homer) or drive through a non-US province (British Columbia), both of which seem to violate the rules.

I'd put down Russia for the world champion, except that Google maps can't drive from Vladivostok to Murmansk. Damn you, Google!
posted by math at 8:53 PM on June 3, 2008

Dear God. It's Mornington Crescent for map geeks.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:19 PM on June 3, 2008 [4 favorites]

I don't think you could go for more than 650 miles in Michigan. I'm not aware of any efficient way of determining this on a per-state basis (which is what I think you are after) other than Google Maps.

But since you invited variant rules, here's one inspired by your inspiration in NC: what is the highest ration of longest route within a state to the state's total area?
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 9:45 PM on June 3, 2008

ration=ratio. Otherwise, we're talking about a lot of drive through.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 9:46 PM on June 3, 2008

Driving from Chicago to El Paso, you hit the Texas line at Texarkana. You're not yet half way to El Paso.

Leaving Austin, headed west, 290 to I-10 and I-10 on out, twelve hours at 80mph to get the hell out of Texas.

Alaska is of course much larger but Texas is huge, incredibly varied scapes, the size of Germany twice, we have some counties larger than some eastern states, and better, also, by a considerable degree.
posted by dancestoblue at 10:00 PM on June 3, 2008

"The sun is riz, the sun is set, and we ain't out of Texas yet."
posted by jvilter at 10:50 PM on June 3, 2008 [1 favorite]

Interestingly, you can drive from the westernmost point of Rhode Island to the easternmost point in under 70 miles. Contrast with 1,008 miles from NW to SE California. (It beats Texas by a full hundred miles.) However, Alaska is another beast entirely and it's almost unfair to include it.
posted by kyleg at 10:59 PM on June 3, 2008

Alaska doesn't have particularly long roads

Not true, you can drive from Deadhorse to Homer and that is a hell of a long way: 1,139 miles to be precise.

Google maps precise anyway.
posted by fshgrl at 11:28 PM on June 3, 2008

Going north-south in Texas seems pretty far: 908 miles.
posted by kosmonaut at 11:52 PM on June 3, 2008

SW Michigan to the tip of the Keewenaw peninsula (New Buffalo to Copper Harbor) is 655 miles by the most direct in-state route; 656 if you go to Iron Mountain on the MI/WI border instead. So no, despite the Upper Peninsula, MI is not a contender for distance.

I've driven from Asheville to New Bern before in a day - and yeah, that's a hell of a long drive within one state, in part because there aren't any really major highways going to the Outer Banks. Distance-wise, it's a long haul, but drive-time-wise it's even longer. Same goes for the UP. "Highway" there means "Two lanes, two-way traffic, 55mph, and occasionally room to pass the motor home in front of you if you're lucky".
posted by caution live frogs at 6:29 AM on June 4, 2008

I was kind of surprised to discover that Montana doesn't have a more competitive route, but it looks like Westby to St. Regis is very nearly 800 miles.
posted by kittyprecious at 8:24 AM on June 4, 2008