Ryan Trahan pulled up to a giant acorn just outside Dallas on Day 1, dragged his luggage inside, and immediately discovered the air conditioning was broken. That is a fitting opening for a summer that would take him and his wife Haley through 50 states in 50 days, sleeping in missile silos, a potato hotel, a World War II airplane, and a treehouse with a 100-foot slide, all in pursuit of the single best Airbnb in America. What started as a personal bucket-list road trip quietly became one of the largest individual charity fundraisers in recent memory, ultimately raising over $11.6 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The adventure began with a simple set of rules: one state per day, the highest-rated Airbnb in each state, and one travel companion. Haley, Ryan noted plainly, ‘is also my wife.’
Donate to St. Jude – https://www.stjude.org/50states
The Airbnbs that kept stealing the top spot
The rankings reshuffled constantly, which was half the fun. The Texas Nut House outside Dallas, a literal acorn-shaped cabin on 15 acres with a fire pit and a trail leading to a separate bathroom, held the number-one spot for exactly one night before the Cold War Atlas F missile silo in New Mexico took over. Ryan and Haley made PB&J sandwiches in the bunker’s kitchen, then carried pizza down into the blast chamber for what Ryan called one of their ‘weirder dates.’ A Star Wars-themed hut in Utah, complete with a cantina, a cruiser bay full of rideable vehicles, and a wardrobe room full of costume accessories, pushed the silo to second. The container home overlooking the Rocky Mountains in Colorado claimed third. Then came Oklahoma.
Treetopia, located in a state Ryan admitted he never associated with treehouses, became the frontrunner after Day 7 and never truly surrendered the position. Crossing a suspension bridge to reach the front door, guests walk over a glass viewing floor into a living room perched inside an actual tree. A Miss Pac-Man arcade game sits mounted on a wall upstairs. A door marked ‘No admittance except on party business’ conceals triple-decker bunk beds. A suspended hammock hangs 60 feet above the ground on the third story. The hot tub is also suspended at 60 feet. The 100-foot slide exits the structure on the outside. Ryan described the host’s work as ‘an incredible amount of creativity and love,’ but it was the outdoor movie projector, the sauna, and the waterfall on the property that made him realize the list of things to do at a single Airbnb had become almost too much to process in one night.
Other standouts along the way: a cabin in New Jersey with a private island and a fully stocked cold-brew fridge, where YouTuber Dr. Mike arrived in a Ferrari and donated $70,000 to the St. Jude fundraiser. A Cape Cod lighthouse in Massachusetts where a friend named Nick De Giovani organized a full New England lobster bake on the shore, complete with clam chowder and blueberry soda, while fireworks went off over the water on Fourth of July weekend. A Frank Lloyd Wright house in Michigan that required watching a documentary about the architect just to understand all of it. A bison ranch lodge in North Dakota where host Kelsey took them on a personal tour of the herd, pointing out a bison named Benny. A giant potato hotel in Idaho where a bellhop in a potato mascot costume named Spuddy Buddy carried the luggage inside and a harp player serenaded them at a candlelit dinner.
The fundraiser that grew faster than the rankings
The $1 million target for St. Jude was cleared on Day 16, at the Charleston waterfront house in South Carolina, where Ryan and Haley baked a cake to celebrate despite having, as Ryan put it, no baking skills whatsoever. By the time they reached the Maine fox-themed treehouse on Day 30, the total had hit $3 million. Michigan brought $4 million. A dock in Iowa was where they marked $5 million. By the California castle in Los Angeles, a friend named Preston arrived with a cake reading nine million. The finish line in Hawaii, surrounded by friends who had flown in, saw the counter land at $10 million. The final tally, announced back home after a visit to St. Jude’s campus in Tennessee, was over $11.6 million.
Hawaii’s oceanfront villa, with its ocean-view living room, poolside hammock, manta rays visible from a drone, and a mongoose spotted on the property, finished ranked number two. The final rankings placed Treetopia in Oklahoma at number one. Ryan and Haley flew back to Tennessee, found David, the owner of Treetopia, and handed him a trophy.
A trophy sitting in someone’s hands in Tennessee
The trophy Ryan had carried across all 50 states, a physical object he had held up for the camera as early as Oklahoma to explain what was at stake, ended up in David’s hands outside Treetopia after the journey was already over.
Back in Texas, with no new state on the itinerary for the first time in 50 days, Ryan noted that waking up from the whole thing and discovering it had been a dream ‘is really what it feels like.’ The acorn outside Dallas, where the AC never did get fixed, had only been the beginning.
Help by donating to St. Jude – https://www.stjude.org/50states
