In February 2018, Tom reached his milestone of visiting all fifty states, an awesome feat! Karen, a foreigner from the Netherlands, hadn’t been so productive yet. To fix that, we decided to visit all capitols together. Carpe diem! Yeah, that was before the plague…
Anyway, apart from exploring US history, it will help me to learn all the state capitals. Since it would be really boring to do that from a book instead of from real life travel. Also, we plan to take a selfie (usually a bad selfie 🙂 ) with every single state house. I mean, who doesn’t love the alliteration of Statehouse Selfies!?
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Table of contents
- Good reasons to visit all the Capitols in the US
- How to keep track of the 50 capitols quest?
- Statehouse? or State House? or Capitol building?
- Visiting all capitols: our stories
- Concord, New Hampshire State House
- Montpelier, Vermont State House
- Boston, Massachusetts State House
- Augusta, Maine State House
- Visiting Hartford, the Capitol of Connecticut
- Providence, Rhode Island State House
- Visiting New York State Capitol in Albany
- Olympia, Washington State Capitol
- Far Out: Visit to the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau
- Boston, Massachusetts, the Old State House
- San Juan, Puerto Rico State House: surprising discovery
- US Virgin Islands Capitol Building in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
- Visiting All Capitols Conclusion
- Helpful links to visit all Capitols
- Pin Visit All Capitols
Good reasons to visit all the Capitols in the US
In 2017, when we visited the NH State House in Concord, we most likely were buying a new ‘Live free or die!’ baseball cap. Because of that visit, exploring the NH State House, we decided “Let us visit all 50 capitols?” Soon after starting our quest, we found a bunch of good reasons.
Visiting capitols is FREE
Nowadays, it seems like people are always looking for free things to do wherever they go. I know we are. Not only can you wander most of the capitols on your own, every capitol we have visited had a free tour. Usually these are self-guided tours, sometimes audio, sometimes on paper, and then there are guided tours. In that case, a knowledgeable volunteer will take you through that capitol and tell you lots about its history.
Seeing government in action
Although we all know that there are people working and governing in the capitol building, have you ever actually seen their work place? Where do they introduce bills? How do they vote? Usually the proceedings are public and you can watch from a gallery while real life politics are happening. You get a totally different feel for it than just seeing it in the paper or watching it on television.
Learn about national history
During our “All 50 Capitols Quest” we have learned so many interesting history tidbits about our country. Did you know that Connecticut has an official state heroine? Or that the Vermont state house has fossils from Africa? Not to mention that Boston locked up their Liberty Bell ?
You get to travel the world, I mean the USA
As travel junkies. we take any excuse to travel and explore more of our country.
It is a nerdy thing to do and leads to instant fame
Or at least it is a nerdy thing to do, I am still not sure about the fame part. Of course I love to write and sharing our travels with you all, and I hope other people will get as inspired as we are and share their capitols quest.
Many State Houses have Full Size Liberty Bell Replicas
Yeah, did you know we set out on a Liberty Bell Replica quest the same day we started our Visit All Capitols quest? Find out all about it on our Liberty Bell Replicas page!
How to keep track of the 50 capitols quest?
In the NH State House, we found a book in which one can keep track of all the states one has been to. We had to buy that for one of our daughters who was a recent graduate from the University of Vermont (Travel and Carpe Diem!) and naturally for ourselves too 🙂 In addition we found a comic book about the USS Albacore which we bought for our nephew in the Netherlands, with our evil ploy to motivate him to come visit us in America 🙂
And yeah, I lost that book, so I made this web page instead to share our stories about the 50 capitols quest. As per March 2023 we are at twelve capitols. Of course, 2020 totally disrupted our quest. But we are back at it now! Read our Hindsight is 2020 to find out how we weathered Covid-19.
Statehouse? or State House? or Capitol building?
You might have noticed that I have been using both “Capitol” and “State House” When I started this page, I didn’t realize that different states use different names for the building that hosts their state’s seat of government. Back then, I was naïve and thought they all would be statehouses or state houses or capitols, that these just were synonyms. Turns out I was wrong.
Actually, most states use “Capitol” for this building, but the New England states tend to lean towards “State houses” (with a space!) For example Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont have state houses, and they all were among the first ones we visited. So it’s no wonder I thought ‘everyone’ uses state house. Now I know better and will make sure to use the right nomenclature in my posts. This wikipedia link gives a good overview of the different capitol building names.
Visiting all capitols: our stories
Clearly, this is a work in progress. I wonder how long it will take us to visit all fifty!? Current stats: nine buildings since early June 2018. And we all know what happened in 2020: the Covid-19 pandemic! So we ended up discovering another New England one and postponing the farther away state houses till after the plague.
