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Road trip planner

Add parks in any order. The planner orders them to keep the driving down, starting from your first pick.

Or start with a classic:

Planning several parks in one trip? Pick them here and the planner orders them to keep the miles down, then adds up what you will pay to get in.

How the route is ordered

The planner starts at the first park you add, then picks the order that keeps total driving lowest (it tries every order for up to eight parks and uses a fast shortcut beyond that). Drive times and road miles are measured between the closest visitor centers of each pair, using OSRM routing on OpenStreetMap roads at normal speeds, so add time for traffic, stops, construction and park traffic in summer.

The route map draws your stops in order, and Open the route in Google Maps sends the whole trip to Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions (Google allows up to ten stops in one link; longer trips are split).

Driving days

Pick how many hours you are happy to drive in a day, and the planner tells you how many driving days the legs add up to. Long legs are split across days.

Fees

It adds each park’s 2026 entrance fee for one private car and compares the total with the $80 resident annual pass. Per-person parks are counted for one adult; use the pass calculator for a group.

Tips

  • Parks you cannot drive between (Hawaii, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and the fly-in parks in Alaska and elsewhere) show as fly or boat legs with straight-line miles.
  • Check each park page for 2026 reservation rules before you lock in dates, and see the ready-made road trips for classic routes.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

How many national parks can you see in one road trip?

It depends on time. The five Utah parks fit in about a week of driving between them; Yellowstone and Grand Teton sit next to each other.

Are the times real drive times?

Yes, estimated road times and miles between visitor centers from OSRM routing on OpenStreetMap roads. Real trips take longer with stops and traffic.

Can I save my trip?

Use Copy link; the parks are stored in the address, so the link reopens the same trip.