How we score · stayinghome.sucks

Every place gets a score out of 100 for your dates. It is the conditions only: the waves, the wind or the snow. A score reads Good from 60, Fair from 45 and Poor under 45. 60 and up is worth the trip. How far it is never changes the score: the journey shows on every card, and you can filter by it (below).

Conditions

We score each day out of 100 in the parts below. The trip is half its best days and half every day, on the same scale, so it reaches 100 only when every day does.

Surf. Swell size against your level (44): beginner 1–3 ft, intermediate 3–5 ft, expert 6 ft and up. Anything well inside your range gets the full 44. Then swell period (19), swell direction against the way the beach faces (12), and wind (25). Offshore wind scores best. Onshore wind costs the wind points and chops the waves up, so it cuts the swell points too. Over your level's ceiling a spot scores zero: we never send you into surf beyond you. Below the swell your level needs, it scores less and less however clean the wind, because there is nothing to ride.

Ski. Snow cover (31), fresh snow over the last three days (31), cold enough to keep it (13), wind light enough for the top lifts (13) and visibility (12). The top of the mountain decides. Lenses move weight: off-piste favours fresh snow and height, family favours calm, clear days and adds up to 12.5 points for green and blue runs and a public pool, ice rink, leisure centre, ski school or childcare within 5 km (OpenSkiMap and OpenStreetMap). Cheap never changes a score: it puts the cheapest trips that clear the bar first, by the rough cost on each card.

Kitesurfing, windsurfing and sailing. The wind in your level's band (60), how it blows to the shore (15) the water against your level's limit (15) and the warmth of the air (10: nothing at 0°C, full from 18°C). Side-shore is best; offshore wind blows you out to sea, so for kite and windsurf it scores zero, and we only offer a spot where we know which way the shore faces. Gusts well over the mean take a third off; for sailing, gusts at your level's top end the day. A day is its best two readings: a session, not a whole day. The bands come from schools, forecast guides and charter terms, and are in knots, with the Beaufort force for sailing.

Diving. A day is the surface and the water. The surface (65) is a calm day: the open sea's waves against an Advanced diver's limit, lighter for a shore dive, where the waves break on the way in; the wind, and the rain. At a shore dive whose coast we have measured, an onshore wind over 10 knots (where crests begin to break) makes the entry harder, and by 21 knots the sea counts for nothing. Gusts at an Advanced diver's top keep the boats in and score the surface zero. The water (30) is how far you see (20: nothing at 5 m or less, full at 30 m) and how warm it is (10: nothing at 10°C, the drysuit line, full at 29°C, a rash vest). Days past the forecast take the month's typical visibility and water. Days in the forecast also read the rain of the two days before: 10 mm or more near a river mouth, or 20 mm on any other coast, and we count the water as murky (run-off). Where the satellites have this week's sea, a sea that fell 2°C or more in a week (upwelling or a cold spell) counts as the colder water it is, and more or less plankton than the site's normal for the month (chlorophyll-a, NOAA CoastWatch) moves the visibility by the light it lets through (Morel and Maritorena, 2001). A part we have no data for scores nothing, so a lake, which has no satellite clarity or sea temperature, scores on its surface alone; and no forecast gives the current, so its 5 points are never given and a dive day tops out at 95. Slack tide is shown only where an open tide source covers the site, and never scored. A day is its best two daylight readings, a morning and an afternoon dive. A search scores every site for Advanced divers, and every site says who it suits: the level a dive guide gives it, or, failing that, its depth against what each course trains to (18 m Open Water, 30 m Advanced); knowing neither, Advanced divers and up. A site for experienced divers only is not in a search; its own page scores it for them. Past 40 m we say it is technical diving. Fresh water (a lake, river or quarry) goes by other rules: it has no sea, so its day is scored on the wind and the rain only, and no sea temperature is read for it; its card and page say so. A search shows salt water (the sea) unless you ask for fresh water or both. Springs are not listed. A site out at sea with no bookable town near it still shows, with "No town nearby", the nearest town and airport, and no stay in its rough cost. Each site's page lists the dive centres OpenStreetMap maps within 25 km. A sea site's typical visibility for the month comes from ten years of NASA's MODIS satellite water clarity (how fast the sea dims blue-green light, Kd490) at its 4 km square, turned into metres by the rule of Lee and others (2015). It is an estimate: it errs short in green, murky water, and it is never a forecast. The current and the life no free forecast gives: ask a dive centre.

