Routing videos · @mapzimus

Optimal Drives

What’s the shortest drive that hits every Chick-fil-A? Every NHL arena? Every town named Salem? I run a routing engine on my own computer, solve the route, and animate it as a one-minute video.

Six of them

There are more than 30 so far. Most ideas now come from viewer comments.

Every ShopRite275 stores in 6 states. 56 hours, 2,389 miles.
Every White Castle336 restaurants in 15 states, one route.
Every Spirit HalloweenAll 1,497 stores of the 2026 season, Bangor to Anchorage. 801 hours.
The smallest town in every state52 towns with 4,024 people between them.
Can you reach an airport in an hour?Drive time to the nearest passenger airport, every road in the lower 48.
How far is your nearest ER?Every emergency room in the lower 48, in 15-minute drive-time bands.

How long each one takes

Hours of driving on the shortest route to every stop

15 tours, longest first. Driving time only: no sleep, gas, or food.

  1. Chick-fil-A984 h
  2. Spirit Halloween801 h
  3. Culver’s484 h
  4. A&W464 h
  5. Tesla stores331 h
  6. Apple Stores322 h
  7. Every Salem293 h
  8. Big 5 venues205 h
  9. NHL arenas162 h
  10. NBA arenas146 h
  11. Buc-ee’s106.6 h
  12. ShopRite56 h
  13. Route 66 towns49.1 h
  14. I-90 towns46.8 h
  15. MA roast beef11.3 h
Show as a table
TourHoursMilesStops
Chick-fil-A98449,0793,415 restaurants
Spirit Halloween801—1,497 stores
Culver’s48425,8741,079 restaurants
A&W46426,035386 restaurants
Tesla stores33118,260330 stores
Apple Stores32217,677269 stores
Every Salem29316,371162 Salems
Big 5 venues20512,405135 venues, 154 teams
NHL arenas16210,00232 arenas
NBA arenas1469,18930 arenas
Buc-ee’s106.66,55557 stores
ShopRite562,389275 stores
Route 66 towns49.12,472279 towns
I-90 towns46.83,090Seattle to Boston
MA roast beef11.345692 shops

How they’re made

Each video starts with a count: what qualifies as a stop and what gets left out. Locations come from store locators, OpenStreetMap, and the Census geocoder, cross-checked against each other. A self-hosted OSRM server builds the drive-time matrix between every pair of stops, and the LKH solver finds the visiting order. Hawaii and Puerto Rico go by plane. Alaska goes by the Alaska Highway.

The animation is Python drawing frame by frame, encoded with ffmpeg. The 3D ones use three.js rendered through headless Chrome. The drive-time maps (airports, ERs, nearest coast) skip the tour and color every road by its travel time to the closest destination.

The routing side also shows up in Optitrek, a road-trip optimizer for national parks.