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The coolest thing about our state system—and the thing politicians often forget—is that citizens of every state has a distinct personality which can make it hospitable or inhospitable to visitors, based on attitude. I think ‎Rebecca Sealfon (חנה צפון)‎ said it best:It’s actually a really interesting measure of how far you’re willing to go outside your own political echo chamber. Because you have to go to states of very different political leanings to win…. Moral: Get out of your state!What’s encouraging about these answers is the lack of bias towards ‘flyover states’ and the South, which I see a lot on Quora. What I do see here is a lot of shit talk on Pennsylvania. So forgive me for opining on my home state a bit—a state with such geographic and demographic diversity that it’s been swinging for the past century.Pennsylvania is not just an interstate. It’s home to the Gettysburg Address, two hockey, football and baseball teams, the Carnegie Library system, Hershey Chocolate, and our U.S. Constitution. Ever used a computer, read a newspaper, listened to commercial radio, flicked a Zippo lighter, rode a Ferris wheel, visited a zoo or saluted our flag? ALL of those things came from Pennsylvania.[1] Pennsylvania literally built America as we know it.So if you drove through without stopping, you’re kinda missing out.Growing up in the Paris of Appalachia gave me countless historical sites, summer camps at local colleges, a deep intrinsic love of baseball, and an appreciation for smaller, walkable, livable cities.[2] Friends from actual suburbs are always shocked at the personality, beauty, and cultural richness of the onetime City of Champions.It’s called the Keystone State for a reason—living there means boundless access. Most of the states on my list come from my Dad’s interest in history, which he imparted to me from a young age. I’ve been to over fifteen Civil War battlefields and can name 10 generals on each side thanks to him. I can tell stories about people I’ve met and foods I’ve tasted. So the following are not airport hops or gas station bathrooms. Each of them are national treasures with local character. Each has something to offer if you’re willing to look.Alabama—visited Birmingham-Southern College for a scholarship competition. Marveled at how fast everyone talks. Will never forget the admissions counselor who told me in his lovely accent, “looks like you did better than you thought you did!” To this day if I’ve underestimated my abilities, Dad says I “Tyler Peterson’d” Fun Fact: home to an incredible music scene at Muscle Shoals—Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Etta James. The sound of America.Arizona—rode Western here at age 9. Horse cantered down the mountain because of drunk hikers and my Mom went berserk. Probably most fun I’ve ever had. Fun Fact: Sedona is home to Snoopy Rock, which looks like Peanuts’ Snoopy sleeping on his doghouse.Arkansas—my Alma Mater, Hendrix College, where annually a bunch of Southern kids file into a room the most famous student drag show in the country. Where we’d drive all night to eat at Whataburger or see a show across the river in Memphis. Where I learned to pee in meadows, ride a 4-wheeler, unpack relationship woes at the local Waffle House. Fun Fact: speaking of cross-dressing, Petit Jean State Park, pronounced Petty Jeen, was named after a French explorer who disguised herself as a male to join an expedition through the deep South. After a long illness, she died in the care of Native Americans there, and the mountain was named after her.California—sailed San Francisco bay with my cousins, one of which is the first female captain of the sailing team at UC Santa Cruz (go Slugs!) If you’re a twentysomething navigating urban life, definitely read Tales from the City, Armistead Maupin’s timeless series on San Francisco. Fun Fact: it’s been the only state to host the Summer and Winter Olympics.Colorado—home to 21 seasons South Park (and don’t forget Cannibal! the Musical.) Only been here to snowboard—you can’t beat that pow—but would love to visit my best friend in the desert someday. Fun Fact: The New Yorker recently named Grand Junction the most conservative locale in America. Guess where my buddy lives?Connecticut—visited for a field hockey game against Mount Holyoke in college. Below is a photo of us winning that game. I remember being really excited to visit where a season of The Office took place. Even though I’m from Pennsylvania…Fun Fact: women could enter golf tournaments in Connecticut before they could vote. Maybe that’s where Jordan, of Great Gatsby fame, became a champion?Delaware—my all time favorite drive-in, Dilly’s Corner, is right across the river. Been to the beach a couple times. Fun Fact: first—and now most rare—state quarter. Hold onto one if you find it!Florida—vacationed to West Palm a few times with my mom and college teammates. Somehow dressed nice enough to bike to the Breakers, crash their basketball courts, then have a drink at the Aquarium bar. Saw A Raisin in the Sun at Dramaworks, a favorite theater of WSJ critic Terry Teachout (and where he premiered Billy and Me) Fun Fact: Fort Jefferson on Dry Tortugas National Park was never finished, its 520-gun artillery never used.Georgia—many memories of visiting Savannah and Augusta with my parents, eating crab for the first time and looking for used bookstores. Not to mention Atlanta, home to festivals like Music Midtown, Shaky Knees, A3C (been to ’em all) the hit FX show, and one of the best rap duos of our time. Fun Fact: the original Waffle House opened in Avondale Estates in 1955. A museum is run in this location and to this day FEMA judges a state of emergency based on the number of Waffle Houses that have closed in that location.Idaho—a fairly recent visit, for Treefort music festival in 2015 (Boise) and a cross-West road trip with Dad in 2017 (Wallace.) To me, Idaho is a step into the past. The pace seems slower here, the restaurants fewer, as people pursue time with their families and home cooked meals. Here’s Dad with The Statesman, a vintage car from GM. Fun Fact: the state seal is the only tone to be designed by a woman, and it was the fourth state in the Union to grant women the right to vote.Illinois—not, contrary to popular belief, the home of Frank Lloyd Wright (that honor belongs to Wisconsin.) My Dad was a Chicago Maroon, so I’ve been to that city a few times and recently for a bachelorette party. Of course no Civil War education is complete without a trip to Springfield, which I found quaint and lovely even though I was pretty young. As it turns out Dad’s also a huge fan of Ronald Reagan, so I’ve been to his alma mater in Eureka. Fun Fact: Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are working on a movie version of Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. That’s also where the Ferris Wheel first made its appearance (designed by George Ferris, of Pittsburgh.)Indiana—attended a really fun scholarship competition at Hanover College and was offered really early admission (junior year of high school.) Didn’t take them up on it, but it was tempting to move to this idyllic river town. Driving through I spotted a town called Bland, IN which is funny no matter what state you’re in. Fun Fact: Gary, Indiana isn’t just the Jacksons’ hometown. It’s also a song in The Music Man.Kentucky—met a long-distance boyfriend halfway for an art walk and ice skating in Lexington. Stayed at an adorable historic bed and breakfast. Everyone’s really nice here and man do they like whiskey. Fun Fact: when we played Transylvania University in college their team bus had a huge ‘TRANSY’ flag flying atop it. To this day I don’t know what the LGBT movement had to say about it, but it gave us a chuckle at the time.Louisiana—when I was a music writer, one of the worst interviews of my life took place in Baton Rouge. Still, an exciting river town with brilliant food and lots of gambling options for some reason. Plan to have my bachelorette party in the Big Easy. Fun Fact: the 1st Louisiana Native guard was formed by free people of color in New Orleans during the Civil War. 1500 people signed up to fight for the Confederacy, and just ten percent would defect when the Union took the city. If you’d like to learn more about black Confederates, feel free to ask for my undergrad thesis.Maryland—been to Antietam battlefield and Monocacy. Next on my list is Fort McHenry, where Fun Fact: the Star Spangled Banner was written during the War of 1812!Massachusetts—grandma lives in this forested neck of the woods. I remember visiting her and watching our cardigan corgi splash in the local lakes. Last year I had the opportunity to visit Fenway Park, the Sam Adams brewery (free tour! Don’t miss it!) and a couple National Park sites in Salem. My favorite author, Henry James, had a house in Beacon Hill (though there’s no plaque or anything.) Fun Fact: Boston is home to America’s first subway system, opened in 1987. Can you imagine Henry James or Edith Wharton riding the subway? Because I can’t.Michigan—where my boyfriend, half the employees at Microsoft, and Bell’s beer comes from! Apple cider and doughnuts is a tradition here. Attended Hillsdale College for a semester and received the most hilarious parking ticket of my life when I parked on a rectangular patch of grass and the snow melted. Was also blacklisted at Sigma Chi for “two-timing” a couple pledges, but that’s a story for another answer. Later snuck in and stole their handbook. Scary stuff. Fun Fact: Corn Flakes were invented in Battle Creek, where Kellogg’s is still headquartered today.Minnesota—stayed here for a research conference in college, then drove through on the aforementioned trip with Dad. Safe to say I’ve learned more about this state from A Prairie Home Companion and Laura Ingalls Wilder than my own experience. But I like that they serve popcorn at bars. Fun Fact: Winona Ryder’s namesake is Winona, Minnesota.Mississippi—the food, the literature, Americana Music Triangle, what’s not to love about Mississippi?? Okay, lynchings. Lynchings were definitely a problem in Mississippi. Having bicycled the Natchez Trace and met Tom Franklin at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi remains one