Johnny Cash and the Distance to Go Everywhere, Man
If you are a trucker, there’s a 99.9% chance you are acquainted with the song “I’ve Been Everywhere”, as made famous by Johnny Cash. In the song, the lead singer hitchhikes with a trucker, and regales that trucker with the numerous locations that the hitchhiker has gone. He mentions ninety-three different locations in total, including countries, states, and cities. If someone were to hop in their truck and dream of going “Everywhere”, to all 93 locations, how much distance would that be?
Traveling Salesman Problem
This concept of minimizing distance for a given number of locations is commonly known as the Traveling Salesman Problem, and solving it is a sliding scale of accuracy and time consumption.
The single most accurate way to find out the optimal route is to take every possible route combination and find which one yields the lowest distance. Each destination adds more possible outcomes than the one before it. For Johnny Cash, ending in Winnemucca (where he is when the song starts), that would entail 92! (92 factorial) potential routes, multiplying every whole number from 1 to 92 together.
That is equal to 12,438,414,054,641,307,255,475,324,325,873,553,077,577,991,715,875,414,356,840,239,582,938,137,710,983,519,518,443,046,123,837,041,347,353,107,486,982,656,753,664,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Such a number is unfathomable: if we had one trillion supercomputers working in tandem to each calculate 1 trillion different outcomes per second since the beginning of the universe until today, we would not have a single percent of all the potential outcomes.
If the answer you were looking for was the absolute minimum number of miles for Johnny Cash to travel, you are out of luck. To get anywhere close to an approximation, we are going to have to take some liberties.
Assumptions
Here are some assumptions we are going to take in our calculations to turn the number of outcomes into something even remotely reasonable:
- Johnny Cash ends in Winnemucca, Nevada, which is where he is when he starts singing. He can start in any other location.
- Our best starting location is most likely Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the southernmost point of the journey, and due to the distance between the locations in South and Central America have from the rest, the less time we spend outside of North America the better. There are eight locations for Johnny Cash to go to in South America total.
- Once we reach the United States and Canada, we have 85 more locations to go. We will use route optimization software to take the 22 most eastern destinations and optimize the route between them, then use the last destination as the starting destination for the next 22 destinations of the journey, doing the process 4 times to end in Winnemucca, with the last section being 21 destinations. The only problem here is the drive from Costa Rica to northeastern Canada, but it pales in comparison to 92! different calculations.
- In doing this, we will never have the software calculate ones that are obviously suboptimal, such as going from Tampa to Alaska to Baltimore. There are a lot of these “junk” outcomes that are immediately obvious to a human but not to a computer.
- To reach Catalina (Island), there is a ferry that accepts carrying a heavy-duty truck, and this counts as distance traveled. No trick questions here! The same goes for Schefferville.
- Washington refers to Washington, D.C., not the state.
- Admore does not exist. Closest we could find was Ardmore, Oklahoma.
- There are thirty-five states with a city named Springfield, and some of them have more than one Springfield. We are going to assume Johnny Cash went to Springfield, Missouri, the most populous Springfield in the nation. Waterville has a similar issue; we will go for Maine.
- Countries mentioned without a city use the location of that nation’s capital (for example, Buenos Aires for Argentina).
- States use the general approximation of the center of the state.
- For Alaska, the closest to the center we can reasonably get by truck is Manley Hot Springs.
With these rules in mind, here is the route Johnny Cash should take.
