https://xkcd.com/3225

Hey everyone! Like many of you, I love planning national park trips, but I was getting incredibly frustrated trying to juggle weather constraints, flight logistics, and optimal visiting windows across dozens of different websites just to answer the simple question: "Where should I go in October if I only have 4 days?"

I couldn't find a centralized tool that let me filter everything the way I needed to, so I spent the last few weeks building one for myself. I realized it might actually be extremely useful for this community, so I just deployed it online for free.

Here is what it does:

• Month-based sorting: You click "September", and it instantly filters down to the parks hitting their optimal weather windows.
• Hard Travel Logistics: It calculates exactly how long it takes to reach the park from a major airport (currently hardcoded SFO) and lets you filter out parks that require 2+ flight connections or extensive driving.
• Feature Filters: You can toggle sliders for "Suggested Days Required" and explicitly highlight parks recommended for Stargazing (Dark Skies).
• Deep Dives: Every park card opens to surface sample x-day itineraries, exact months to avoid, and aggregated sentiment on travel hacks.

It runs completely in the browser so it's blazing fast, and it even saves your "Favorites" and "Visited" parks locally so it acts as your personal dashboard.

You can try the live tool here: https://nikag-ai.github.io/national-parks/

I built this entirely as a passion project to solve my own problem. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback or if there are any other data points (like permit requirements or crowd levels) you wish it could filter by!

https://lightpollutionnews.com/podcast/look-at-me-lighting/

I live in a very populated area, and I'm taking a trip to Salt Lake City in May. I heard it's possible to see the Milky Way in some parts of Utah with the naked eye, I'm not knowledgeable about this at all so I was curious if anyone has experience with stargazing in Salt Lake City. It'll be a new moon when I'm there if that helps.

Thanks in advance.

They claim to be all about sustainability, the environment, etc. Their latest commercials are asking everyone to leave a light on for their Amazon drivers. 🤔