Kayaking. The weather at the put-in. On flat water and the sea the wind decides (50), with the warmth (30) and the rain (20); gusts at your level's top score an open-water hour zero. On a river the banks shelter the boat, so the day turns on the warmth (40) and the rain (20), with the wind counting less (20). A day is its best two daylight readings. A spot is offered to your level by its grade (grade II and under for new paddlers, III comfortable, IV and over expert); the sea and an ungraded river are never offered to a new paddler. A river's level, the thing that decides a whitewater day, no free forecast we may use gives, so a whitewater day tops out at 80 of 100: check a gauge before you go. Spots come from OpenStreetMap and Rivermap's open whitewater database.

Climbing. The weather at the area's best-known crag. Rain wets the rock, and it stays wet until the air, the wind and the sun on the wall dry it; wet sandstone is never climbed, as it breaks. Cool, dry, breezy rock grips best: the rock's temperature (50), the gap to the dew point (19), the wind (19) and the warmth of the air on you (12: nothing at 0°C, full from 15°C). Ice, or gusts of a gale, score a reading zero. A day is its best daylight readings; while the rain before the forecast could change it, the mean of a dry start and a wet one, and the card says so. An area is the crags OpenStreetMap maps within 5 km of the best-known one.

Mountain biking. The weather at the area. We keep a running water balance of the top 10 cm of soil, rain in and drying out, and read it as dusty, dry, tacky, slick or muddy: tacky "hero dirt" scores best (60), then no rain while riding (15), the warmth (15) and the wind (10). The rain before the forecast is not known, so a day is scored from a dry start and a wet one, and a card that could go either way says so: it reads tacky only once the forecast's own rain has settled it. An area is a bike park, a trail centre or the mountain bike routes OpenStreetMap maps within 10 km.

Which forecast. Each reading comes from one named weather model, read from Open-Meteo's open data. Swell, its period and direction, and the size of the sea: Météo-France's MFWAM wave model (about 9 km), from the open sea off each spot. Wind, gusts, air temperature, rain and cloud at the beach: ECMWF's IFS at 9 km, the model Windy shows first, kept to the swell's three-hour steps. Snow falling, snow on the ground and the cold on the mountain: ECMWF's IFS at 9 km, which knew the snow best when we checked a winter of it against 65 snow stations; wind and cloud there: the German weather service's ICON (about 14 km).

Wave shape (an estimate). Where we know the sea floor, a surf forecast says how the waves will probably break that day: soft, crumbling, hollow, slab, peeling or mushy. We work this out from physics. Nobody reports it from the beach.

First we measure how steeply the sea floor drops to 10 m deep in front of the spot. That comes from NOAA's ETOPO 2022 map of the sea floor, in squares about 460 m across. Then we add the day's swell height and period, which gives the surf similarity number (Battjes, 1974):

under 0.5, the wave spills: soft, or crumbling where the floor is steeper;
0.5 and over, it plunges: hollow;
a big swell on a very steep floor or a reef breaks as a slab;
a point break, or a reef that breaks one way, peels;
onshore wind or a short wind swell makes it mushy.

The map cannot see a sand bar or the edge of a reef, so treat the word as a guide. It never changes a score.

