Blue–Green Escape Map: Find Your Next Cool & Green Getaway

By Zarrin Tasneem

Ever feel like you need a break from the heat, the traffic, or just the chaos of your city? What if you could map out the most relaxing place to escape using a mix of data science, satellites, and a little imagination?

Welcome to the Blue–Green Escape Map, a Python-powered interactive tool that reveals the coolest (literally), greenest, and water-rich cities across the United States.

This project started off as an experiment in blending geospatial data, environmental indices, and storytelling and ended up as a small tool that can actually help people explore new places to experience peace, nature, and balance.

What Exactly Is an “Escape Score”?

Each city in this map is evaluated based on three key measurements:

1. Green Score – How much tree cover or parkland surrounds the city?

2. Blue Score – How close is it to sunny shores, lakes, or major rivers?

3. Heat Score – How hot does it get in peak summer? (We invert this: cooler = higher score.)

Using these factors, each city gets a composite value, the Escape Score that tells you how “refreshing” and peaceful it might feel, especially in the summer.

How the Map Works

Built in Jupyter Notebook, the map uses:

• Pandas and NumPy for data processing

• Folium and Leaflet to render an interactive map

• A custom color scale (from red to green) to show where each city lands on the escape spectrum

When you click on a marker, you will see the Escape Score for that city along with its green, blue, and heat profile. The size of the marker correlates with city population.

Results

Analysis

These results show how each city scores when we combine green space, access to water, and heat into a single Escape Score, a number representing how good a place is for a “cool, green, refreshing escape.”

Top escape cities

1. Seattle (0.98) - Almost a perfect score

• Highest green score (1.00)

• Very high blue score (0.92)

• Very low heat (cool summer climate)→ Makes it the ideal “blue–green refuge”

2. Portland (0.84)

• Similar climate to Seattle

• Lots of trees & parks

• Close to rivers and coast → A strong runner-up

3. Minneapolis (0.67)

• Lots of lakes & greenery

• Much cooler than most U.S. cities → A “surprising” escape city outside the coasts

What You Can Do With It

• Compare cities by "relaxation potential," jump-starting your next road trip or long escape.

• Create custom versions: winter escapes, coastal cities, stargazing spots, you name it.

• Explore your own data - add air quality, hiking trail density, or wildlife encounter risk!