Can you get from Maine to Michigan without leaving the ground? State Path gives you two US states, a start and a destination, and asks you to name every state you would drive through to connect them. Land borders only, and the shortest route is the one to beat.
Guesses work in any order. Name a state and the map tells you instantly how well it fits: green if it sits on a shortest route, yellow if it is one state off, red if it is a real detour. Guess Alaska or Hawaii and you get a black square, because neither one touches another state.
There is one puzzle a day and everybody in the world gets the same pair, so your result is worth comparing. Finish it and you can copy a spoiler free emoji card to share, keep a daily streak going, and jump into practice mode for as many extra routes as you like.
How to play
- Look at the start state and the destination state at the top of the board. Both are shown from the beginning, and the game tells you how many states the shortest route needs in between.
- Type a state you think lies on the route. Full names work, and so do postal codes, so PA, TX and CA are all valid.
- Read the feedback. Green means the state is on a shortest route, yellow means it is one hop off, red means it is a detour, and black means there is no land route at all.
- Keep naming states in any order until your guesses form a complete chain from start to destination.
- You get the shortest route length plus four spare guesses. Run out and the game reveals a full shortest route on the map.
Game modes
Daily. One route per day, the same for every player worldwide, refreshing at midnight UTC. Daily routes run between three and six hops, so you are naming two to five states in between. Your streak, win rate and guess distribution are tracked in your browser.
Practice. Unlimited routes in three lengths. Short hop covers two to three states in between, Road trip covers four to six, and Coast to coast goes all the way up to ten. The longest possible route in the country is Maine to Nevada, which needs ten states in between.
The geography behind it
Every border in this game is computed from official US Census boundary data rather than typed in by hand. Two states count as neighbours when their outlines actually share a stretch of border, which produces a few facts worth knowing before you play.
- Missouri and Tennessee are the great connectors. Both touch eight other states, more than anywhere else, so they turn up on a huge number of routes.
- Maine is the dead end. It borders exactly one state, New Hampshire, which makes any route into Maine completely forced at the last step.
- Alaska and Hawaii are unreachable. Neither shares a land border with anything, so they can never appear on a route.
- The Four Corners does not count. Colorado and Arizona meet at a single point, as do Utah and New Mexico. A point is not something you can drive across, so this game does not treat them as connected. That is why Colorado has six neighbours here rather than the seven you sometimes see quoted.
- The Great Lakes do not create shortcuts. Michigan borders only Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin by land, so there is no crossing to Minnesota or Illinois.
Frequently asked questions
Is it the same puzzle for everyone today?
Yes. The daily route is generated from the current UTC date, so every player in the world gets exactly the same start and destination on a given day, and it changes at midnight UTC. That is what makes the shared emoji cards comparable.
Why will the game not let me go from Colorado to Arizona?
Colorado and Arizona touch only at the Four Corners, a single point they share with Utah and New Mexico. Because you cannot actually travel through a point, the game does not count it as a border. The same applies to Utah and New Mexico.
Can I ever use Alaska or Hawaii?
No. Neither state shares a land border with any other state, so they are never a start, a destination, or part of a route. Guessing one returns a black square meaning no land route exists.
Do I have to guess the states in order?
No. Guesses are graded independently, so you can start from either end or fill in the middle first. You win as soon as the states you have named form a complete chain between the start and the destination.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The game is built mobile first, and the map supports pinch to zoom and drag to pan, which helps with the smaller states in New England.
Where does the map data come from?
State boundaries come from US Census Bureau data via the open us-atlas dataset, which is in the public domain. The border connections between states are calculated from those boundaries when the game is built, so nothing is loaded from a third party while you play.
Is it free?
Yes, completely free with no signup. Your streak and stats are stored only in your own browser.