Ajay Bentley, a senior at Battle Mountain High School, decided to travel across the nation to see major cities, state capitols and the four corners of the U.S. on a solo journey in a little over two months.
Ajay Bentley/Courtesy photo
When kids head back to school each fall, a common question is: “What did you do over the summer?” For Ajay Bentley, the answer is a long and interesting one.
Ajay Bentley is a senior at Battle Mountain High School, but during his junior year, he concocted a plan to travel to major cities across the United States. This included plotting pins on a poster-sized map, searching Apple Maps for distances and hours it would take to drive the routes and creating a nine-page spreadsheet of daily goals of cities he would reach. He set a start date of May 31 and an end date of accomplishing the feat by Aug. 4.
“The original goal was to hit every major city in America, but then I added the state capitals, the Dalton Highway in Alaska, Hawaii and reaching all four corners of the country, which made it a little more challenging but that much more satisfying,” Ajay said.
Ajay’s parents, David and Tracey Bentley, said it was hard to get their arms around such a huge undertaking.
“We could however see his passion every night during the winter building his map and spreadsheet, fine-tuning his itinerary and daily goals,” David said. “We wanted to support that passion.”
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At 17 years old, Ajay set out alone to drive the 40,000-mile trip, going to well over 500 city centers where he would take a 20-second Snapchat video.
“I just started in Colorado knowing I wanted to hit Alaska first, so I planned the route to there and then hit all the cities on my list en route,” Ajay said. “I used the map and my spread sheet for daily targets.”
Although his Jeep was outfitted for car camping, he stayed with friends a few nights along the way but mostly stayed in roadside motels, often arriving as late as 2 a.m. Every day was long and every night was short. He averaged over 600 miles per day during the 66 days. It was a journey of perseverance and sheer determination.
“The purpose of the trip wasn’t sightseeing, it was to get a glimpse of as many places as possible and to cover as much ground as possible in the short couple months’ time I had,” Ajay said.
“For us, it certainly was a leap of faith and trust. We felt that it would be a singular experience that would stay with him his whole life, particularly to accomplish all that alone, at just 17 years old,” David said. David and Tracey Bentley are retired American Airlines pilots and have instilled their lifetime love of travel in their son.
“It’s that sense of discovery and the value of experiences rather than just sightseeing,” David said. “Since AJay had already been to five continents, he was looking for something truly unique that he could do by himself, an epic solo road trip before he turned 18 on August 14.”
Although Ajay Bentley did do the trip predominantly solo, his dad had to hop in the car and ride along as the route went through Canada.
“I flew to Montana to ride with him for the Alaska leg as he was too young to cross the Canadian border without an adult,” David said. “Nonetheless, he drove every single mile of the journey, and apart from that segment, he drove alone.”
To reach Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean, Ajay Bentley had to drive the dangerous Dalton Highway, made famous by the “Ice Road Truckers” series on the History Channel.
In Coldfoot, Alaska, nearly 60 hours away from home, Ajay Bentley hit a low point.
“I was in the only truck stop gas station on the entire Dalton Highway and I was in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror, thinking about the madness I’d just gotten myself into,” Ajay said. “I eventually came out and drove the remaining 20 minutes to the lodge for the night and slept it off. I felt much better the next day and never had a feeling like that for the rest of the trip.”
He was threatened by a tornado along the road outside Idaho Falls, Idaho, and was pinned for several hours by flooding in Farmington, New Mexico, and again in Gainesville, Florida. He only had one flat tire, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
“I never really felt afraid, it was more that I was nervous or anxious at times due to the weather or driving through some sketchy areas,” he said.
Were his parents concerned?
“Absolutely and constantly, throughout the entire journey, as any parent would. All the ‘what if this …?’ or ‘what if that …?’ — all needless concerns as it turned out,” David said. They did use Apple’s Find My app to track their son. They could look at various maps and radars to give him real-time weather, construction and traffic updates. Their son also had a satellite phone where he could send and receive texts but he only used it in Canada and Alaska.
To reach Hawaii, Ajay Bentley flew from Los Angeles to Honolulu and took an Uber to the capital and flew back all in the same day. He had to do the same for Juneau, Alaska, since it is inaccessible by road, so he flew from Anchorage to Juneau, took an Uber to the capital, and came back the same evening.
He would pass the time listening to music and podcasts and talked on the phone a lot. He didn’t have much interaction outside of his Jeep and most people back home didn’t believe he was going to do it.
“Everybody who found out what I was doing said I was crazy and that I was probably gonna break down at some point,” he said. “My friends even bet on whether or not my jeep would make it, and I won’t lie, it was nice to prove everyone wrong.”
Ajay drove into Fort Kent, Maine, the origin of U.S. Route 1, on Aug. 4, precisely the date he had planned on a spreadsheet last spring. After reaching the last pin on his map, there was a long 2,000-mile drive home to Edwards.
When asked if his son has changed or learned life lessons from the trip, David has this to say: “It has confirmed within Ajay his belief that he can accomplish really big goals, a belief that will serve him well in the future.”
Many people aspire to hit all 50 states in their lifetime. At 17, Ajay Bentley did it in a little over two months and he has the requisite 50 souvenir shot glasses he collected along the way to prove it. And even though he traveled through so many areas and didn’t spend much time in any of them, he still has a few takeaways.
“I really have an appreciation for the spirit and will of the American people in some of the poorest regions of the country, they find the good in often very unfortunate situations and manage to live happy lives and be kind to others,” Ajay said. “And it’s something I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-25 08:59:00
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