A month ago, CGP Grey started a youtube livestream with no context. Everyone in the chat and in the subreddit was perplexed. Where was he going? Why isn’t he talking or listening to music? It turned out to be a stream of his roadtrip that he took back in 2017, he later uploaded a vlog explaining the trip. One of the goals of the roadtrip was to drive a Tesla through one of the most empty places in the contiguous United States.

The above map is a segment of US Route 50 or the “Loneliest Road in America”. The map plots the total population within 25 miles of the route split into 100 individual segments. The name is rather appropriate as there are long stretches where only 2 or 3 families live. Most of the land is owned by the federal government which limits population from inhabiting the area.

CGP Grey also uploaded the full roadtrip as a series of multiple-hour long videos. I’ve approximated the timestamp of each segment and you can click on the route segments to go to the location in the video (works much better on desktop).

I love roadtrips. I’ll definitely be going on a few over the summer. America’s largely empty and natural western landscapes are incredible.

Charlie