297.6 measured miles, and you reserve a 4 night Shawnee National Forest trip from Cincinnati, 297.6 miles west

Four nights set against 5.99 hours of road

To reserve a 4 night Shawnee National Forest trip from Cincinnati is to agree to one long day of road at each end. From Fountain Square the measured distance is 297.6 miles and the measured time is 5.99 hours. Divided across the four nights this office holds, that comes to 1.5 hours of driving for every night slept, which puts the entry on the third step of four. The road is most of a day. That sentence is printed here, before booking, rather than explained afterward.

The quotient is the only reason any entry sits where it sits. A short road carried by many nights rises. A long road carried by two nights sinks. Shawnee lands in the lower half because the drive is genuine work and four nights are the fewest that make the work worth doing.

Nothing gets softened later. The hours stand next to the price, the figure comes off the road rather than out of a brochure, and a traveler is free to decide against the whole thing with that number in hand.

The rock the forest stands on

Shawnee National Forest lies across the band of southern Illinois that the ice never flattened. North of it the state is level and farmed to the horizon. Here the ground is ridges, hollows and exposed sandstone, with the Mississippi closing one end of the forest and the Ohio the other.

Garden of the Gods is that idea at its eastern end. A short paved loop runs along the crest of a sandstone ridge that weather has cut into shelves, knobs and standing pillars, and the drop on the far side is unfenced in places. On October weekends the lot fills early.

Rim Rock and Pounds Hollow sit a few minutes north, a low stone wall of uncertain age along the top and a lake in the woods below it. Farther west the character changes again. Bell Smith Springs cuts a creek through rock, Jackson Falls is a climbing wall with a creek at the foot of it, and Little Grand Canyon drops into a gorge on stone steps that stay wet most of the year.

Four days that do not repeat a trailhead

The first day is arrival and nothing else. After 5.99 hours the useful thing is a short walk and an early night, and the loop at Garden of the Gods is close enough to the eastern lodging to be done at dusk without adding a drive.

Days two and three split the forest in half. One stays east in the bluffs: Rim Rock, the lake below it, a section of the long trail that crosses the state from river to river, and the Ohio at the bottom of the hill, where the road runs along the water past a cave worn into the rock face. The other goes west into swamp country, where bald cypress stands in standing water with a boardwalk run out over it, and where one forest road is closed twice a year while snakes cross between the bluff and the wetland.

The fourth day is deliberately left loose. Weather moves quickly over this country, a waterfall that ran hard on arrival can be a damp stain two days later, and a spare day absorbs that better than a fixed plan.

What the windshield shows on the way west

The route leaves the Ohio valley and crosses southern Indiana, which is hillier and emptier than most people expect of Indiana. Another national forest sits on the way, farm country fills the gaps between towns, and there is a long middle stretch where the radio is the only thing happening.

The Wabash marks the state line. Illinois starts flat and stays flat for a good while, and that is the part of the drive that tests patience; then the ground begins to fold again toward the end. The interstate gives out before the forest starts, and the last of it is two lane road through towns with one light apiece.

The office writes the turns down. The sheet marks the places where a road changes number without warning, and names the two towns where fuel is worth taking on whether the tank asks for it or not.

Rooms are booked here, roads are only measured

The price starts from $680 per person for the four nights. It covers what is listed below, and the total is confirmed at the same time the rooms are confirmed.

No transport of any kind is arranged by this office. No seats, no sailings, no rail, no coach, no transfer from one place to the next. Go Air Travels holds no agreement with any company that moves people and does not act on behalf of one. The driving belongs to the traveler, in the traveler's own car, for all 297.6 miles of it.

Insurance, visas and passports sit outside the work entirely. The office sells none of them, arranges none of them and offers no opinion on any of them It books rooms, and it measures the road that reaches them.

When this one is worth the road

Spring runs the water. From late March into May the creeks are loud, the falls actually fall, and the wildflowers are out before the canopy closes over them; it is also the stretch when one forest road shuts for the snake crossing, which is worth planning around rather than against. October is the other good case, cold mornings and color holding on the ridges, with the weekend lots filling early. July and August are humid and thick with ticks, so the rock is still there but the walking is slower and the water is often low. Winter strips the bluffs bare, which is when the stone reads best and the forest is close to empty.

Does the office arrange the drive?

No. The road is measured, not driven for anyone. Go Air Travels books the four nights and writes down the route; the car, the fuel and the 5.99 hours belong to whoever is holding the wheel. No seats, sailings, rail or coach are sold or arranged here at any stage.

Why does Shawnee sit low in the list?

Because of the quotient the whole list is ordered by. 5.99 hours of road divided across four booked nights gives 1.5 hours of driving per night, which is the third step of four. Entries with shorter roads, or with more nights to carry the same road, stand above it. Nothing else moves an entry up or down.

Is insurance part of the price?

No, and this office cannot arrange it. Insurance, visas and passports are outside the work, so the answer here is a plain no rather than a guess.