Last week I posted about the quickest route to visit all 47 U.S. National Parks. If you’d like to optimize your own routes, there’s a website called RouteXL that will help you do it. If your route has 20 stops or less, it’s free.
For example, if you wanted to leave Portland, Oregon, and spend a night in all of the states old fire lookouts, this would be the quickest route. Click map above (click it for a live version).
To create your own route, add locations in the field at the top-left of the page and then click the Find Route button at the bottom-left corner of the page. You can then use the Download button at the bottom-left of the page to share the route, download it in any number of formats, or open it in Google Maps.
If you’d like to camp in an old fire lookout, here’s a link to all of the available sites in the western United States.
Also check out http://www.speedyroute.com