Our Mission
Epic Trips was built for a simple reason: too many great adventures get ruined by bad conditions. Surfers show up during flat spells. Skiers hit resort towns in rain. Hikers find trails closed by late season snow. It doesn't have to be this way.
Our mission is to make condition-based travel planning accessible to everyone — from first-timers planning their first ski trip to seasoned adventurers chasing the perfect wave window. We score every destination using the same historical data that guides professionals, so you can plan your trip with real confidence.
We believe every adventure traveler deserves to arrive during the right window — not as a lucky accident, but because they had the data to plan it that way. Epic Trips exists to close the information gap between the adventure travel industry and the travelers it serves.
Why We Built This
The idea for Epic Trips came from a frustrating surf trip. After saving up for months, flying across the world, and taking a week off work, the person behind this platform arrived at a destination that was supposed to be "perfect in February" — and found two-foot mush. The local surf shop shrugged. "It happens," they said. "You should've come last month."
That "you should've come last month" became the founding insight. The information existed. Decades of historical weather and swell data were publicly available through meteorological archives. The problem wasn't a lack of data — it was that no one had built a tool to make that data usable for travel planning.
So we built it. We started with surfing, then expanded to skiing, kiteboarding, hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, sailing, scuba, windsurfing, and yoga — each with its own scoring model tuned to what actually matters for that sport. We added experience level filters because a destination that's legendary for experts can be genuinely dangerous for beginners. We added month-by-month charts so you can find the window that fits your schedule, not just the "best" window in the abstract.
The result is a platform we genuinely wish had existed when we were planning our own trips. We hope it helps you plan yours.
How It Works
By the Numbers
The Team
Epic Trips is an independent project built by adventure travelers for adventure travelers. We don't have a newsroom of editors writing "Top 10 Ski Resorts" articles based on press trips and sponsor relationships. We have an algorithm — one that reads the same historical climate data every time, without bias, without paid placement, and without a vested interest in recommending one destination over another.
The platform was conceived and built by a small team with backgrounds in software engineering and a shared obsession with adventure sports. We surf, ski, kite, climb, hike, and dive — and we've personally experienced the frustration of arriving at the wrong destination at the wrong time. Every design decision on Epic Trips comes from that place: what would have actually helped us plan better trips?
We're a lean operation, which means we can be honest in ways that larger travel media outlets can't. We don't have advertisers telling us which resorts to feature. We don't have affiliate quotas for specific destinations. If a destination scores 40 in the month you're searching, we show you 40 — not a sponsored "featured pick" dressed up as a recommendation.
What Makes Us Different
We use real data, not opinions. Most travel recommendation sites are built on reviews, affiliate revenue, or editorial picks. We score destinations objectively using decade-long climate records — no paid placements, no sponsored rankings.
Date-specific scoring. Conditions in Bali in March are completely different from Bali in August. Our scores are computed for your exact travel window, not a vague "best season" estimate.
Activity-specific intelligence. Wind that's perfect for kiteboarding is miserable for hiking. Our engine applies different criteria for each sport — tuned for what actually matters to each activity.
Experience level matching. A beginner surfer needs very different conditions from an advanced one. We filter destinations by experience level so you're never sent somewhere above your skill level or below your ambitions.
Our Data Sources
Epic Trips pulls from two trusted open-access climate datasets:
Open-Meteo Historical Weather API — Provides hourly weather reanalysis data going back to 1940, covering temperature, wind speed, precipitation, snowfall, and more at any location on Earth.
Open-Meteo Marine API — Provides historical wave height, swell height and period data for ocean locations worldwide, drawn from ERA5 ocean reanalysis data.
All data is fetched fresh for each search and cached for 24 hours to ensure fast response times without unnecessary API load.
Affiliate Partnerships
Epic Trips partners with leading outdoor gear retailers, travel services, and activity providers to help you book and equip your trip. Some links on our gear pages and plan pages may earn us a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Our partners include REI, Evo, Ski Butlers, PADI Travel, West Marine, Kite World Wide, ION Club, GetYourGuide, Booking.com, and others. Affiliate relationships do not influence our destination scoring — Epic Scores are computed purely from climate data.
Contact Us
Have a question, a destination suggestion, or want to report an issue? We'd love to hear from you.
Email: info@epictripscore.com
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