Height at the break (an estimate). The swell in feet is the wave model's, out at sea in the model's square. On the way in, the sea floor changes it: the wave slows down, grows taller and turns to face the beach. Where we know the sea floor, a spot's forecast also shows our estimate of how big the wave is when it breaks.

We take the depth under the model's square from NOAA's ETOPO 2022 and GEBCO's 2026 maps of the sea floor. We carry the swell's energy in from the model's square, then use Komar and Gaughan's formula (1972) for the height it breaks at. A swell that comes in at an angle to the beach breaks smaller. Headlands, islands, reefs and sand bars are not in it. We tested it against NOAA's wave buoys near the coast, and it did not beat the model's own height there, so it never changes a score. Treat it as a guide.

Your dates. Pick the day you want to go and how many nights. It is 6 nights unless you choose. We judge the trip half on its best half of days, four at most, so one good day cannot carry it, and half on every day, so a poor day always costs. Each card shows the forecast for every day of the trip: the swell in feet, the interval between waves, the wave's energy and shape, the wind in knots and where it comes from, and the temperature.

Days 11 to 15. The forecast models still reach these days, but each day they know less. So a day's score mixes the forecast's score with the usual week's: the forecast counts for 50% on day 11, then 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% on day 15, today being day 1. These days are marked “likely”, and tapping one shows both scores. The shares are our starting rule, not measured yet: we will set them by comparing each day's early forecast with what the forecast later said. A mixed day is never counted as a good day. Waves for these days come from NOAA's GFS-Wave, the rest from ECMWF's IFS.

Past the forecast. The forecast reaches about 10 days. Past day 15 we score what is typical for that week of the year, from years of history scored the same way. The card then shows what the place is usually like that week, marked “usually”. Past the forecast the swell figure is the whole sea, wind waves included, so it runs a little big. Typical is not a forecast: it tells you where is usually good then, not what will happen.

Water temperature. A surf card says how warm the sea usually is that month, and the wetsuit for it, for example “Water about 15°C: 4/3 wetsuit and boots”. The temperature is the typical one for the month, from ten years of NOAA's satellite and buoy record at the nearest patch of sea, not a forecast. The wetsuit comes from Rip Curl's thickness guide; wind and how you feel the cold can move it a thickness either way.

A region's score is its best spot's. The card names that spot, so on an onshore week the answer can be “go, but surf the sheltered one”.

Where a spot faces, its offshore wind, how sheltered it is, the level it suits and the swell it works in are our own estimates from public map and wave data, tested against a local surfer's list before we use them. So is whether a spot is a beach, reef or point break and which way its wave peels, shown only once that estimate is tested well enough. The break type never changes a score. We mark them all “estimated”.

Reading a forecast table

Each spot's page has a table of its days. Every score is out of 100: each day's, and at the top your trip's, the mean of its best days, as on the spots list. The journey never scores. The forecast reaches about 10 days.

Wind is in knots: 10 kn is about 19 km/h. The arrow points where the wind blows to. On a surf spot, offshore wind, blowing from the land out to sea, is green and says so.
Surf. Energy is the swell's power in kJ per metre of wave, from its height and interval: it grows with the square of each, so a long-period swell hits far harder than a short one the same size. The word under the swell is the wave's shape, our estimate from the sea floor (above). Where we know the sea floor, "6 ft at break (est.)" under it is our estimate of the wave's height when it breaks (above).
Ski. Where a resort has a snow station, the snow depth starts from today's reading there, named under the table; the days after move with the forecast.
Kitesurfing, windsurfing and sailing. Wind is the day's best reading: the mean and the gusts. Shore: "side" is side-shore, blowing along the beach, the way most riders want; "side-on" and "on" blow in towards it; "cross-off" and "off" blow out to sea, and offshore scores nothing for kite and windsurf. Water is the open sea's waves near the spot: flat under 0.3 m, chop to 0.8 m. Air is the day's high.
Diving. A day's score is the surface from the two best daylight readings, a morning and an afternoon dive, and the water: the month's visibility and warmth, murky after heavy rain. Sea is the open water's waves near the site, in metres, halved for a sheltered site. "Boats in" marks gusts that keep dive boats in. Water is the forecast's sea temperature; none is read for a lake. Air is the day's high; rain is over the daylight readings, in mm.
Kayaking. A day's score is from its two best daylight readings at the put-in. Air is the day's high; rain is over the daylight readings, in mm. Where a river has a gauge, its level is under In the water.
Climbing. A day's score is from its best daylight readings: dry rock first, then cool rock for grip, a breeze and no gale. Rock and air are in °C, the rock's with the sun on it; rain is over the daylight readings, in mm.
Mountain biking. The trail is the soil that morning, from the water in its top over the days before: dusty, dry, tacky, slick or muddy. Rain is in mm: the two days before, and over the day's daylight readings. Air is the day's high, in °C.

