TAKE a look at some of our chapters
We learned along the way that we were not alone in our journey. Everyone has something to teach you. So many new people helped us find that special spot or learn how to prepare for the next adventure. Note: This isn’t an excuse to get away from each other, and always make sure you talk to strangers safely!
In 2016, the National Parks Service started a public service campaign with the hashtag #FindYourPark to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the parks. This campaign opened our eyes to all parks: national monuments, seashores, state parks, local parks, museums, natural and historic sites, and so much more. We learned that hashtag meant find what you love at each park.
According to CurrentResult.com, there are 2,972 different types of vertebrate animals in the U.S. Though we haven't come close to seeing all 2,972, we have encountered all types of animals. Some were chance encounters and others were planned well in advance. We share our experience and emphasize that for those who like animals, there is a chance to experience wildlife in every state.
So many travel guides are written by parents and often leave out the perspective of kids. Since all four of us were along the “50 States on School Breaks” journey together, we share the good, the bad, and the unexpected perspective of the kids from the back seat.
We are convinced adventure is about both the destination and the journey along the way. There are a variety of ways to get around and see the world, and we share our experiences with many of them, including one-of-a-kind places to stay. Read our “Planes, Trains, and a Good Bed” lessons learned so you can make unique memories of your own.
In some ways, all we did was smile 50 times.
We took 50 selfies—with dad (Jim), mom (Emily), and two kids who were in elementary school at the time: Sawyer (age 7) and Lawson (age 5).
Some people take that many pictures in a day. But it took us four years because each one of those 50 smiling pictures was taken at a different state line sign.
That’s the part of this story that even we sometimes have a hard time believing. Our family visited 50 states. It meant a lot of amazing time together. It meant a few times that we wished we weren’t QUITE so close together. It meant seeing our country in a way we had never imagined.
Fifty states.
Alphabetically, that’s Alaska and Alabama all the way down to Wisconsin and Wyoming.
If you look at it in the order all those states joined the union, it’s Delaware and Pennsylvania, with Alaska and Hawaii following about 172 years of history later.
We call it the Massey 50 State Line Selfie Challenge, a name our dad came up with back when we thought he was just joking about the idea of hitting all the states. We didn’t travel in alphabetical order or chronological order, or in any order really. We took a lot of little trips in a random order, traveling by road, airplane, train, and boat, with a few other kinds of transportation thrown in for fun.
And here’s the thing: we did it all on school breaks, between homework assignments and sports games, between our mom’s and dad’s jobs and our time exploring our local area outside of Washington, DC. We made great discoveries along the way and learned some lessons, too. We traveled more than 45,000 road miles together. That’s enough to go all the way around Earth at the equator once and keep going almost all the way around again! And as we traveled together, we realized there are all kinds of families finding adventure in trips of all sizes all over this country. Instead of souvenirs, we picked up stories about how you can have fun discovering the world around you.
We’ll share the views from the front seat—what our mom and our dad saw as they were guiding us around the country. We’ll share our views from the back seat. Trust us, we both think we’re our parents’ favorite kid, but beyond that, we are really different brothers who like very different things about our trips. We’ll let you know how we figured out how to split our interests so that we wouldn’t drive each other crazy, and how we actually found some fun things to do together.
