The thing that makes the big trip the BIG TRIP is that we’re going to visit all 50 States and Canada. The original idea was to visit all 50 States in a year. Based on some initial google maps routing, it looks like the entire route will be as long as 35,000 (not including the flight or cruise to Hawaii).

We want to visit companies and universities throughout the country that are doing innovative research that we can feature on GeekBrief.TV.

I’m inclined to plan the whole route ahead of time. Neal prefers to plan as we go. I learned on our month-long road trip in August 2007 that spontaneity isn’t such a bad thing. I also think we should look at waterfront real estate just for fun. Compare the differentiating architecture from different parts of the country.

If we did plan the route ahead of time, it would probably look something like this:

These are all the Apple stores in the US, from FreeMacBlog.com.

I will have a list of the locations we’re planning on visiting soon, including places like Sweetwater in Indianapolis, Microsoft in Redmond, Apple in Cupertino, etc. There will be a map with our journey as we move along, so expect that once we’re on the road.

Also depending on when we actually score the bus, we may do some mini trips before the BIG Trip.