Join me on my 48 state road trip!

[Cortez019]

I really do mean ‘road’.

Firstly I want to give a shoutout to FloodedPuma1298 for his great series of road trips in a ford transit, as far as I can tell he’s the first to post about such an idea, hope we get a little road trip community going.

As much as I love travelling the world at 10,000 ft I’ve always been drawn to explore this game from the ground, even if it’s a bit janky, it can be really immersive. There really isn’t another game out there that gives you that true sense of scale like this one does.

Ever since the first trailer for MSFS 24 dropped I’ve been obsessing over how good the upgrades to ground level detail are shaping up to be. This coincided with me stumbling on Parallel 42’s “Juice Goose UTV” and being genuinely blown away with how great this thing is for cruising around places I like driving in real life.

But I’m far too impatient to wait until November so I decided I’d have a go doing a proper road trip to send off MSFS 2020 and opted on a real dream of mine, to travel across every mainland US state.

I found this route that will loop me all the way around and take me to lots of interesting sights on the way. I’m also on the lookout for any good POI’s as well so will reroute a bit here and there.

22,046 km (13,699 miles), 224 hours and a whole heap of music.

I start my trip in Arizona at the Grand Canyon Village.

6 AM start so I can catch the sun rising.

Already hit with magnificent views at Pipe Creek Vista, excuse the very flat cars parked up with me.

Found a nice spot down the road at Yaki Point.

Stopped at Desert View Point after around 40 minutes.

Made it to the highway, global traffic add-on certainly makes it feel less lonely.

Absolutely cruising now, surprised this bridge didn’t fling me into the stratosphere

Scenery starts changing again at Willow Springs.

Bitter springs, a lot of springs.

Deceptive camera work to not show the absolute train wreck that Antelope Pass was.

Waterholes Canyon, I’m fairly sure you’re not supposed to drive down here but I couldn’t resist the view.

Glenn Canyon Dam, 2 and a half hours in now.

I drove through the border without realising, I’m officially in Utah, stopped down the road at Skylight Arch.

I’m enjoying how quick the scenery can change on you, Horse Rock Valley Junction, almost at my day one end point.

And my final stop for the day the tiny city of Kanab. Arrived here at about 10 AM, 340km in. All and all I’m having a blast so far, it’s quite an immersive experience when you become accustomed to the weirdness you can encounter at ground level. Hope you’ve enjoyed this so far, any advice to make this trip better I’d really appreciate. Until next time!

[BigCow74]

This is some serious commitment

[Cortez019]

Haha yeah, hopefully I’m still feeling this excited when I reach Texas, looking at my route, they weren’t kidding about it being big

[BearsAreCool510]

Haha you’re crazy, I love it! Hope you’re doing this in VR for extra immersion?

What do you do when it gets boring?

[Cortez019]

Ohh I really wish I could do this in VR, that’d be the dream, unfortunately I’m a bit limited being on xbox though. I’m always thinking that if I’m enjoying this so much in the state it’s currently in, how even minor improvements with MSFS 2024 will make this even better.

As for being bored, I can’t say I have been yet haha. Something about not knowing what I’ll see behind every corner keeps me pretty engaged, that and frantically double checking with my map that I haven’t missed my turn lol.

[LKFJP]

I hope that, one day, the various truck, train and farm simulators will all inhabit the same virtual world and we can have multiplayer interactions in them without a**hattery by a few ruining it for everyone.

[SnowXGoose]

Could we spot you in Multi-Player, you know, bring you some fuel and snacks?

[Aleo5069]

Had the same thought when that Goose came out and I had tried driving along Canadian Dempster Highway. However, I found the car not very user friendly without an Xbox controller. Plus I’d like to have a more realistic (conventional) vehicle to start with

By the way, how do you spawn to a non-airport starting location? Wouldn’t the sim put you at 1500 ft?

[Cortez019]

Ahah, that would actually be incredible, I’ve spotted quite a lot of players above me so far, not sure if they could see me though? I’d assume we would both need to have the juice goose installed maybe? I’ll have to test this out.

[Cortez019]

Oh wow, that looks like a very doable trip, might have to add that to my list. Yeah I’d tried out a few of the other vehicles before on the marketplace that map to conventional flight controls on my hotas, not very fun. Definitely give it a go with an gamepad though if you can.

For sure, a more conventional car with these same controls, the ability to do manual shifting and the physics tweaked to feel heavier and more grippy would be the best.

I thought that spawning would be an issue as well but it always places me on the ground when I start so that’s handy.

[ImmersiveVR]

Definitely get a VR HMD one day.
It adds a whole new layer of immersion and presence!

Kawasaki Ninja H2R Through Hong Kong

[Cortez019]

Part 2

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone!

With 1 state down I’m ready to see what Utah has in store!

I start from where I left off in part 1 In Kanab and make my way North through some interesting new landscape.

