About a week after Jim Chew retired, he decided he was bored.
“I needed to look for something to do,” said Chew, 78.
Chew ran a condominium management company in Columbus, Ohio, before retiring at 75. As he considered how to fill his newly unstructured schedule, his mind kept coming back to one of his favorite activities: the Ohio State Fair.
“I liked all the entertainment you could get in the same place,” he said, explaining that he favored the Ferris wheel and the animal shows.
Chew, an avid traveler, stumbled upon a Facebook page called “Visit All 50 States.” It gave him an idea.
“I just thought, I’d do that even better and visit all 50 state fairs,” he said. “It was something different.”
What began as a way to fill his newfound free time has become a years-long mission to crisscross the country solo to seek out one of the most enduring forms of Americana.
Chew has made it to 31 fairs so far, marveling at the butter sculptures, carnival games and agricultural exhibits from Georgia to California. He has 19 more to go.
His most recent fair visit was last week in Louisiana, where he rode a massive, multicolored slide and attended the Wild West show.
Other states that top his list are Wisconsin — where he sampled several local beers and enjoyed listening to more than 20 live bands — and Utah, where he tried Mexican street corn for the first time and admired various animals as well as a hockey net in honor of the state’s new hockey team.
He estimates his mission will take him seven years to complete.
“I’m having a good time,” he said, noting that he doesn’t know of anyone else who has set out to attend every state fair. “It’s always good to have something to look forward to.”
Chew has charted fair dates around the country and studied a map so he could combine two or three stops into one trip. In places without a state-sponsored fair — including Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Hawaii — he substituted county or agricultural fairs.
Chew began with the Georgia State Fair in October 2023. His second stop, at the Florida State Fair in Tampa four months later, remains one of his favorites.
Chew said he’s been struck by how different each fair has been. He tries to skip vendors that travel from fair to fair, instead seeking out local food and exhibits.
“I thought they’d all be the same, but there were so many differences,” he said.
At the Florida State Fair, which is around a lake, Chew watched performances from the water’s edge. And at the California State Fair, he encountered a “cannabis village.”
“That was pretty crazy,” he said.
At the Louisiana State Fair this month — his final fair of the year — Chew sampled gumbo, crawfish, étouffée and alligator bites.
“They were good,” he said. “A little chewy.”
He also watched racing dogs and western trick riding.
“It had a lot of things I like, and the people were really nice,” he said.
Chew — who is married and has two adult children — travels to all the fairs alone. But he said he never feels lonely.
“I make friends everywhere I go,” he said.
Some of his best moments at fairs, he said, are talking with strangers and learning about their lives.
“It’s just amazing how much people love their hometown or home state,” he said.
Chew recalled getting off a train in Osceola, Iowa, to attend the fair there in August 2025 and realizing there were no ride shares or taxis available to take him to his hotel. The stationmaster ended up giving him a ride.
“I’ve been meeting people who come from all walks of life with all different backgrounds,” he said.
Although every fair has its own local flavor, Chew said, their essentials are much the same: rides, fried food, blue-ribbon competitions, games and live entertainment.
“I love the atmosphere, I love the vibe of a fair,” Chew said. “The food, seeing the kids showing their animals and competing in various things. I like the sounds, sights, smells, a lot of good live entertainment. Just everything you can think of.”
Jon Kay, an associate professor of folklore at Indiana University and director of Traditional Arts Indiana, said the blend of competition and spectacle at state fairs is only part of the appeal.
“It’s more than elephant ears and carnival rides and big stage shows, but actually a way for people to show deep community values, beliefs and practice,” he said.
Kay, who is a contributing curator to the Smithsonian’s “State Fairs: Growing American Craft” exhibition, said fairs offer an opportunity to bring generations together and celebrate everyday life.
“It’s a chance for young people to see that it’s not all AI and it’s not all digital, but you can actually be present in this place with people, and it’s really powerful and important,” he said. “For a little window of time each year, it gives people purpose and meaning and social connection.”
For Chew, state fairs offer a tie to a nostalgic version of life that he said feels increasingly distant.
“It’s a real cross section of America and how it’s been over the past 100 years,” he said.
Chew has a color-coded spreadsheet of fair dates and locations. He tries to group nearby stops into week-long itineraries. Many fairs are held in August, making it difficult to visit several in the same year.
“It’s a lot of planning,” said Chew, adding that he is using his retirement savings to fund the project. “I spend as much time planning as I do going.”
Chew tries to drive or travel by train as much as possible. Otherwise, he flies.
He said the project has kept him mentally and physically engaged as he stays on a tight schedule and sometimes races through airports and train stations.
“It’s a pretty good challenge,” he said.
Chew also builds side trips into his itineraries and tries to stop at local sites along the way.
“I’m using this as an opportunity to see the country,” he said.
He said his family is supportive, and they enjoy hearing about his adventures when he returns home from each trip.
“He likes a mission,” said Jill Chew, his wife, adding that she wasn’t surprised when her husband told her this idea for his retirement project. “It’s very much him.”
Jim Chew chronicles his trips on a Facebook page and rates each fair. Ranking at the top are Iowa for its top-notch pork-on-a-stick, plus “the people there were super friendly,” and California, which Chew said had an interesting car display.
Regardless of the fair, Chew said, the highlight is always the people.
“In your everyday life, you don’t get to talk to a lot of different people from a lot of different places and listen to different accents,” he said.
Chew expects to visit his final fair in Oregon in summer 2030. Alaska, Nebraska and Minnesota are among the states that remain.
“I’m not sure what it will feel like,” Chew said. “I guess I’ll be looking for something else to do after that.”
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The post He retired and got bored. At 78, he’s visiting every state fair in America. appeared first on Washington Post.