The Route
1. Buenos Aires, Argentina
Distance from last point: N/A
Total Distance traveled: 0 miles
2. Salvador, Brazil
Distance from last point: 2495.99
Total Distance: 2495.99 miles
3. Diamantina, Brazil
Distance from last point: 698.45
Total Distance: 3194.44
4. Tocopilla, Chile
Distance from last point: 2421.42
Total Distance: 5615.86
5. Padilla, Colombia
Distance from last point: 2627.21
Total Distance: 8243.07
6. Barranquilla, Colombia
Distance from last point: 871.18
Total Distance: 9114.25
7. Panama City, Panama
Distance from last point: 442
Total Distance: 9556.25
8. San José, Costa Rica
Distance from last point: 528.79
Total Distance: 10,085.04
9. Schefferville, Canada
Distance from last point (Approximate): 10,623.93
Total Distance: 20,708.97
10. Bangor, Maine
Distance from last point: 691.59
Total Distance: 21,400.56
11. Waterville, Maine
Distance from last point: 49.97
Total Distance: 21,450.53
12. Boston, Massachusetts
Distance from last point: 178.42
Total Distance: 21,628.95
13. Chicopee, Massachusetts
Distance from last point: 88.56
Total Distance: 21,717.51
14. Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Distance from last point: 49.16
Total Distance: 21,766.67
15. Haverstraw, New York
Distance from last point: 113.17
Total Distance: 21,879.84
16. Hackensack, New Jersey
Distance from last point: 24.02
Total Distance: 21,903.86
17. Kingston, Ontario
Distance from last point: 315.40
Total Distance: 22,219.26
18. Ottawa, Ontario
Distance from last point: 103.77
Total Distance: 22,323.03
19. Mattawa, Ontario
Distance from last point: 182.26
Total Distance: 22,505.29
20. Faraday, Ontario
Distance from last point: 159.73
Total Distance: 22,665.02
21. Toronto, Ontario
Distance from last point: 143.42
Total Distance: 22,808.44
22. Buffalo, New York
Distance from last point: 98.63 miles
Total Distance: 22,907.07
23. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Distance from last point: 206.06
Total Distance: 23,113.13
24. Parkersburg, West Virginia
Distance from last point: 139.17
Total Distance: 23,252.3
25. Baltimore, Maryland
Distance from last point: 314.50
Total Distance: 23,566.8
26. Washington, DC
Distance from last point: 38.13
Total Distance: 23,604.93
27. Norfolk, Virginia
Distance from last point: 181.56
Total Distance: 23,786.49
28. Charleston, South Carolina
Distance from last point: 392.59
Total Distance: 24,179.08
29. Jacksonville, Florida
Distance from last point: 238.91
Total Distance: 24,417.99
30. Sarasota, Florida
Distance from last point: 239.56
Total Distance: 24,657.55
31. Tampa, Florida
Distance from last point: 52.86
Total Distance: 24,710.41
32. Opelika, Alabama
Distance from last point: 418.36
Total Distance: 25,128.77
33. Tallapoosa, Georgia
Distance from last point: 90.00
Total Distance: 25,218.77
34. Vicksburg, Mississippi
Distance from last point: 372.81
Total Distance: 25,591.58
35. State of Louisiana
Distance from last point: 141.61
Total Distance: 25,733.19
36. Little Rock, Arkansas
Distance from last point: 309.36
Total Distance: 26,042.55
37. Nashville, Tennessee
Distance from last point: 342.44
Total Distance: 26,384.99
38. State of Tennessee
Distance from last point: 36.70
Total Distance: 26,421.69
39. Knoxville, Tennessee
Distance from last point: 155.11
Total Distance: 26,576.8
40. Jellico, Tennessee
Distance from last point: 58.33
Total Distance: 26,635.13
41. Louisville, Kentucky
Distance from last point: 175.58
Total Distance: 26,810.71
42. Dayton, Ohio
Distance from last point: 151.35
Total Distance: 26,962.06
43. Chicago, Illinois
Distance from last point: 269.84
Total Distance: 27,231.9
44. Kalamazoo, Michigan
Distance from last point: 139.75
Total Distance: 27,371.65
45. Cadillac, Michigan
Distance from last point: 143.30
Total Distance: 27,514.95
46. Ombabika, Ontario
Distance from last point: 596.88
Total Distance: 28,111.83
47. Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
Distance from last point: 652.49
Total Distance: 28,764.32
48. Baraboo, Wisconsin
Distance from last point: 75.05
Total Distance: 28,839.37
49. Davenport, Iowa
Distance from last point: 170.90
Total Distance: 29,010.27
50. Waterloo, Iowa
Distance from last point: 127.91
Total Distance: 29,138.18
51. Oskaloosa, Iowa
Distance from last point: 99.05
Total Distance: 29,237.23
52. Springfield, Missouri
Distance from last point: 323.88
Total Distance: 29,561.11
53. La Paloma, Texas
Distance from last point: 927.73
Total Distance: 30,488.84
54. Houston, Texas
Distance from last point: 339.71
Total Distance: 30,828.55