The journey: your filter, not points

We work out the least painful sensible way there: drive, drive and cross, or fly. It is more than time. Queues at the airport count more than sitting on a plane, a long drive tires you after three hours, each change costs, a flight that goes only a few times a week costs more, and so does a long transfer from the airport to the place. We pick the best way and show it on every card, with its door-to-door time.

The journey never changes a score. Instead it sets which places you see. Unless you choose, we show places at any length of journey. Under Filters you can set a shortest and a longest: a five-hour journey is a small part of a week but most of a weekend.

Flights count only where Wikipedia's airport pages list a direct route. From UK airports we go by whether they list it as year-round or seasonal. For other routes with an end in Europe, Eurostat's monthly flight counts also say how often they fly. Where we have not checked a route, the card says so. Road times are our estimates: about 90 km/h on main roads, slower in the mountains.

We send you to stay in a town with beds to book near the place. Where the nearest is more than 10 km away, up to 50 km where nothing is nearer, we say so plainly: "Nearest beds", how far and the drive. The journey we show is the one to the place, not that daily drive.

Under Filters you can ask for driving or flying only, one country, a longest journey or a most you will spend.

The verdict

Every search ends with one verdict. If at least one place scores 60 or more, it is Home sucks: go. If none does, it is Stay home, and we tell you why.

Further ahead than the forecast reaches (about 10 days), we only know what a week is usually like. So the verdict is Usually home sucks or Usually stay home, never a plain Stay home. If we have no history for that week either, it is Too early to call.

What money can't buy

We may earn a commission when you book through a link marked Ad. Commission never changes a score or the order of results. The code that scores cannot see the code that counts money.

Rough costs

Each trip shows a rough cost per person, two adults sharing, or for your whole party once you say who is going (adults and children, under Preferences): getting there, the stay, food, and board or ski hire and lift passes. It is worked out by code from public figures, not from a live search: UK pump prices, the euro rate, official price levels for each country and season, and a short list of published prices such as lift passes and the Eurotunnel. Flights use the cheapest fare travellers have seen lately for that route and month, on any airline; where none has been seen, an estimate from distance and season across every airline on the route. The flight button opens a Skyscanner search across all airlines for your dates. We give a range, because real prices move with the date you book. Children are priced as adults: we have no sourced prices for children. It is a guide, not a quote, and it never changes a score.

Price bands

Where we show £, ££ or £££, it is the country's price level against the EU average, from Eurostat. We only show it once a second source agrees, so most places show nothing yet.

Where our data comes from

Every place fact is checked against at least two independent open sources, or is one of our marked estimates. We thank them all.

Forecasts. Forecast data: ECMWF, DWD, Météo-France and NOAA, served by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Changed by us. Generated using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information.
Snow depth measured at US stations. Snow stations: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service (SNOTEL).
Snow depth measured at Swiss stations. Snow stations: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (CC BY 4.0), www.slf.ch.
Snow depth measured at Austrian stations. Data source: GeoSphere Austria - https://data.hub.geosphere.at (CC BY 4.0).
Local wind corrections near German weather stations. Wind stations: Deutscher Wetterdienst (CC BY 4.0). Datenbasis: Deutscher Wetterdienst, Einzelwerte gemittelt.
Local wind corrections near French weather stations. Wind stations: Météo-France, données climatologiques de base horaires (Licence Ouverte 2.0), October 2026.
Towns in New Zealand. Sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed for reuse under the CC BY 4.0 licence.
Where the beds are, places to eat, and things to do near ski resorts. Place data: Overture Maps Foundation (overturemaps.org), from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and AllThePlaces. Foursquare data © 2024 Foursquare Labs, Inc., Apache 2.0, changed by Overture and by us.
Place names and positions. Place data: GeoNames (geonames.org), CC BY 4.0
Towns near places with no other town. Place data: GeoNames (geonames.org), CC BY 4.0
The regions under Where. Regions: UN Statistics Division, M49
Ski areas. Data from OpenSkiData / OpenSkiMap.org, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Skimap.org, Who's On First, © Mapterhorn
Coastlines far from shore, and the areas the place search finds. Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com.
Heights. Elevation: produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-90 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. Served by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).
Ten years of past waves. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use of it. Served by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).
Which surf spots there are. Our own list of the world's surf spots, their names and positions.
Which dive sites there are. Our own list of dive sites: their names, positions, depths, entries and levels.
Whitewater river sections, their grades and where they start and end. Whitewater sections © Rivermap (rivermap.org), Riverzone and Jonathan Riddell, ODbL.
River levels in the United States. River levels in the United States: U.S. Geological Survey (public domain).
River levels in England. River levels in England: this uses Environment Agency flood and river level data from the real-time data API (Beta). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
River flow in France. River flow in France: Hub'Eau (hubeau.eaufrance.fr), data from the hydrometric services (SCHAPI, DREAL), Licence Ouverte 2.0.
River levels in Germany. River levels in Germany: PEGELONLINE, Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsverwaltung des Bundes (WSV), DL-DE Zero 2.0.
River levels in Canada. River levels in Canada: Data Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Spots added from open lists. Spots added from open lists: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), OpenSkiMap (ODbL), Wikidata (CC0) and Overture Maps Foundation, from Meta, Microsoft and BrightQuery (CDLA Permissive 2.0).
Which kite and windsurf spots there are. Our own list of kite and windsurf spots: their names, positions and sports.
The names of the places we keep by hand. Our own list of the places we chose and how they are spelled.
Our surf estimates. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Overture Maps Foundation. Made with Natural Earth. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
Which way a wind spot's shore faces, from the nearest beach or coastline. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Overture Maps Foundation. Made with Natural Earth.
Which way a lake's shore faces, for wind spots on lakes, reservoirs and rivers. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Overture Maps Foundation.
The sea floor, for our estimate of each day's wave shape. Sea floor: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model (doi:10.25921/fd45-gt74), which builds on GEBCO.
The sea floor in front of each place, for our estimate of the wave height at the break. Sea floor: NOAA NCEI, ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model (doi:10.25921/fd45-gt74), and GEBCO Compilation Group (2026) GEBCO_2026 Grid (doi:10.5285/4f68d5c7-45eb-f999-e063-7086abc036fa).
Our estimates of each spot's break and wave direction. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), Overture Maps Foundation.
Typical conditions: wind and weather. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use of it. ERA5, served by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).
