He is a writer and photographer, but also a road trip expert. Barnette spends between eight and nine months of the year on the road. Barnette likes a good map. He created a map of all the National Park sites.
Barnette believes that driving is the best way to get a closer look at the US. Barnette wants to inspire others to do the same by seeing it all on four wheels, whether it is the mountains, the people, the beaches, the cities, the historic sites, or the remote roadside gas stations.
Barnette wants to drive to every state capital in the continental US in eight months. Barnette decided to visit nearby National Park sites in order to fill the days in between destinations that were spent on the road. He spent two days creating a map of all 423 National Park sites so that anyone can use it to plan a road trip of their own.
Barnette has only visited 46 of the 423 National Park sites in the US. He would be able to tour 80 more of them if he took a big state capital road trip.
Barnette's goal isn't bumping his National Park sites numbers. He doesn't count countries very much, and he doesn't want to go to every National Park site.
He told Matador in a phone interview that he wants to stay in every National Park site and write about it.
The model slow traveler is Barnette. His main road trip rule is to not use any interstate highways during his drives, and he spends no more than 100 miles per day on the road. His future Alaska road trip is one of the drawbacks of this self-imposed limitation. Barnette wants to drive to the Last Frontier in the next few years.
It will probably take me four to five months to get there, and four to five months to get back. You have to admire that kind of dedication to travel.
The photo was taken by Jason Barnette.
Barnette drove the path of the solar eclipse from Charleston, South Carolina, to Paducah. He spent 30 days driving the parkway. He spent another 30 days on the road last year, driving from the mountains to the beaches in North Carolina. If his state capitals road trip doesn't pan out, he's going to drive the Great River Road from Louisiana to Minnesota for six months.
He will have his map of all 423 National Park sites handy, so he won't miss a thing. So can you.
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