I turned 65 this year (hello Medicare!) and this June, I visited Oregon to achieve my goal of seeing all 50 states before year’s end. According to a recent poll conducted by YouGov, fewer than 2% of Americans have visited every state plus Washington, D.C.

Most have been to about 17 states, so I know I’ve achieved something special.

How did I get there? Back in my late 40s, I realized that I had been lucky enough to visit around 35 states for both business and pleasure. Being goal oriented, I thought, “Well, I might as well see the rest!” Turns out that a desire to know and understand the U.S.A. better has spurred many Americans like me to tackle the 50-state challenge. Take Scott Kendall, a Houston-based travel writer and editor of PlayStayEat.com, who also visited Oregon to complete his 50 states: “I’ve traveled to all 50 states because I have a natural curiosity to see and do new things,” he says.

Funnily enough, like myself and Kendall, Alicia Rovey, president of the All Fifty Club, also had Oregon as her last state. She founded her club in 2006 when she still had four states to go and was searching for like-minded travelers. When she couldn’t find any, she started her own group and lived vicariously through its members until she completed her 50 states in 2015.

When asked why people are interested in seeing all 50 states, Rovey says: “Club members are motivated by many reasons, but most are goal setters and so the idea of visiting all 50 states makes it more than just travel. They want to complete all 50 because it just wouldn’t be right to stop at something less like 47 states!”

She adds that visiting U.S. states is more attainable than international travel for some people due to cost and time. And patriotism plays a part in Americans wanting to travel across the country to visit major landmarks in our history such as the Statue of Liberty, the Alamo and Mount Rushmore.

My favorite states

Many people ask me, “What was your favorite state?” I find that difficult to answer. I favor the Northeast and New England because that’s where I grew up and live.

But what’s struck me the most about seeing all 50 states is that they all have something beautiful to crow about: The enormous farm plots of Nebraska; the dusty, dry Badlands of North and South Dakota; the gorgeous canyons and caves of Utah; the Sonoran Desert of Arizona with its secret underbelly teeming with life; the lush greenery of the South; the mountains of Colorado and the oceans of the East and West coasts.

I also enjoy the cities with their bountiful cultural offerings and botanical gardens — New York, my birth state, as well as Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles and Portland. And there are few more beautiful or touching places to visit than Washington, DC, with all of our monuments, buildings and the vast National Mall.

What counts as a visit?

To complete a state, I made it a rule that I had to at least shop or eat there for it to count. Flyovers and layovers in airports were not eligible. So I got a “spud” pin at a Visitor’s Center in Idaho. I ate ribs in Kansas City and steak in Omaha, and I went to the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Rovey says that the All Fifty Club guidelines likewise require that you set foot on the ground and breathe the air of that state. “However, we allow members to add additional conditions before they consider themselves 50-staters,” she reports. “Common stipulations are eating a meal, spending the night, or having an experience in that state.” Some people even choose unique ways to experience a state, she adds, like catching a fish, running a marathon, going to a baseball game or donating blood.

Taking on the challenge

If you’re looking to see all 50 states, here are some tips on how to do it:

• Save your money and your miles. Travel today is not cheap. I was shocked by the cost of both plane rides and car rentals and strategically using airline miles can be essential to getting to all 50 states. I’ve opened a couple of new credit cards to gain 100,000 or more miles, and it’s been well worth the effort.

• Plan your routes according to your interests. Restaurants, vineyards and national parks are popular touch points for trips. For instance, Kendall says he went to Oregon because he and his wife wanted to visit some of the well-known wineries in the Willamette Valley and on the Oregon coast, and I went to Utah to see Zion and Bryce National Parks.

• Pack as many states as possible into one trip. If you visit Yellowstone National Park, which is largely based in Wyoming, for example, also venture into Montana and Idaho. (Yellowstone actually extends into both of these states.) Using this strategy, Rovey says you can visit all 50 states by making about 10 trips to different regions of the country. I took this advice to heart, so that when my nephew and I went to the Midwest this spring, we flew from Connecticut to Oklahoma, rented a car and drove 1,800 miles through Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. And when I went on a river cruise of the Mississippi, I put check marks next to Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

• Set goals for completing each leg of the trip. “Many of our members set age goals to keep them on track. For example, all 50 states by age 50,” says Rovey. (I was a little late to that party, but I eventually got there!)

• Entice friends and family to travel with you. Traveling is usually more fun and less lonely when you have others around you. If your friends and family can’t go with you, look into traveling with groups like Road Scholar, National Geographic Journeys or Smithsonian Journeys, which have educational angles and often have tours specifically catering to older adults and solo travelers.