Typical conditions: snow. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use of it. ERA5-Land, served by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0).
Tide times at coastal places. Tide: EOT20 global ocean tide model, Hart-Davis et al. 2021, DGFI-TUM (doi:10.17882/79489), CC BY 4.0. Times and heights computed by us.
Typical sea temperature. Sea temperature: NOAA OISST v2.1 (NOAA NCEI Climate Data Record, doi:10.25921/RE9P-PT57), from NOAA's Open Data Dissemination programme on AWS. Monthly means by us.
Typical sea temperature, when NOAA's AWS copy is out of reach. Sea temperature: NOAA OISST v2.1 data provided by the NOAA PSL, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their website at psl.noaa.gov.
Typical underwater visibility at dive sites. Water clarity: NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group, MODIS-Aqua Level-3 Mapped Diffuse Attenuation Coefficient at 490 nm, R2022.0 (doi:10.5067/AQUA/MODIS/L3M/KD/2022), served by NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP. Visibility in metres by us.
Chlorophyll this week at dive sites. Chlorophyll this week: NOAA CoastWatch, S-NPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS chlorophyll-a, gap-filled (DINEOF), near real time, served by NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP. Compared with the usual by us.
Usual chlorophyll at dive sites. Usual chlorophyll: NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group, MODIS-Aqua Level-3 Mapped Chlorophyll Data, R2022.0 (doi:10.5067/AQUA/MODIS/L3M/CHL/2022), served by NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP. Monthly normals by us.
Marine life seen near dive sites. Marine life records: OBIS (2026), Ocean Biodiversity Information System, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, www.obis.org, from the datasets named on each page (CC0 and CC BY records only).
Marine life: the animal groups and the dataset list. Marine life records: OBIS (2026), Ocean Biodiversity Information System, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, www.obis.org, from the datasets named on each page (CC0 and CC BY records only).
Fares. Fares: the cheapest prices seen lately by Aviasales travellers, through Travelpayouts. A guide, not a quote.
Food hygiene ratings. Food hygiene ratings: Food Standards Agency. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Price levels. Source: Eurostat, price level indices (prc_ppp_ind_1). Changed by us. Eurostat is not responsible for how we use it.
Which avalanche warning region a ski resort is in. Avalanche warning regions: EAWS, gitlab.com/eaws/eaws-regions (CC0).
Avalanche danger today. Avalanche danger: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF (CC BY 4.0); Météo-France (Licence Ouverte); Avalanche.report, Tyrol, South Tyrol and Trentino (CC BY 4.0); warnings from Snøskredvarslingen i Norge and www.varsom.no (NLOD); © AEMET; Lauegi, Aran (CC BY 4.0). Gathered by avalanche.report.
Airports. OurAirports (public domain)
Places, airports and webcams. Wikidata (CC0)
Names: the language of a place's local name. Unicode CLDR (Unicode License v3)
Photos. Photos: Wikimedia Commons contributors, each under its own licence. Every photo is credited under it and on our photo credits page.
Photo files. Photo files: Wikimedia's media servers, until we keep our own copies
Direct flights and resort introductions. Flight routes and ski resort introductions: Wikipedia contributors, from the airports' and resorts' pages (CC BY-SA 4.0). Changed by us. Our route table and resort texts are shared under the same licence.
Road times from the airport. Road times: OSRM (project-osrm.org) on OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Changed by us. Our road table is shared under the same licence.
Buses from the airport. Bus times: MOTIS (motis-project.de) on timetables from Transport for Ireland (National Transport Authority, CC BY 4.0) and OpenStreetMap data, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Changed by us. Our bus table is shared under the ODbL.
Trip costs: fuel. Fuel prices: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Trip costs: exchange rates. Exchange rates. Source: ECB statistics.
Trip costs: price levels. Price levels outside the EU and EFTA: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0). Changed by us.
Trip costs: flight seasons. Air fare seasons: Office for National Statistics, CPI index 07.3.3 (D7EH). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Trip costs: hotel prices. Elaboración propia con datos extraídos del sitio web del INE: www.ine.es

Our tables made from OpenStreetMap are under the ODbL. The open data page says which they are and how to get them.

Contact

Spotted a wrong fact, a spot we should add, or a score that looks off? Email contact@stayinghomesucks.com. We are on Instagram as @stayinghomesucks.

How we score a trip