Rroute 20 stops so that I travel the shortest distant?

Sure. Create a route by selecting all your stops then right click and select Create route from selected waypoints. Once you have the route right click it and select Optimise.

When I do as you suggested I get a trip of 526 miles. When I select the stops manually I get a trip of 302 miles. The "optimize" route is almost twice as long. What gives???

Sounds like in that case it's not working correctly. Why I have no idea as I can't see your data. Basecamp developer might be along shortly and ask for your data so they can check it out.

When I do as you suggested I get a trip of 526 miles. When I select the stops manually I get a trip of 302 miles. The "optimize" route is almost twice as long. What gives???

I've had similar results from "Optimize"....I never use it. The human brain is still vastly superior to any software algorithm!:cool:

The human brain is still vastly superior to any software algorithm!:cool:

Well, that's because we see things differently. Humans can see a map and connecting lines, something the computer can not. The computer "sees" something like a coordinate for each stop along with a node list for the roads. A node would the coordinate of a street intersection and a list of adjacent connecting nodes. If we humans were presented with the problem on equal footing, the computer would probably win:)

As to what gives, it is most likely the magnitude of your problem. A brute force solution would require checking all possible orders for 20 stops. That would be 20 factorial or 2,400,000,000,000,000,000+. Chances are a brute force solution isn't used. In such cases, a solution close to optimal may be needed to get a reasonble answer.

I would try using the benefit of the human's visual advantage and order stops in a reasonable order before optimizing or possibly working on clusters of stops in separate routes before joining them.

Out of curiosity, did 500+ mile route come from a random list or after optimizining the 300+ mile route?

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Out of curiosity, did 500+ mile route come from a random list or after optimizining the 300+ mile route?

Before I manual optimized.

After BC gave the 500 mile route, I only had to make 2 small changes to get the 300 mile route. BC had 2 stops out of order. In summary BC did 80% of the job.

Calculating the routes between every pair of points would take a very long time (to get an accurate distance), so BaseCamp uses a straight line distance between each pair of points to determine the "optimized" order. Do you think this could explain the errors that you are seeing?

See the change I had to make by change the order of the stops. See attach screen shot file.

Deja vu all over again in Pennsylvania with the optimization? Perhaps it would be worth a try to move the route Start coordinates 'current position' to various centralized locations to see the effects of the direct routing vector optimization from a different perspective.