Datasets / Drive times / Outdoors
Drive time to the nearest national forest
National forest lands, measured to their mapped parking lots, trailheads and entrances. Where none are mapped, points along the boundary stand in.
- 312
- national forests, with 13,805 ways in
- 87 min
- median drive for US residents
- 5%
- of residents within 15 min
- 15%
- within 30 min
- 34%
- within an hour
Counties are shaded by the drive time within which half of their residents reach the nearest one. Dots mark the national forests.
Find places within 30 minutes on the map →
Source
- Protected Areas Database of the United States (PAD-US) 4.1U.S. Geological Survey · Public domain
- Parking lots, trailheads and entrancesOpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
Retrieved Oct 2026. Each park counts once; its parking lots, trailheads, entrances and visitor centers are its ways in.
How drive times are measured
Every 2020 census block group (about 240,000 neighborhoods) starts from its population center and drives the OpenStreetMap road network to the nearest of the national forests. Speeds come from posted limits where they are mapped and typical speeds by road type elsewhere, with a small delay at each intersection. They are free-flow times: no traffic. Ferries count at their scheduled duration.
Counties and tracts show the population-weighted median of their block groups, so half of residents are at or under the time shown. Searches stop at 3 hours. Puerto Rico and a few dozen roadless places in Alaska aren't covered.
- Road networkOpenStreetMap contributors (Geofabrik extract) · ODbL
- Centers of Population by block group, 2020U.S. Census Bureau · Public domain