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FreeNo account2,712 colleges

The college road trip, planned properly.

College Visit Trip Planner

Pick your colleges. We order the route, time every drive, line up weekday info sessions, and put a hotel pick on every night — free, no account.

Built on U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard data for 2,712 four-year colleges — drive times from OpenStreetMap.

Start your route

Add up to 3 colleges and a starting point. The full planner (up to 8) lives on the tool page.

No list yet? See a real 5-college Boston trip →

How the planner works

1

Pick your colleges

Choose up to 8 from 2,712 four-year colleges.

Browse colleges A–Z →
2

Set dates and start point

Your hometown or hotel, plus the dates you can travel. Everything computes in your browser.

How dates work →
3

We order the route

Real drive times between campuses, overnight stops when a day runs long, visits lined up to weekday tours.

See the method →
4

Book the hotel nights

Every night of the trip gets one hotel search for that city and those exact dates.

Sample trip

A real plan: 5 colleges, New York to Boston

Exactly what the tool produces for a classic junior-year spring trip.

Fri, Sep 11 → Sun, Sep 13, 2026 · 2 nights · 2 adults
2 nights
2 adults

5colleges290mi9 h 25 mdriving2hotel nights2adults

Biggest stay: Boston — 2 nights (Sep 11–13)

Map: 5-stop route New York → Yale → Boston → New York; 290 miles totalNYCYaleBoston
Route and overnights — rendered from OpenStreetMap routing data
New York, NYYale University82 mi · 1 h 50 m
Day 1 · arrive for a morning info session
Yale UniversityBoston, MA138 mi · 2 h 45 m
Overnight in Boston
Boston, MAHarvard · MIT · Boston University5 mi · 1 h 05 m
Day 2 · metro-area hops
Northeastern UniversityNew York, NY215 mi · 3 h 45 m
Day 3 · trip ends, open route

This is the full output — nothing hidden behind an account. Build yours →

Where the data comes from

College Scorecard
U.S. Dept. of Education
2,712 degree-granting, four-year institutions. Data as of March 2026.
OpenStreetMap
Hotel & motel nodes
Campus locations and every hotel/motel near a campus — counts only, never prices. As of June 2026.
OSRM routing
Drive times
Computed once over the OSM road network. Matrix as of June 2026.

No prices, no availability feeds, nothing to go stale. Who builds this and every data source →

Start from a proven cluster

Northeast

Southeast

Midwest / West

Southwest

FAQ

College visit planning questions

Real questions from parents planning a college road trip.

How many colleges can I plan in one trip?

Eight. That's already a big week of driving and visits — most families cap at 5–6. Beyond 8 you lose a full day to driving and the visits blur together.

Read the full answer
Is it free? Do I need an account?

Free, no account, nothing saved server-side. The trip you build lives in a shareable link — open it on a spouse's phone and it just works.

Read the full answer
How do you know when colleges offer tours?

We carry typical info-session cadence for the top ~300 tour-traffic colleges (which weekdays, typical booking lead time). We never show live schedules — always confirm with the admissions site before you drive.

Read the full answer
Why hotels and not flights?

Lodging is the biggest college-trip expense — 58% of trip spend per University of San Francisco admissions research — so the tool optimizes where you sleep. Flights appear only for legs you can't reasonably drive.

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Can I share the plan with my spouse or student?

Yes. Every plan produces a share link that carries your exact colleges, dates, and party — no account, no signup. Open it on any device.

Read the full answer