Stopped for this picture at Sand Caves. I then travelled further into Utah through miles of Canyons and onto the plains towards my second of 50 landmarks on the trip (the first being the Grand Canyon).

After an hour of driving I reached my turn off, this road took me into a dense forest of pine and striking rock formations, Red Canyon. This is definitely going on the list of places to revisit come November.

After Red Canyon was a long stretch of road where I spotted a couple of other players flying overhead, I’m not sure if they could see me or not, probably would have been a strange sight though. Eventually I made my way here, Bryce Canyon Point. An incredible view worth the detour.

Driving back the way I came I got back on the highway, stopping in the small city of Panguitch.

Carrying on through Panguitch I turned off the highway and drove through Bear Valley.

That led me on to a large Highway that would take me right the way up to Salt Lake City. The scenery here was incredible, every time a colossal mountain range ended on my left another one started on my right. The weather changed up a bit here too.

I had to stop every 10 minutes for pictures lol.

435km and 5 hours later I chose to end today at a little city called Nephi which I arrived at around 3 PM. Altogether I’ve done 774km and 9 hours, 3.5% of the trip. Hope you guys enjoyed this, until next time!

[Cortez019]

Yeah I can only imagine! I do have a Quest 2 so that ones of the steps haha. How taxing on performance is running It in VR? What kind of fps targets should you be aiming for I wonder?

■■■■, I’d love to build a rig for something like this though.

[BearsAreCool510]

You’d probably want something like a 3070 or better for a good experience with the Quest 2 I’m guessing, never had that particular HMD. Strong CPU is also important though.

Regarding whether the other players saw you - if yes, presumably as a Bonanza driving around, unable to take off?

[ImmersiveVR]

@Cortez019

Yeah I can only imagine! I do have a Quest 2 so that ones of the steps haha. How taxing on performance is running It in VR? What kind of fps targets should you be aiming for I wonder?

■■■■, I’d love to build a rig for something like this though.

You are pretty hardcore to drive the MSFS globe for 9 hours
I’m now inspired to start doing the same.
I’m doing stuff like this in a Quest 3 on a 8 year old 1080ti/8700k, with some pretty high graphics settings ie ultra clouds, textures, foliage grass etc etc.
The ground vehicles are no where near as demanding as the complex aircraft addons and their avionics systems so that leaves a ton of free performance to boost up the surrounding environmental visuals.
So no you don’t need the latest and greatest hardware to do stuff like this in MSFS VR.

Cruising Las Vegas in 1970 Dodge Charger

[hbaert]

espectacular!!!

[Cortez019]

Part 3

My goal for today was to tackle the dreaded photogrammetry cities and reach Idaho before sun set!

I set off from my pit stop in Part 2, Nephi. I accidentally set the time to 4:30 instead of 3:00 but I’ll just amend the total driving time by 1.5 hours and to be fair I’d be wanting a break after 9 hours too haha.

I carried along the I-15 taking in some more scenery.

Stopping briefly at my first real city, Provo. I hadn’t quite grasped yet just how many settlements I would pass through before I even came close to Salt Lake.

Finally I reached the photogrammetry zone, how bad would it be to navigate!? Well to my surprise, perfectly fine! better than fine actually because the roads became far smoother to drive on. It was funny to suddenly see legible signs and brand names appear on the buildings I passed by, a large Ikea being one of the first.

I found the correct turn off into the towering buildings of Salt Lake City, Navigating myself to some landmarks I knew of. Temple Square.

And the Utah State Capital. It was a nice change to be cruising down tight streets even if it felt like 28 days later lol

Took a short drive up to the suburbs on the hill to take one final shot of the city getting back onto the I-15.

And after 3 hours and 289km I made it to Idaho! This felt great but I really wish we had state signs at the borders to make these moments even better (someone make this happen pls). Either way Utah was done and dusted and what a memorable time it was. In total I’m at 12 hours and 1,063km, 4.8% done! Hope you enjoyed this one, until next time!

[Cortez019]

Part 4

Today’s leg of the journey is through Idaho, having conquered Utah in part 3!

I set off from the border at 7:30 with a few hours of sunlight left. After an hour the landscape really started feeling quite different than what I’d seen in Utah, rolling hills and grasslands, I wish I’d taken more pictures really.

I did stop just as the sun started setting to snap this.

After an hour and a half of driving I turned off at the city of Blackfoot for a not so quick detour to my third landmark of the trip, the next hour was spent traveling the vast expanse of the Snake River Plain as night set in.

I finally arrived at my destination around 10pm, Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve. I couldn’t wait to see how this looked in the morning!

And umm, yeah, I don’t know why I expected it would even be close to how it looks in real life and not just look like a slightly darker patch of grass, it’s not like this place was even a POI I drove up a hill and captured this shot of the sky at 5:30am and left in mild disappointment.