of my all-time favorite states in the Union with some of my favorite people. That said, my experience is likely very different from others. Fun Fact: Mississippi didn’t abolish slavery until 2013.Missouri—played field hockey in St. Louis, saw Phoenix play at the beautiful Uptown Theater in Kansas City. Started the Oregon Trail in Independence (virtually, of course.) I guess the hyperloop is happening here and it’s got a state dinosaur. Fun Fact: Eight different states border Missouri but I’ve only been to half of them.Montana—people do not mess around here. What I mean is if you’re driving on 90 and you see an exit that might have a gas station, maybe, they will alleviate your hopes with a NO SERVICES sign. I just think that’s hilarious. It’s like saying don’t stop here. FOR LOCALS ONLY! Dad and I had a great time naming the visible mountain peaks and visiting Little Bighorn National Battlefield. Billings, Bozeman, Missoula are all cool cities with interesting stories and architecture. Plus the beer scene is hoppin. Fun Fact: according to Mental Floss, “Yellowstone National Park existed 20 years before Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming were officially granted statehood”New Jersey—lived here for the first six years of my life, specifically in Jersey City, when my Dad was Chief of Staff to Mayor Brett Schundler. Have vacationed in Ocean Grove many a time, enjoying the neon signs and roadside burgers, actually, Fun Fact: New Jersey boats the highest volume of diners in the WORLD and neon artist Kellie Talbot considers it her favorite place to paint:New York—the state that shaped me in so many ways, being where my parents met, where I was born, where my first schooling took place (in Greenwich Village) and where I learned to snowboard (Holiday Valley) and underage drink (Buffalo, duh.) But one of my favorite experiences was kayaking the Hudson with my Aunt, Mom, and boyfriend a couple years ago. There’s so many ways and reasons to leave the city. Get after it! Fun Fact: over 250 television shows have been set in New York City, and no, not all of them were created by Dick Wolf.North Carolina—for me it’s Southern-Lite. With lovely walkable towns like Davidson, Winston-Salem and Asheville it boats some hospitality but in between, it’s mostly suburbs, and many here have lost their accent. What’s really great about NC is its proximity to both mountains and ocean. Plus Mount Airy—the Andy Griffith town Mayberry is based off of—has a replica jail cell where you can pretend Barney Fife has locked you up. I guess that counts as a Fun Fact.Ohio—gets a lot of hate it doesn’t deserve. What other state has four respectable metro areas so close to each other, beautiful state parks in between? I’m partial since I went to summer camp at the College of Wooster, where I played violin 9 hours a day and air hockey the other two. Still, the Cleveland Tourism Video will always make me giggle. Fun Fact: Cedar Point’s Millennium Force in Sandusky broke six world records when it opened and reaches speeds of up to 93 miles an hour. It’s the third longest coaster in the nation (behind the Beast and Fury 325 cc: Sai Kiran Bhagavatula) and when I got stuck on it I fainted after riding four times.Oklahoma—home to a really sweet Native art collection in Tulsa and a wildlife preserve called Woolaroc, which was built by oil magnate Frank Philips and designed to preserve Oklahoma frontier culture. You guessed it, I went there with my Dad. Fun Fact: Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper, Price Tower, is located in Oklahoma. And no, it’s not worth the trip.Oregon—bikes, beers, bookstores. Everyone in Oregon is happy you’re there and can’t wait to feed you various farm-raised deliciousness. If you ever see Jacobsen Salt, Stumptown Coffee or Tillamook Cheese, BUY IT. Portland has some of the best public transit I’ve seen and is very, very friendly to cyclists. Been to Mount St. Helens and Crater Lake is on the list. Fun Fact: despite not being an official “Gold Rush” site, Oregon is home to more ghost towns than any other state. And no, that doesn’t include Rajneeshpuram, which is now a Young Life retreat.Pennsylvania—I highly doubt if you’ve read this far you want more facts on Pennsylvania.South Carolina—ah, South Carolina. Seat of Secession. Home of the Gamecocks. Droopy Spanish Moss trees abound. And of course Charleston, the scene of much of my early twenties shenanigans, including breaking into the Meeting Street Best Western pool at 2am and visiting seven karaoke bars in one week. Thunderstorms that look like Independence Day and balconies that look like exposed hallways. That can be the Fun Fact: what look like sideways balconies were actually a clever way for architects in the 19th century to ventilate outdoor parties in this city by the sea. Full disclosure, I was a park ranger at Fort Sumter National Monument, so my fun fact capacity knows no bounds when it comes to this state. But in many ways my feelings transcend words. So I’ll let the cast of Bravo’s Southern Charm take over:South Dakota—really, really upset I missed the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum