Planning hub
Plan your trip
Destination planners, gear buying guides, and free trip calculators — plus which of them matters in each season.
Destination trip planners
Each planner builds a day-by-day itinerary from verified access points, permits, hazards, and agency-sourced route maps for that destination.
Middle Fork of the Salmon River
Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho
Green River: Desolation and Gray Canyons
BLM Price Field Office, Utah
Apostle Islands Sea Caves Crossing
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wisconsin
Everglades Wilderness Waterway
Everglades National Park, Florida
San Juan Islands Circumnavigation
San Juan Islands, Washington
Boundary Waters Border Lakes Traverse
Superior National Forest, Minnesota
Upper Missouri River Breaks
BLM Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, Montana
Season-by-season planning resources
What changes on the ground each season, and which planner sections, calculators, and gear guides to open before you commit to dates.
| Season | What changes | Use the planners for | Tools | Gear guides |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SpringMarch – May | Ice-out, high and cold water, mud season closures, black flies late in the window, and the spring turkey opener. | Open a destination planner for permit windows and access dates before booking — put-ins often open weeks after the calendar says spring. | ||
| SummerJune – August | Peak permit competition, warm nights, afternoon storms, low water on some rivers, and heavy insect pressure in the north. | Use the season calendar inside each planner to pick a week, then the route map and itineraries to set daily mileage. | ||
| FallSeptember – November | Cold rain, shorter days, first hard freezes, hunting seasons overlapping backcountry travel, and thinning services near trailheads. | Check the planner's hazard and conditions sections — late-fall water is survivable only with the right layers and a short daily distance. | ||
| WinterDecember – February | Snow-closed access roads, frozen water sources, short daylight, and travel that depends on ice and avalanche conditions rather than trail mileage. | Most planners mark winter as access-limited. Read the access and emergency sections first, and plan around the road closure, not the route. |
Gear buying guides
Category-by-category decision guides with criteria, verified picks, and head-to-head comparisons.
Trip tools and calculators
Free, no-login calculators that show their formula and sources.