Are you up for a road trip? We are! After all, who doesn’t love scenic rides? We’ve ridden mopeds across Greece, crossed over from Portugal to Spain, driven through Sardinia and covered Highway 1 from San Diego to San Francisco. Although we aren’t experts, we’ve picked up a few useful tips for anyone planning a road trip.

Since the launch of our comprehensive Travel Planning Tools Booklet was overwhelmingly successful, we decided to dig a little deeper just for you. Check out this detailed guide on the best road trip planning tips including the best online tools & tricks to use before getting on the road.

Now more than ever, traveling is going to look very different. One thing is for certain though, domestic traveling is on the rise in every country across the globe. We’re here to make your next adventure smooth! Here’s everything we know about road trip planning.

DESTINATION

Road trips come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are day trips to new cities near you. Other times, they involve routes full of new places which you can visit over the course of several days, or even several weeks during a cross-country adventure.

What’s especially great about road trips is that you don’t need to have a finite destination or itinerary when you hit the road. In fact, being flexible is key to enjoying your trip and staying safe. Some of us do however like to plan around a specific destination, and in that case the distance to and from will play a factor in planning the trip.

Remember, it’s important to break up your driving time into reasonable portions. Be prepared to alter your plans as needed. Although planning is great, unexpected things happen.

Here’s an easy formula we use when narrowing down destinations based on how much time off we have. If your destination is …

6-9 hours away from starting point, consider 4 days of total travel time

10-20 hours away from starting point, consider at least 6 days of total travel time

20+ hours of driving time from starting point, plan for at least 10 days of traveling

ROUTE PLANNERS & NAVIGATION TOOLS

Regardless of what our destination is, when road tripping we always prefer to take the scenic route. By simply adjusting your drive a little bit and avoiding highways and toll roads, you’ll most probably be redirected to more picturesque backroads. Although this could make your driving time significantly longer, we think it’s worthwhile. Do some research beforehand and decide for yourself if a scenic route will work for you.

Have you ever heard of a paper map running out of battery? Neither have we. There is no excuse for not having an old school paper map in your glove compartment at all times. It won’t harm you, and best of all it’s a great resource. While you’re at it, grab a compact compass just in case.

Now let’s get back to technology we rely on for pretty much everything. Here are the best apps to use when planning a road trip.

First up, is Roadtrippers. We’ve raved about this tool for a while. You can find it here in our Travel Planning Tools Booklet. The gist is that you can easily plop your starting point and destination into the website and play around with their interactive map until you have the perfect itinerary. You’ll also have plenty of “points of interest” to choose from and add along your route. It’s our favorite way to find inspiration for our travels and sketch out a rough draft of our trip.

Prefer a more extensive tool to map out your road trip and stops? You can’t really go wrong with Google Maps. Our friends over at Roaming the Americas put together this handy Google Maps Guide and explain all of its customizable features.  Our favorite aspect of Google Maps is the layering option, which we use to separate the different days of our road trip. By filtering the layers of the map, you can view one specific day’s itinerary, which helps keep things organized and not overload you with details.

If there’s a chance you might be traveling through remote areas and might not have good internet connectivity– we highly suggest downloading Maps.me. The app provides great mapping and navigation features that you can use as needed while completely disconnected. We can proudly say that this application saved us during our road trip around the island of Aruba. Just remember to download the offline map of your road trip route while you still have access to the internet.

NEED A LIFT?

Taking your car on a tour? Make sure to get a thorough car maintenance check and contact your insurance provider. You’ll need to verify whether or not your insurance covers traveling outside of your city, state, or even across country borders.

Are you ready to hit the road but don’t have a vehicle? Maybe you’re road tripping while visiting a new country, or would rather rent a campervan for your adventure. Two great apps for renting vehicles are Outdoorsy, specifically for campervans and RVs, and Turo for sedans and SUVs.

We are advocates of responsible travel and so we always grab travel insurance, yes even for road trips. Thankfully, with World Nomads we get coverage for our entire trip, any setbacks, and rental car insurance as well.

Traveling through a new city sometimes involves unexpected, yet simple, needs. One of these is finding a place to park your car! ParkMe and Parkopedia are two fantastic tools that help you find the closest and cheapest parking around. On top of that, they give you the option to reserve the parking space before arrival – guaranteeing a comfortable place for your beloved vehicle overnight.

