Weekend Getaway Finder: Trips Within a Drive of You

Quick answer: Type the town you start from and how far you will go. The finder lists Travel Magma’s own guides to the places inside that circle, nearest first: 373 guides to 95 US places, from Sanibel’s shelling beaches to Lake Erie’s islands. Filter by beaches, cities, nature or Florida. Miles are straight lines.

How to use it

Type your town and pick it from the list, type a latitude and longitude, or tap Use my location. Choose how far you will go and the kind of trip. The places inside the circle are listed nearest first, with the miles and the direction; open one to see every guide we have written about it. The first one is open already.

What the miles mean

Every distance here is a straight line, as the crow flies. The road is always longer, by how much depends on the roads and the water between you and the place, so we do not turn the miles into hours. A circle of 150 miles holds a lot of Florida from Orlando, and a circle of 300 miles reaches the Panhandle’s beaches from Atlanta.

Where the guides are

Each guide sits on one town: the town its title names, or, for a guide filed under one area, that area’s main town. Florida has the most, 253 of the 373. The places with the most guides:

By kind: 176 beach guides, 156 city guides and 41 nature guides. Hawaii and Puerto Rico are left out because you cannot drive there; guides about getting somewhere, about money or about living in a place are left out because they are not trips.

Worked examples

From Atlanta, beaches within 300 miles. 25 guides to 8 places, all in Florida: the nearest is Santa Rosa Beach, 255 miles southwest, then Panama City Beach and Destin.

From Cleveland, within 100 miles. One place, Sandusky, 52 miles west: Cedar Point and the Lake Erie islands, with 15 guides.

From Jacksonville, within 150 miles. 45 guides to 10 places: St. Augustine first, 37 miles southeast, then Gainesville, Silver Springs and Daytona Beach.

From New York City, within 300 miles. Newport, Rhode Island, 151 miles east; Annapolis, 178 miles southwest; Portland, Maine, 280 miles northeast.

Plan the drive

Price the trip with the Road Trip Cost Calculator and meet friends in the middle with the Halfway Point Calculator. For the planning itself, read the 48-hour weekend road trip formula, the road trips you can plan in a weekend and the road trip essentials.