here, but our afternoon in the Badlands and evening in Rapid City (plus a subsequent break-in to Mount Rushmore) will lodge South Dakota forever in my memory. Fun Fact: each street corner in Rapid City has a bronze statue of a U.S. President. Dad got real upset when he rushed up to who he thought was Ronald Reagan, only to realize it was Clinton.Tennessee—Shiloh National Battlefield is my favorite Civil War site, as I read Shelby Foote’s account of the battle in sixth grade. But Tennessee is so much more than just music, history, and interstates. There’s no shortage of fried chicken and friendly folks to share it with. The backcountry’s a melting pot of all kinds of people drawn to the forested seclusion—I once met a dude with a Mexican-Tennessee accent. Fun Fact: Elvis Presley may have made his name at Sun Record Studios in Memphis, but he actually hails from the small town of Tupelo, Mississippi, where his Mom bought him his first guitar at a hardware store.Texas—another state whose variant cultures don’t match its national or international perception. If I rattled off a list of my favorite people, most of them would come from Texas. Come for the delicious fusion foods in Austin, stay for the Western horseback riding south of Banderas. Fun Fact: Six Flags theme parks take their name from the six flags which flew over Texas—when it was an independent country, a territory of Spain/Mexico/France, a Confederate State, and finally a state of the Union.Virginia—I was waitlisted at Washington & Lee University after an interesting interview, during which the head of diversity and inclusion revealed to me she’d once held inner-city recruitment day on the weekend of Robert E. Lee’s birthday, which led to a ton of families getting right back in their cars and going home. Following the protests in Charlottesville and removal of Confederate statues, the environment is a little fraught, but I have only good memories of visiting the historic sites in this state. Fun Fact: West Virginia became a state after moving to secede from the seceding Virginia, in 1861.Washington—it’s where I live now! I think Washington has the inverse of the Texas problem. People think of Seattle and extrapolate it to the rest of the state, which is simply not the way things are. People who live here joke that if you cut the state in half the East would be part of Idaho, and it makes a lot of sense in terms of geography and political sensibility. Actually witnessed an active crime scene when we stayed in Walla Walla, somebody was literally murdered in the hotel room next to us. At that same hotel we were admonished for asking a couple little kids what they were going to be for Halloween. So yeah, very different from Seattle. Fun Fact: Washington was originally going to be called Columbia, but legislators didn’t want people to get it mixed up with the District of Columbia. Hmmmmm…West Virginia—if you do nothing else in West Virginia, visit Harper’s Ferry. This tiny town where John Brown led his famous armory raid in 1859 directly led to the Civil War, and his hanging was presided over by none other than Robert E. Lee, acting in his capacity as a Union Colonel. If you’re not a fan of dry history books, read James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird for a thrilling account of the battle. It’s shocking to see the size of the building Brown’s men defended for almost two days. It’s also just a beautiful place, like a mini-Pittsburgh between two rivers. Fun Fact: the concept of Mother’s Day comes from West Virginia.Wisconsin—Dad’s from Whitewater, and his Dad is buried in Madison Cemetery, next to his high school, Madison East. It’s an unexpectedly contentious place politically, and we grabbed happy hour at one bar that showed CNN on one side and Fox News on the other. Fun Fact: aside from Frank Lloyd Wright, Stephen Ambrose was considered Wisconsin’s foremost son, until it was revealed in 2002 he’d copied large passages from another work to complete his own.Wyoming—another home of Yellowstone National Park, John Steinbeck wrote in Travels with Charley his dog went absolutely mental once they entered the park, perhaps because he sighted or sniffed out a bear. My short time in the state was much less exciting, as I left a disposable camera at the Gillette Village Inn and had to send them a SASE to get it back. The Mustang Motel had a pretty cool sign, though. Fun Fact: Wyoming elected the United States’ first female governor in 1925, but hasn’t had one since.Well there you have it, folks. A tidbit of every state I’ve visited, plus reference materials. Speaking of which, the vast majority of the fun facts came either from my brain or Mental Floss, which published 2 awesome state series you all should read. The one about Kentucky is my personal favorite.TL;DR—Hell yeah I’d win the electoral college, thanks in large part to the efforts of my dear old Dad. And I’d connect with voters on a personal level. More than eating at the local McDonald’s ever could.Footnotes[1] Pennsylvania State Facts - 50States.com[2] The Economist names Pittsburgh the Most Livable City (on the mainland) again