travel - How was the time in the wilderness distributed among all those encampments?

I, and many others I know, have a mental image from childhood of b'nei Yisrael being frequently on the move between the exodus and the conquest of the land. But if you look at the list of encampment locations in Bamidbar 33 there are only 42 locations total. Further, Rashi notes there that if you subtract the ones at the beginning and the end for which we have time-points, there were only 20 locations for the 38 years in the wilderness. This gives a very different impression, that the people tended to be settled for a couple years at a time between moves, on average.

Do any of our sources say more about how that time was divided up? Was it a fairly even distribution -- camp here for a year or two, then move and do the same? Or did there tend to be periods of higher activity? This question came up in our weekly torah study when talking about all the work involved in setting up and taking down the mishkan. I pointed out that it was every couple years, not every couple days or weeks, but that's on average, which got me wondering about the distribution.

Answer

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking specifically about the middle 38 years. I have a partial answer to address that time, and I can flesh this out further with times for the first and last year as well if you'd like.

• Har Sinai: Left on 20 Iyar, 2449¹
  
  
  
  • Travel to Kivros HaTa'avah: 20-22 Iyar, 2449²
  
  
  
  


• Kivros HaTa'avah: 22 Iyar²-21 Sivan, 2449³


• Chatzeros: 21-28 Sivan, 2449^3,4


• Kadesh Barnei'a: 28 Sivan, 2449-2468^3,5



• Rimon Peretz through Etziyon Gever (seventeen stops⁶): 2468-2487^3,7


• Kadesh: Arrived on 1 Nissan, 2487⁸

Sources and footnotes:
¹Bamidbar 10:11.
²Bamidbar 10:33.
³Seder Olam Rabbah, chapter 8.
⁴Rashi to Bamidbar 14:1.
⁵Rashi to Devarim 1:46.
⁶Bamidbar 33:19-35.

⁷Seder Olam Rabbah only says that they spent 19 years in Kadesh and 19 years wandering between these places; I don't know of a source which provides a more detailed breakdown for these stops, hence why I said at the top that it's a partial answer.
⁸Seder Olam Rabbah, chapter 9.