Halfway point calculator

Pick two cities from the list — the registry covers 150 US metros and 11,175 precomputed pairs, with a meeting-town pool of 663 places. You get three towns, the drive split for both drivers, and a hotel search dated for tonight.

Choose both cities from the suggestions — the list covers 150 cities and 11,175 precomputed pairs, with towns down to about 488 people. Cities that do not match stay unmatchable on purpose: no free geocoding, no guessed pins.

• We compute the geodesic midpoint between the two cities you pick.
• We snap it to real towns — 663 places in the current pool, ranked by split fairness, detour, size, and estimated hotel supply.
• When your pair is one of the 11,175 precomputed combinations, you get the same numbers the full guide shows; everything else runs the estimate path.
• Hotel searches open dated for tonight or the weekend, built when your results render.

The map midpoint and the drive-time midpoint are rarely the same place. Between Austin and Dallas — an estimated 3 h 20 drive over about 200.3 mi — the point where both drivers have burned half the trip is what our towns are ranked against, and the straight line of 182.1 mi grows to 200.3 mi once the road factor is applied. We assume roads run longer than the crow flies — between 6 and 22 percent depending on trip length — which is why the fair town is never simply the one nearest the geometric middle.

The fairest town is not always the closest one, either: a bigger place five minutes farther out can balance the split within a couple of minutes and give you real hotels, food, and gas. That trade-off — Waco sits 2 h 01 from Austin and 1 h 51 from Dallas — is exactly what the ranking rewards.