Someone finally ran the numbers, and by numbers I mean Google Trends search data mapped out state by state, to figure out which fast-food chain each state searches for the most. Mental Floss and Visual Capitalist have both done versions of this same exercise, so the methodology is out there if you want to dig in yourself. Some of the results are exactly what you'd guess and some genuinely aren't, which is the American fast-food landscape for you.

I spend a lot of my travel life chasing street noodles and hole-in-the-wall dumpling shops, but I'm not going to pretend I don't have opinions about drive-thrus. Road trips run on fast food. That's not a confession, that's logistics. When you've been driving through Nebraska for four hours, whatever the locals search for the most is very useful intelligence.

The map has its obvious winners. Texas goes hard for Whataburger, which surprises exactly zero people, and Chick-fil-A shows up strong across a big stretch of the South, where the drive-thru line wraps around the building on a random Tuesday. In-N-Out unsurprisingly owns its home turf out West. Then it gets fun, because the state-by-state picks spread out across chains you might not guess, and scrolling the full map is half the pleasure of it.

What I love about these maps is what they say about regional loyalty. Fast food is one of the purest expressions of local taste we have. Every place has something it's weirdly protective of, and with chains that protection gets fierce. Talk to a Texan about Whataburger or a Californian about In-N-Out and you're not discussing burgers, you're discussing identity. I once made the mistake of calling a patty melt from one chain "basically the same" as another's in front of a friend from Dallas. I still hear about it.

The other thing a map like this is good for is trip planning. If you're crossing a state line and see a chain dominating the local searches that you can't get at home, that's your stop. That's the whole trick of eating well on the road, you go where the locals go, whether that's a taco truck with a line out the door or a Waffle House at 11 p.m. because the state you're in clearly loves it.

And the data tracks with what I've seen from the window of a rental car. The chains that win state by state tend to be the ones that nailed one or two things instead of trying to do everything. A chicken sandwich. A burger with a specific sauce. Curly fries. Focused menus build obsessive fans, obsessive fans search, and searching is exactly what Google Trends measures.

So where does your state land? Are you loyal to the winner, or are you the person driving past the most-searched chain to get to the one nobody else knows about? Either way, the map's worth a scroll before your next road trip. I mean, I've already screenshotted it for my next drive to Michigan.