- Concord, New Hampshire State House on June 12th, 2018
- Montpelier, Vermont State House on June 28th, 2018
- Boston, Massachusetts State House on July 9th, 2018
- Augusta, Maine State House on July 26th, 2018
- Hartford, Connecticut State Capitol on Aug 23rd, 2018
- Providence, Rhode Island State House on Aug 28th, 2018
- Albany, New York State Capitol on Oct 12, 2018
- Olympia, Washington State Capitol on Oct 18, 2018
- Juneau, Alaska State Capitol on Jul 10, 2019
- Boston, Massachusetts, The Old State House on Nov 19th, 2021
- San Juan, Puerto Rico State House, totally unplanned and unexpected on Jan 8th, 2023
- St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, Capitol Building on Jan 17th, 2023
Concord, New Hampshire State House
When we visited our own state house, we decided to start our quest. Of course, it is just as much about learning about history as about taking any excuse to travel. Click here to read about our visit to the New Hampshire state house.
It didn’t take long to realize that there were so many fun facts to learn about our state houses, so I started my Top Ten Surprising Facts series. Did you know that those New Hampshire people are cheapskates? And that there is a full sized liberty bell replica? Click here to find ten interesting facts about the New Hampshire state house.
Montpelier, Vermont State House
Since we had so much fun in our own state, and Vermont is right next door, we continued our visit to all the capitols with their State House in Montpelier. We saw fossils and after some searching found their liberty bell replica. Click here to read about our visit to the Vermont State House.
Again, there were so many fun facts that I wrote another installment of the Top Ten Interesting Facts series. Did you know that they lost one of their sky lights for a long time? Or actually it got broken and hidden from anybody’s view. Click here to find ten interesting facts about the Vermont state house
Boston, Massachusetts State House
Our third state house was our neighbor to the South, Boston, the capital of Massachusetts. We managed to hit this on our way home from our family in Massachusetts. We were in a hurry since we had unplanned Airbnb guests that night. It is an absolutely beautiful building, designed by architect Charles Bulfinch. Click here to read about our visit to the Massachusetts state house.
This was our first state house where the liberty bell was not readily available. Visiting Boston inspired me to write how Massachusetts locked up their Liberty Bell and what you can do to help free it! #FreeTheLibertyBell
Augusta, Maine State House
Since we were doing all our neighbors, we made sure to hit Augusta on our way back from whale watching in Quebec City. We were unable to take a tour because it was outside of normal opening hours, but we enjoyed exploring the grounds and discovering more than just the Liberty Bell. Click here to learn about the Maine State House and its bells.
Visiting Hartford, the Capitol of Connecticut
We often combine our quest with family visits. How else could we visit all capitols? This time we hit our first state capitol on our way to our Long Island family. We found out why Connecticut melted down their angel protector! Click here to read Ten Surprising Connecticut Capitol Facts!
Providence, Rhode Island State House
According to Rhode Islanders, they might be the smallest state but they have the grandest state house. Yup, we visited this one on our way back from the same Long Island family visit. Surprising Dutch connections in this one, including the name of the state! Click here to read 10 fun facts about the Rhode Island State House.
Visiting New York State Capitol in Albany
The New York State Capitol reminded us of a French palace, like Versailles. Very ornate, no dome! We have to go back to see the liberty bell, since it was inaccessible!
Read all about this capitol which includes a visit by the Dutch Queen and the destruction of an entire neighborhood at New York State Capitol: Ten Fun Facts.
Olympia, Washington State Capitol
Do you know that the stairs to this capitol have 42 steps because Olympia was the 42nd state? More fun facts can be found at Washington State Capitol: What You Always Wanted to Know.
We visited this on a day trip after we went bungee jumping in Seattle.
Far Out: Visit to the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau
Expecting this to be one of the last ones on our list, we surprised ourselves by finding cheap cruise fares for Holland America Alaska cruises Very simple capitol, but the Alaska Capitol is guarded by a bear. Juneau was a lot smaller than we expected, I suspect it is our smallest state capital. Update Oct 2019: nope, Juneau is not the smallest state capital, but it is one of our biggest cities. Find out 10 fun facts about the Alaska Capitol!
Boston, Massachusetts, the Old State House
Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, we hadn’t been able to travel outside of our New England bubble. So we were very happy to discover another state house right in Boston: the Old State House, home of the Boston Massacre. Find out why we hated the British so much in the story of the Old State House of Boston!
San Juan, Puerto Rico State House: surprising discovery
Finally back cruising and made an unplanned stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After we boarded a local tour bus, they told us that one of the stops was the state house! Wait… Discover why Puerto Rico has a Capitol and more fun facts about this US territory.
US Virgin Islands Capitol Building in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
On the same cruise when we visited Puerto Rico, another stop was in Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas. That is where found the US Virgin Islands Capitol Building and yet another Liberty Bell Replica!
Amazing views over the harbor from this capitol!
Visiting All Capitols Conclusion
Looking forward to visiting all fifty US states (and territories too!) and our adventures doing so! How many states have you visited? Did you go to any of the capitols / state houses? What was your favorite?
Helpful links to visit all Capitols
Check out these links if you want to embark on your own capitols quest!
- List of state and territorial capitols in the United States. Wikipedia page with pictures and locations of all the US capitols / state houses.
Pin Visit All Capitols
