How we estimate trips
The trip planner turns two states, a number of nights, and your hookup and budget preferences into a suggested route with cost. Here is exactly how each number is produced, so you can judge it and journalists can cite it.
Distance
We take the straight-line (great-circle) distance between the center of your starting state and your destination state using the haversine formula. Real road miles run longer, so treat this as a floor, not a promise.
Driving days
We assume a comfortable 300 miles per driving day and round up. A 1,000 mile trip suggests four legs, so you are never asked to white-knuckle 600 mile days.
Suggested stops
We project every open park in our data onto the line between your two states, keep the ones close to that line and within your budget and hookup filter, then space the stops evenly along the route. Each stop is a distinct park.
Cost
Parks in our data do not publish per-night rates, so the planner uses editorial ESTIMATE bands by hookup level, not park quotes: Basic & Rustic: $15 to $35. Established Parks: $30 to $60. Full Hookup Parks: $45 to $85. These are our own rough figures for planning purposes. We spread your nights across the stops, use the midpoint of each stop's band, and show 0.9 to 1.25 times that base to reflect seasonal and site-to-site variation. Always confirm the current rate with the park.
Where the park data comes from
Listings are derived from OpenStreetMap, the community-maintained map of the world, and cleaned by our pipeline: junk names and permanently closed parks are removed, and categories are normalized to three hookup levels. See our editorial policy for how we handle corrections.