This dude mapped out the ultimate European road trip with the help of algorithms

A U.S. scientist mapped out the ultimate road trip for your perusal. Fancy a Euro-trip?

15-03-2017 14:02

Planning a vacation can take up some time. Luckily, scientist Randy Olson mapped out the ultimate European road trip… with the help of math! (And some believe math is useless after school!)

Olson, who is based in Michigan in the United States, mapped out a trip where you can hit 45 of Business Insider’s 50 places in Europe you need to visit in your lifetime. He came up with an epic route using an algorithm and Google Maps to calculate the shortest way around these places. This excludes travelling over water though.

If you plan on using this route, be prepared for some extensive driving and clear your schedule. The route covers 16,287 miles and requires 14 days to complete, although, Olson advised travelers to set out at least three months to really enjoy the trip, otherwise you would have to skip out on eating, sleeping or actually just enjoying the scenery.

It sounds like the perfect Europe trip because you’ll get to snap some Instagram-worthy photos at the most popular destinations in the world such as Paris, Denmark, Prague, England, Austria, Croatia, Ireland and more.

Here’s the complete trip on Google Maps:

Click here for the interactive version.

If you’re more interested in travelling to the United States, Olson also planned out the best route to experience 50 major landmarks in America. If you’d rather like to create your own trip, Olson released the code he used in his project with an open source license and instructions for how to optimize your custom road trip. You can find the code here.

Olson is mainly known for his ‘Where’s Waldo’ (‘Where’s Wally’ in the UK) algorithm where he looked at numerous pages of the famous illustrations, and developed a mapping theory on how best to locate all the characters.

Here’s the full list of all the stops set out in his Europe trip in order: