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About this site
Where our drives and color reports come from, what we calculate ourselves, and how ads and cookies work here.
Method
We list drives a government agency has designated or promotes. In Ohio that means all 27 Ohio Byways designated by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), checked against the Federal Highway Administration's America's Byways list for national designations, plus the USDA Forest Service's Covered Bridge Scenic Byway in the Wayne National Forest. Leaf-peeping stops come from ODNR property pages, TourismOhio's 2026 list of state parks for leaf peeping, and the National Park Service.
For every drive and stop we saved the official page we relied on and the exact wording behind each quoted fact: length, route, highlights, and features like covered bridges or waterfalls. A script fetches each page again and checks that wording before we publish. If a page changes and the wording is gone, the fact comes off the site until we recheck it. The Ohio dataset was last checked on October 12, 2026.
That check covers quoted facts only. The calculations listed below are ours, and the official wording doesn't vouch for them.
What we calculate
- Counties a drive crosses: where the route is on ODOT's public byway map, we place its line on Census county boundaries; otherwise we use the counties of the towns the official page names.
- Area color on drive cards, and on stop cards that aren't ODNR reporting sites, is the ODNR category held by the most townships in those counties, as of ODNR's dated report. It describes the area, not the road or the park.
- Mapped lengths, for the few byways whose pages publish none, are measured along ODOT's map line.
- Distances are straight-line miles. In the drive finder they run from the center of your ZIP code; on cards they run from a stop's map point to the nearest sampled point of the route, or to the nearest named town. "On the route" appears only where the official description names the stop.
The dated color report
- The report is the newest dated Fall Color Update from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), quoted word for word and linked. As of October 12, 2026 that is Update No. 2, dated October 8, 2026.
- Statuses such as Mostly Green, Changing, Near Peak, Peak and Fading are ODNR's own categories, read from ODNR's public fall color map. We count them by township and group counties into five regions for easier reading. The regions are ours, not ODNR's.
- Area color is our county summary of ODNR's township statuses, as described under What we calculate.
- We never forecast. When we mention timing, we quote ODNR's or the Park Service's own words.
- We refresh after ODNR posts each weekly update during the season.
What the labels mean
- Length is the figure the official page publishes. A few byway pages give none. For those we show the length of the route on ODOT's public byway map, labeled "as mapped by ODOT", or say the length isn't published.
- Feature icons (covered bridges, waterfalls, overlooks and vistas, parks and forests) appear only when an official source mentions them. No icon means the source doesn't say, not that there isn't one.
- National Scenic Byway and All-American Road come from the Federal Highway Administration's list. Ohio Byway means ODOT designation.
- ZIP code centers come from US Census 2024 ZCTA data. The finder accepts Ohio ZIP codes in that table; it doesn't guess at others.
Corrections
If you run a byway organization or a park, or spot a mistake, email hello@fallcolordrives.com with a link to where the correct information is posted. We fix verified errors and don't charge for listings or corrections.
Advertising disclosure
This site shows ads served by Google AdSense. Advertisers don't pay for listings, placement or what we say about any drive or park.
Privacy
We don't ask for accounts or collect your name or email through the site. The ZIP code you enter in the drive finder stays in your browser and isn't sent to us. We use Google Analytics to count visits and Google AdSense to show ads. Both use cookies and similar technologies to measure use and, for ads, may personalize what you see. Read our full privacy policy, how Google uses information from sites that use its services and Google's privacy policy, and manage ad personalization at Google Ad Settings.
Who makes this
Fall Color Drives is published by North Coast AI LLC in Ohio. It was built with AI assistance and reviewed by Bill Burkey.