How To Find Out When Fall Foliage Is Best

Picture this date: You and your honey, snuggling in like matching light brown sweaters or something, drinking cocoa from paper cups, walking through a perfectly Gilmore Girls-esque New England street. Luckily, you can make this a reality, thanks to this fabulous interactive map that will let you know when fall foliage is at its peak. Created by the folks at Smokey Mountains National Park, it's exactly what you need to make the most of the changing seasons.

All you do is move the slider along the bottom to the date you're interested in doing some serious leaf peeping. For instance, I can see that today, Long Island (where I live as a Brooklynite) has a partial leaf color change; it will be at its peak around Oct. 10 (that's so soon!). If I wanted to go to, say, hiking in the Catskills during peak foliage time, however, I'd have to go during the first week of October. The foliage will be past peak nationwide around November 14, except along the southernmost parts of the continental United States, where there won't be any change in leaf colors at all.

Basically, start booking places now for you and your sweetie at cozy Vermont bed and breakfasts. Or hell, go ahead and book places for all your fall-loving friends. This is autumn at threat level orange, people!

Imagine you and bae in that above GIF. Imagine.

In case you couldn't tell, many of us here at Bustle are excited as hell about Fall (seriously really, really excited), so here are some ideas for how to use this very important information:

• One, follow the peak foliage around like you're the surfers from Endless Summer but, you know, with autumn.
• Two, find a nice fall boyfriend with a name like Brandon who likes playing co-ed touch football and reading Walden and other books by twee New England romantics.
• Two and a half, if you prefer ladies, please change the previous fall boyfriend description to "fall girlfriend with a name like Lisa who likes horses and has very specific and exact thoughts about how to make a good cup of tea." Or find a fall boyfriend named Brandon who likes horses and tea, or a fall girlfriend name Lisa who likes touch football and Walden, or anyone else with any name at all who likes all of the above.
• Three, everything you eat is chili and all your exercise involves a rake.
• Four, there is only one store from now on and it's called L.L. Bean. Don't mess it up.

This is who you are and this is who you'll be until December comes and you need to start shopping for SAD lamps. Now stop reading and go outside to enjoy leaves on trees while that's still a thing.

Images: Greg Sheild/Unsplash; Giphy