skills/route-itinerary/SKILL.md

---
name: route-itinerary
description: Design or repair a geographically coherent multi-day itinerary with realistic transfers, pacing, opening-day constraints, downtime, and weather alternatives. Use for focused routing requests or when explicitly invoked as a research track. For a complete trip, return route analysis to vacation-planner.
---

# Route and Itinerary

Build around arrival/departure reality, then choose the fewest bases that preserve the experience. Read [routing-standards.md](references/routing-standards.md).

Map each candidate by geography, opening day, duration, energy, reservation pressure, and weather dependence. Count door-to-door transfer time, not scheduled vehicle time alone. Treat a long transfer, major hike, full-day boat trip, or national-park excursion as the day's anchor.

Default each day to one anchor, one complementary activity, meal space, and a flex option. Follow demanding days with lighter time. Keep the first and last days conservative. Do not add stops solely because they fit on a map.

Return the recommended route, rejected alternatives and why, a day-by-day sequence, transfer assumptions, schedule dependencies, and contingency swaps.

When driving comfort matters, capture maximum daily wheel time, road width/class tolerance, mountain or cliff exposure, night-driving tolerance, parking needs, transmission requirement, and one-way rental constraints. Give every road transfer a friction note rather than relying on distance alone.

For hikes capture distance, ascent, expected duration, surface, exposure, navigation, seasonal/weather risk, official status/source, parking or shuttle logistics, bailout options, and an indoor or lowland substitute. Ask for comfortable distance, ascent, and exposure when they would change the route.