HIT THE SACK

Need to make a last-minute booking? Ideally you would have already mapped out your accommodations for your road trip before getting on the road. But what if you pass by a fun little town and decide to spend the night? Or circumstances change and you need to take an unexpected overnight break? HotelTonight is a quick way to get one of a kind hotel deals for same day bookings!

Looking for cottages, tipis, glamping sites, and any cool lodging suggestions? We recently discovered Hipcamp while planning a road trip through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and loved all of the results we found. You can read more about one of our favorite cabin stays here.

If your road trip is all about exploring the great outdoors and your itinerary is heavy on camping, these apps are for you. For U.S road trippers, IOverlander will help you find free campsites and safe spaces in the wilderness recommended by other travelers. For travelers in Europe, the Park4night app and community share thousands of places for overnight camping and van parking!

Traveling with your furry friends? Bring Fido is a one of a kind database of pet friendly hotels and restaurants.

SAFETY ON THE ROAD

Get ready for this incredible find. Highway Weather. An application for forecasting the weather along any route. This is ideal for making necessary route changes based on weather conditions. And not just that, the app has neat features like a departure assistant that suggests the best times to leave your starting point and head out.

In this day and age of technology, it should be no surprise that there’s now a mobile application for on-demand roadside assistance. Yes, that’s right, if you find yourself in trouble on the road you can always access the the U.S based app Blink Roadside. Their team will help connect you with nearby services wherever you are.
Low on gas? GasBuddy can show you real-time fuel prices and closest gas stations in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

EXPLORING

What’s a trip without a little exploring? Here are the most useful apps and websites to use when visiting new places! Of course, you can use these on any type of trip, but some are especially useful on a road trip. Hands down our go-to website for booking the best city tours is GetYourGuide.

Fancy an auditory tour guide? There are a handful of cool applications that can supplement any scenic drive – unfortunately the ones we know about are quite limited in the number of locations featured. Audio Europe is probably the largest collection of walkable city-tours and museums tours out there. All curated by none other than Rick Steves himself! As you might have guessed, it only serves travelers in Europe. GyPSy Guide only covers the U.S, Canada and Australia, but has awesome audio commentary to enjoy while driving. Just Ahead focuses on the ins and outs of U.S National Parks and is a must-have GPS-based application that helps any hiker explore their surroundings, suggests trails and turns to take and shares informative details about the history of the parks. Finally, a more wide-ranging storytelling app is VoiceMap, which highlights 150 cities. Just know that each tour costs a small fee, but they’re worthwhile.

Are you a curious traveler? We are. We especially enjoy hidden gems and unusual attractions. Atlas Obscura is truly an underrated website and such a great resource for those seeking extraordinary places and foods. We used it quite a bit when exploring Austin, and even contributed to the website and posted some cool places in Cairo.

Another way to explore a new place is by using a scavenger hunt app. Increasing in popularity, these city-specific interactive hunts are a nice addition to any road trip. A great one to use is Let’s Roam. Although it mostly focuses on U.S. cities, it does offer hunts in some Canadian, British and Australian towns.

One of my favorite applications to use while camping or when visiting more rural cities is SkyView Lite. As the name suggests, it’s an intricate app used for stargazing. All you have to do is point the camera towards the sky and it will help you match and identify stars, constellations, satellites, and beyond.

EXTRA LITTLE THINGS

You’ll always find these things in our car. Whether it’s our actual car or a rental, we never head out for a road trip without: a GPS Navigation device, USB car charger, roadside emergency kit and a travel first aid kit.

Who doesn’t love a nice picnic? Many times, on the road we stumbled upon the most stunning places and decided they were great for taking a break and enjoying a snack. This is why we invested in picnic baskets, they’re really the perfect little companions for moments like that. Here are some options for your trip. This beautiful traditional basket, a chic white wicker basket, a 4-person basket, and this fun backpack basket!

If you’re not getting on the road soon, but still interested in a little road trip inspiration – check out the YouTube account Amazing Scenic Drives. They upload picturesque drives from all over that make for a nice afternoon watch.

Now you’re all set to embark on a fun-filled, hopefully scenic, adventure. Here’s to wishing you a wheel nice time!

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