55. Shreveport, Louisiana
Distance from last point: 231.66
Total Distance: 31,060.21
56. Texarkana, Texas
Distance from last point: 72.21
Total Distance: 31,132.42
57. Ardmore, Oklahoma
Distance from last point: 214.19
Total Distance: 31,346.61
58. State of Oklahoma
Distance from last point: 105.60
Total Distance: 31,452.21
59. Hennessey, Oklahoma
Distance from last point: 58.63
Total Distance: 31,510.84
60. Tulsa, Oklahoma
Distance from last point: 110.92
Total Distance: 31,621.76
61. Wichita, Kansas
Distance from last point: 169.85
Total Distance: 31,791.61
62. El Dorado, Kansas
Distance from last point: 30.09
Total Distance: 31,821.70
63. Kansas City, Missouri
Distance from last point: 167.25
Total Distance: 31,988.95
64. Sioux City, Iowa
Distance from last point: 273.63
Total Distance: 32,262.58
65. Spirit Lake, Iowa
Distance from last point: 109.77
Total Distance: 32,372.35
66. Chaska, Minnesota
Distance from last point: 148.36
Total Distance: 32,520.71
67. State of Minnesota
Distance from last point: 130.90
Total Distance: 32,660.61
68. Fargo, North Dakota
Distance from last point: 138.24
Total Distance: 32,798.85
69. Larimore, North Dakota
Distance from last point: 100.21
Total Distance: 32,899.06
70. Devil’s Lake, North Dakota
Distance from last point: 64.86
Total Distance: 32,963.92
71. State of Nebraska
Distance from last point: 551.96
Total Distance: 33,515.88
72. Dodge City, Kansas
Distance from last point: 282.13
Total Distance: 33,798.01
73. Amarillo, Texas
Distance from last point: 240.50
Total Distance: 34,038.51
74. State of Colorado
Distance from last point: 415.11
Total Distance: 34,453.62
75. Grand Lake, Colorado
Distance from last point: 138.60
Total Distance: 34,592.22
76. Santa Fe, New Mexico
Distance from last point: 375.39
Total Distance: 34,967.61
77. Winslow, Arizona
Distance from last point: 325.74
Total Distance: 35,293.35
78. Cedar City, Utah.
Distance from last point: 321.94
Total Distance: 35,615.29
79. Black Rock, Arizona
Distance from last point: 80.43
Total Distance: 35,695.72
80. Catalina Island, California
Distance from last point: 426.37
Total Distance: 36,122.09
81. Pasadena, California
Distance from last point: 115.42
Total Distance: 36,237.51
82. Bakersfield, California
Distance from last point: 111.26
Total Distance: 36,348.77
83. Monterey, California
Distance from last point: 216.84
Total Distance: 36,565.61
84. Reno, Nevada
Distance from last point: 314.31
Total Distance: 36,879.92
85. Black Rock, Nevada
Distance from last point: 121.06
Total Distance: 37,000.98
86. Crater Lake, Oregon
Distance from last point: 272.56
Total Distance: 37,273.54
87. Ellensburg, Washington
Distance from last point: 357.52
Total Distance: 37,631.06
88. Manley Hot Springs, Alaska
Distance from last point: 2,408.22
Total Distance: 40,039.28
89. Chatanika, Alaska
Distance from last point: 158.94
Total Distance: 40,198.22
90. Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan
Distance from last point: 2,357.49
Total Distance: 42,555.71
91. Rexburg, Idaho
Distance from last point: 627.79
Total Distance: 43,183.5
92. State of Idaho
Distance from last point: 197.45
Total Distance: 43,380.95
93. Winnemucca, Nevada
Distance from last point: 404.46
Total Distance: 43,785.41
Conclusion
The total we got comes to 43,785.41 miles, enough to cross the continental United States over fifteen times.
Is this number the optimal one? Certainly not. Some distance may be cut from better route optimization, such as stopping in La Paloma on the way to Schefferville. Perhaps the biggest optimization problem is in Gravelbourg: is it better to hit it up while in North Dakota, or on the way back down from Alaska since you will have to come back down anyway to reach Winnemucca? There are a lot of potential outcomes that could be better, but considering the sheer number of potential outcomes total for Johnny Cash to go through, this route is serviceable.
If you have the wherewithal to plug in the various locations and create a route with fewer miles, we would love to see your handiwork. Until then, truckers consider going 43,785 to simply be a single season in the trucking industry, so no doubt most truckers have been to more places than “everywhere, man.”
If you are in the market for a truck or trailer to go everywhere, man, TopMark Funding can help. We work with numerous lenders to get you the best deal for your applicable credit scenario, good credit or less-than-good credit. Read below to learn more!
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