You get one weekend. We order the shortlist to cut driving, add that weekend's open houses, and leave time to stand on the street after dark.
No stops yet. Add the addresses you want to see and we'll order them to cut driving.
The slack is deliberate. Packed trips mean you can't go back for a second look at the one you liked.
In development
The trip planner is part-way there. Rather than hand you a weekend you'd have to drive, we've switched it off while we finish it — what's behind this card is a preview of where it's going.
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Two days on the ground is enough to buy well or enough to buy badly, and most of the difference is decided before you get on the plane. A trip spent discovering a metro from scratch ends in a blur of houses you cannot tell apart; a trip spent confirming a shortlist ends with a decision you can defend. What follows is how to spend the weekend so it is the second kind — including when the dates are not yours to choose.
A house-hunting trip is a confirmation exercise. Everything that can be done from a laptop should already be done: which areas fit the commute, what the cost picture looks like on each side of the state line, what a given address sits on. What cannot be done from a laptop is standing in a room, listening to the street, and finding out that the photographs flattered a slope you would climb every day with groceries.
Arrive with a written brief and a list of addresses. Use the drive-time map to narrow the search area with routed bands rather than guesses, the address report to check specific addresses for flood zone, fiber, the nearest rail crossing and utility providers, and the buyer profile if you have not yet written down what you are actually looking for. Ruling houses out at a kitchen table is free. Ruling them out from a rental car costs an hour each.
The instinct is to see the favorite first. The result is a day shaped like a star, crossing the metro over and over. Group stops that are near each other and cross between areas once, deliberately. Ordering a list of addresses by real routed driving time rather than by map distance is exactly what this planner is for, and it is the difference between a day of houses and a day of highway. Nine stops is the most one weekend sensibly holds.
The most valuable showing of the weekend is usually the second look at the house you liked on Saturday morning, and a packed schedule makes it impossible. Book fewer houses than the day could technically fit. Past four or five in a day, most people stop being able to tell them apart without photographs and notes — so take both, in every house, including the ones you are certain you will remember.
Go back to the house you liked and sit outside it after dark. Street lighting, whether the road is used as a cut-through, how far a train horn carries, what parking looks like once everyone is home — none of that is in a listing, and all of it is permanent. Drive the commute at the hour you would actually drive it: a route that is quiet at two in the afternoon is a different road at half past seven in the morning.
Gaps between appointments are worth filling with open houses, which need no appointment and cost nothing but the drive. Three houses at the same price in one afternoon teach you more about what your money buys here than any amount of scrolling. The open houses list shows what is open across the metro this week.
Deadline-driven moves — a report date, a start date, a lease that ends — compress all of this. The adjustments are the same every time: build the shortlist before you arrive so the trip is confirmation; have financing in writing before you fly so you can act on the ground; and decide in advance what happens if nothing works, because a short-term lease chosen calmly beats one chosen in a panic. If a specific workplace or post is the fixed point of the move, measure the commute from it rather than estimating it.
The worst outcome of a good trip is finding the house and not being able to move on it. Before you fly: financing in writing, a clear idea of how earnest money would leave your bank and by when, and an answer to how you would sign if you cannot be here for closing. The readiness check covers the nine things that stall remote purchases.
On your device. The stops you add, the order they end up in and the options you toggle stay in this browser — no account, and no saved record of which houses you are considering. Addresses go out only to be turned into map coordinates and to have the driving between them worked out.
More than you expect and fewer than you want. Budget at least half an hour for any house you actually care about, once you have parked, walked the lot, opened the mechanical room and stood in the back yard — and remember that the drive between two stops on opposite sides of the metro can cost as much as the showing itself. Cluster them and you will see several in a morning. Scatter them and you will spend the day driving. The real ceiling is not stamina, it is memory: past four or five in a day, houses blur together without notes and photographs.
It can be, if the trip is spent confirming rather than discovering. Two days is not enough to learn a metro from scratch, form a view about six different areas and pick a house. It is enough to visit a shortlist you built beforehand, rule most of it out quickly, go back for a second look at the one that survived, and stand on its street after dark. The work that makes two days sufficient happens before you fly: drive-time bands, a written brief, and financing already in place so you can write an offer while you are here.
People do, and in relocation it is fairly common — but do it with the same information you would have had in person, not less. That means a live video walkthrough where you direct the camera instead of watching a produced tour, an inspection you attend by video and ask questions during, and someone you trust physically at the house for the inspection and the appraisal. What you cannot get remotely is the street: the traffic, the noise, the slope of the driveway in winter. If nobody can stand there for you, treat that as a risk you are knowingly accepting.
If your shortlist genuinely spans both, yes — but group them and cross once, rather than alternating. The state line runs through the middle of this metro and the Missouri River separates the Northland from everything south of it, so a zig-zag itinerary spends its day on highways and bridges. There is a second reason to keep the sides in blocks: property tax, closing customs and vehicle paperwork all differ by state, and seeing each side as a block makes it far easier to compare like with like at the end of the day.
It is the most useful hour of the trip, and it is usually spent at a restaurant near the hotel. Drive back to whichever house you liked and sit outside it after dark. You learn what the street lighting is like, whether the road is used as a cut-through, how far the nearest train horn carries, and what parking looks like once everyone is home. Then drive the commute at the hour you would really drive it. None of that is in a listing, and all of it is the part you cannot change later.
Mainly the compression: the dates come from your orders rather than from the market, the trip has to be booked before you know much, and the report date does not move because a closing did. Three things help. Build the shortlist before you arrive, so the weekend is confirmation. Have financing in writing before you fly, so you can act on the ground. Decide in advance what happens if nothing works, because a lease chosen calmly beats one chosen in a panic. What your orders authorize in travel, leave or allowances is a question for your command or relocation office, not for this site.
Once you have financing in writing and a shortlist worth confirming, and not before. Too early and it becomes sightseeing; too late and you are touring houses that will be gone before you can act. Aim to be on the ground while there is still room afterwards to write an offer, get an inspection done and close before your date — which in practice means going well before the final month rather than during it. Book travel you can change, and assume a second visit for an inspection or a closing is likely rather than exceptional.
The plan stays in this browser, on this device. There is no account, and no record is kept of which houses you are considering, in what order, or when you looked. The addresses you type go out for two narrow purposes — turning an address into map coordinates, and working out the real driving time between stops — because neither can be answered without them. Everything else, including your itinerary and your toggles, stays here, and clearing your browser data clears it.
No figure on this page is a measurement. Drive times, distances and durations are deliberately absent — ask the drive-time map or the planner, both of which route them, rather than trusting an estimate. Nothing here states a military entitlement, allowance or program; those come from your orders and your command. Reviewed 11 Aug 2026.