The setup
A couple times in the past year, I have found myself asking “how many people have actually been to all 50 states in the US?” Initially a fun, innocuous brain teaser, there seems to be a surprising amount of depth and history baked into the question, the more I’ve thought about it.
In the theme of having “Recess” articles be a fun snippet to read and ponder, I’ll try to informally guess the number of people who have been to all 50 states in as few words as possible, and provide some guesses as to what types of people have actually done it. For the purposes of the thought experiment, I will include literally any time spent on the ground in a state. This includes flight layovers, driving through the state, and anything where a person stepped foot on land in the state. A second caveat is that the state must have existed at the time the person was there (as a side-note, I don’t think this matters for more than maybe a few people, given the transportation limitations of the past).
Before jumping into my own math on the topic, I do want to re-emphasize that this is a really fun thought challenge to try on your feet (see SWAG below), and I’d encourage everyone to come up with their own thoughts and process on the matter! (It also makes a great dinner conversation)
The SWAG (sophisticated-wild-ass-guess) Math
To start, let’s guess that there are around 600 million people in history that are eligible for this prize, including US citizens, non-citizens, and frequent travelers to the US in the history of the country.
Hawaii was the most recent state to enter the Union in 1959, so of those 750 million people, let’s say about 1/3 are no longer eligible because they were never alive when all 50 states existed. That leaves us with 400 million people.
Of those 400 million people, let’s say 1% CAN visit all 50 states due to work needs and/or financial ability + potential desire to do so. That leaves us with 4 million people.
On a whim and a super quick google search for long-haul trucker and pilot statistics, let’s say there have been 750,000 long-haul truckers and pilots combined, throughout the history of the US. Add a fudge-factor of 750,000 other people who may have the need to travel all over the states for work. This leaves us about 1.5 million people who might have visited all 50 states for work, and 2.5 million who may have done it for leisure. (for the purposes of the experiment, I’ll treat these as two separate groups, which may or may not be realistic!)
Now, in the words of Anakin Skywalker, “this is where the fun begins.”
The next cut comes from the pure existence of Alaska. For truckers and pilots alike, I would guess that fewer than 5% have been to Alaska. This gives us with 37.5k left from that group. Of the other people who travel for work, I would guess the number is even lower, maybe 1% or less. In total, this leaves us with 45k people who may have traveled to all 50 states for work, in history.
Of the 2.5 million people who may have traveled to all 50 states for leisure due to ability and potential desire, I would guess that 1% or fewer have actually done it. This would leave us with just 25,000 from this group!
So in total, this leaves us with a total estimate of around 70,000 people that have actually set foot in every single US state in history.
And reflecting super briefly on this number, I think that the way I achieved it is not the most comprehensive (duh), and both over-exaggerates some populations while missing other potential traveling groups. However, I do think that the final estimate is potentially on the right order of magnitude, and if anything, might be an overestimation. It would not surprise me if only 5,000 people in history have been to all 50 states, but it would surprise me if more than 500,000 have.
So what groups of people have been to all 50?
While these guesses are fairly tongue-in-cheek, I do think they are some of the more likely groups of people that have been to all 50 states. For the purposes of this section, I have omitted anyone whose job it is to travel around the states (e.g. long-haul truckers, pilots, conductors, etc.):
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Amateur US Historians (people who love it all)
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National Parks enthusiasts (higher likelihood if they own RV’s)
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Field-work-based geologists studying river beds
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Exxon-Mobil field engineers working in their green energy teams
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SEC basketball and football players who became professionals
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A few dozen drifters
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People who try to go to every MLB stadium, and got lost a couple times while in transit
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People who go on cruises
Recess 009