On my way back, while double checking my route, I spotted something interesting in the tiny city of Arco (where my next turn off was). Arco sits right under “Number Hill” and to my surprise these numbers actually show up pretty well in the sim! Apparently the graduating class of each year has been leaving their mark on this hill as early as 1921.

So It turned out to be a happy accident coming out this way.

As I left Arco and heading back across the plains I was hit with a real wave of emotion, probably something to do with the song my playlist had shuffled to at that moment but seeing the sun rise against this backdrop was nothing short of stunning.

An hour and a half went by and I saw a POI pop up 20km in the distance, ‘St. Anthony Sand Dunes’. I thought for a second It must be some bundled scenery pack that came with the Juice Goose but of course not. Today I learned Idaho has a 10,600 acre area of sand dunes. How could I not detour at this point.

If you do one thing in the Juice Goose make it this. Or you could also drive across an entire country that’s cool too.

I tore myself away from doing donuts and made my way back on track towards my next state, Wyoming. I didn’t quite make it to the border but found a nice place to end Today at in the Island Park area by Box Canyon arriving at 8:30am.

I’d gotten so carried away today I travelled twice what I had on previous days, a massive 577km, 5 hours and 20 minutes. Altogether now I’m at 1640km and 17 hours 20 minutes! 7.4% done. Thanks for tuning in to this segment, until next time!

[Cortez019]

Part 5

Having finished part 4 just shy of the Wyoming border I’m excited to see what my 4th state will have in store today!

I set off from Box Canyon at 8:30am, driving through more of Island Park.

This place was like nothing I’d travelled through so far, quite the holiday destination.

I just had to take a small detour to get this shot by Henry’s Lake.

Only now when I’m writing this have I realised that after Henry’s Lake I actually snuck through the bottom of Montana temporarily due to Idaho’s squiggly border lines! Oh well, won’t be the last I see of the state. Right on the edge of the border now, I pulled into the small town of West Yellowstone.

Just look at those mountains!

And just like that I’d officially entered Wyoming!

Things started to get ridiculously scenic very quickly as I drove further into Yellowstone National Park!

I stopped by The Excelsior Geyser Crater, pretty nicely represented in the sim.

Some way down the road I arrived at my 4th landmark of the trip, lucky for me it was an actual POI this time

Old Faithful Geyser! The surrounding buildings are all really well detailed too.

The scenery is just nonstop on this trip, Yellowstone lake.

And more Yellowstone Lake.

And some more for good measure!

Stopped by the Lewis Canyon Falls, unfortunately it was just flat texture plastered on the ground but with some camera work it looks pretty good.

As I drove further up the road I couldn’t help but wonder what I was in for.

Jackson Lake. You’ve got to be kidding at this point haha.

What is there to even say about this. Wyoming is absolutely stacked when it comes to natural beauty, there’s no question about that.

And after 4 hours and 280km I decided I’d end today in the village of Moran, arriving at 12:45. Apparently John Wayne helped build some of the cabins here for the 1931 Film “The Big Trail”, the more you know!

So in total now I’m at 1848km and 21 hours 45 minutes done! Thanks for tuning in, Until next time!

[Cortez019]

Part 6

Hey everyone! I’m excited to share another update with you on the neverending roadtrip but firstly I just wanted to share some love for the forum, I was given a “new user of the month award”! I didn’t even have an acceptance speech prepared!!

Okay but seriously, what a cool feeling. I’m so glad I decided to step out of my comfort zone a bit and get involved in this incredibly friendly little community. I hope to read all you guys arguments about the direction of the Sim for years to come!

Alright back to the journey. I left you last time in the village of Moran fresh from travelling through the incredible sights of Yellowstone.

I set off from Grand Teton Nation Park leaving the snowy peaks behind me.

Driving past the North Breccia Cliffs, this area is right on ‘The Continental Divide’ where the river systems diverge from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean (hope I’ve got that right).

And directly to the south of that was this, Two Ocean Mountain.

Just up the road from there, Lava Mountain, this whole area was filled with amazing sights left and right.

Just outside the town of Dubois I saw these striking mountains/hills? Not sure what these are called. This place really felt like a location straight out of a Western.

Driving further past Dubois I passed by ‘Senic Turnout’. Very distinct looking and marking the entry into the Wind River Reservation.

My turn off lead me uphill and further south into the Great Divide Basin.

Strangely enough large stretches of road in this area where much higher detailed? Higher quality than I’d even seen in photogrammetry places? Not sure what that’s about lol.

Just past the city of Lander now and things where looking alot greener.

And finally arriving at my end point for today, this Lake, nothing particular special about it I’d just realised I should have probably stopped back in Lander but didn’t want to commit to driving to the next town. It’s called Dry Lake by the way…probably not something people even look at when they pass by but oh well it’ll do

3 hours and 222km for today, not too shabby. All up now I’m at 2070km, that’s a milestone for sure. Just under 10% of the trip done! Thanks for tuning in guys, I hoped you enjoyed, until next time!