ABOVE: Elizabeth Vineyard with a map of photos she made from traveling to all 50 states. She just visited her 50th and final state, Hawaii, last month.

FAIRMONT– Once she got bit by the travel bug, Elizabeth Vineyard started checking destinations off her list. Last month she just reached an accomplishment as she visited her 50th state, Hawaii, for her 50th birthday.

Vineyard grew up in Texas but had family in both New York and Florida so she did a little traveling to those states to visit them, but not much else.

She moved to Minnesota, to the area, 18 years ago as her husband at the time was brought here for work.

“We were only supposed to be here for a year,” she said with a laugh.

A little later in life Vineyard recalls going through some struggles and taking her children on a roadtrip to visit family.

“We drove down to Texas and then to Florida to see my grandmother. And then we drove up to New York, stayed there for a while, and then drove back here,” Vineyard said.

She acknowledged that it was a lot of driving and realized after the trip that they went through about 25 states. However, even that wasn’t the start of Vineyard tracking her travels and checking states visited off her list.

“In the end I have gone back to all of them. To do my real visiting the states accomplishment I have to see something cool or do something cool and have a picture,” she explained.

She started making a conscience effort to visit all of the states about 10 years ago when she was in a relationship with a man who was a big traveler.

“After a few trips with him, I had the travel bug. Even after we have broken up, I had the travel bug,” she said.

There’s a lot of prep work and planning that goes into starting one of her trips. When asked if she usually drives or flies, she explained that it’s a mixture of both.

For one trip, Vineyard flew to Las Vegas, rented a car and drove up through Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park in Utah and then to Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming and then to Yellowstone National Park. She ended that trip at Glacier National Park in Montana before flying home from there.

“I went to Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Montana in that trip,” Vineyard said.

On another trip, she flew to New York and then went to Long Island where she took a ferry over to Connecticut. From there she visited Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine, knocking off five states in one trip.

Vineyard said her most visited state without a doubt is New York. This is in part because she has family there, but she also really enjoys The Big Apple.

“There’s the city; I love the city. There’s Long Island with the beach and the ocean that I love,” Vineyard said.

Another one she’s visited a few times is Florida.

“There’s so much to do in Florida,” Vineyard said.

For one trip to the Sunshine State, she flew in to Orlando, drove three and a half hours down to Miami and then over to Tampa.

“Then my flight got cancelled to the next day and I thought, ‘where haven’t I been?’ So I drove over to Daytona,” she said.

Some of her favorite states include Hawaii and Alaska.

In 2023, she went to Alaska. She flew in to Fairbanks and took a 12 hour train ride to Anchorage. Then she rented a car and drove around the area. In doing that she saw some moose, which was a highlight of her trip.

On her flight home, she strategically booked a layover in Juno so she could see that portion of the state.

“I had eight hours so I rented a car and went all over Juno,” Vineyard said.

For her last state, Hawaii, she booked it in conjunction with her 50th birthday.

“We did the whole island, I had it all planned out,” Vineyard said.

She enjoyed the sandy beaches on the west side as well as the rocky beaches on the east side.

Most of the time she travels solo, though she has gone with friends or family on some trips.

“Everyone wanted to go to Hawaii,” Vineyard explained with a laugh.

For that most recent trip, she went with her friend and her friend’s husband and her daughter and son-in-law.

Traveling as much as she does, Vineyard has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and provided some travel hacks that work for her.

“I only fly with a personal item-sized bag,” Vineyard said. “If you check a bag and it gets lost, it’s a big mess, especially if you have plans.”

She has a perfectly sized bag on roller wheels that she travels with. She keeps all of her less-than-3oz-bottles of liquids packed and ready in a toiletry bagged. She also said electrical cords, a mini fan and a reusable water bottle are her travel essentials.

“My first stop when I land is to get my rental car and then go to Walmart to get a pack of water and snacks,” Vineyard said.

She doesn’t have a preferred airline and instead opts for whatever is cheapest and has the best flight times.

“You’re not going to buy a cheap flight but have a 12 hour layover in the middle of nowhere,” Vineyard said.

She makes sure to travel on a budget and said if a hotel doesn’t have free breakfast, she’ll have a granola bar and a piece of fruit in the morning.

“There are non-perishable things you can always carry,” she added.

Of course she has also experienced her fair share of hiccups on trips.

“You just have a to adapt and move on,” she said.

Vineyard said she has learned to be flexible and said she used to be very ‘black and white’ and have a plan, but has learned you need to allow for change when traveling.

She’s not entirely sad to have checked off all 50 states and instead feels accomplished and proud. While she hasn’t necessarily brought a souvenir home from every trip, she does always make sure to take photos while on her travels.

“I have like 10,000 pictures on my phone and it’s fun to scroll through them,” she said.

In fact, with the help of a website, she used the photos she’s taken to complete a map of the United States.

For those who ask her, ‘where to next,’ Vineyard has an answer.

“I’m planning like five vacations right now,” she said. ‘I’m going to expand my horizons.”

In addition to traveling to all 50 states, Vineyard has been to parts of Mexico and Canada. She’s also ventured to Europe once, to Germany for Oktoberfest. On her bucket list are Bali and Thailand but with the flight expense alone it will take more planning ahead and budgeting.

Her plan is to continue to travel around Mexico and the Caribbean during the winter months and in the summer she plans to see more of Canada.

Becoming a travel planner of sorts is also something she’s considering.

“I would love to plan trips for other people,” she said. “It’s not as hard as you think. A lot of people just don’t know how.”