Planning a road trip is no easy feat. From detours to pit stops, it takes a lot of intense planning to make sure you hit every site you want to see along the way. Fortunately, as reported in The Washington Post, graduate student and self-proclaimed "data tinkerer" Randy Olson has devised the quickest way to make it to all 48 states in the continental U.S.

Tasked by Tracy Staedter of Discovery News to calculate the fastest, most efficient way to hit each state, Olson managed to map out a route that follows the following criteria:

1. The trip must make at least one stop in all 48 states in the contiguous U.S.

2. The trip would only make stops at National Natural Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Parks, or National Monuments.

3. The trip must be taken by car and never leave the U.S.

To make the list an even 50, Olson added Washington, D.C. and a second stop in California to the mix. The result? A comprehensive route that hits a slew of landmarks, from the Mark Twain House and the Statue of Liberty, to the Okefenokee Swamp and Glacier National Park.

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"Assuming no traffic, this road trip will take about 224 hours (9.33 days) of driving in total, so it's truly an epic undertaking that will take at least two to three months to complete," Olson writes on his site. But perhaps the coolest part of Olson's map is the ability to start the road trip from any point along the route and still make the same time.

Check out an interactive version of Olson's map, and see a full list of the landmarks chosen on his website.

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Michelle Profis
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Michelle Profis is the digital director at ThePioneerWoman.com.