Everyone has at least a few places nearby that they've always meant to visit, yet never gotten around to actually seeing. I've been fortunate enough to visit several dozen countries along with 48 American states and 8 of Canada's 10 provinces. However, despite a personal hobby of visiting state and national capital cities, I realized that I'd never been to several of the state capitals located closest to my home in the Washington DC suburbs! I had previously visited Cheyenne / Wyoming, Victoria / British Columbia, and Honolulu / Hawaii, not to mention the parliamentry buildings in a bunch of European countries and Australia. Yet somehow I had never visited Dover, Delaware or the downtown part of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania despite these being two of the neighboring states to my own Maryland. When I had some extra "use it or lose it" leave saved up from my work in December 2025, I decided that I would visit several of these local state capitals to check them off my personal list and see what they had to offer. The cost to see these places was almost nonexistent and this had to be a better way to spend the day than sitting around at home goofing around with video games.
The nearest state capitals included Annapolis, Maryland (which I *HAD* visited many times before); Dover, Delaware; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Richmond, Virginia. Conveniently, all of these were within a two hour drive from our house which would allow me to leave after taking the kids to day care and still make it back in time to pick them up in the late afternoon. The next-closest state capital was Trenton, New Jersey (which was close to three hours driving distance) and then everything beyond that would require 5+ hours of driving in each direction. That might be doable for another trip but not for these short jaunts. I'm listing these local state capitals in the order that they officially joined the United States, starting with Delaware (#1) followed by Pennsylvania (#2) and Maryland (#7). The intention is to add Richmond, Virginia to this list as well though I'll have to get that one at some point in 2026.
This might not be as dramatic or exotic as some of the places that I've visited but hopefully still entertaining to read about all the same!
