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The 10 Best Road Trip Planner Apps for 2024

Save time, money, and energy with these apps so you can focus on the fun instead

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We love road trips! Planning them can be fun but, let's be honest, also stressful. The right road trip planner apps can take some of that stress away by helping you plan, organize, and manage travel before and during your trip. We've researched and tested these apps to help give you peace of mind so that you can spend more time enjoying your trip.

The Ultimate Map App for Planning Your Route: Roadtrippers

Access to free and convenient travel guides.

Share-ability so friends can join in on the planning process and suggest places to visit.

The app can use up the battery life of your device quickly. Take a car USB charger with you.

Built for travelers, Roadtrippers helps you create your route while allowing you to discover great places as you plan it out. Add a new place to your itinerary to work it into your trip.

The app features an easy-to-use interface. In addition to covering the U.S., it also covers Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Download For:

Automate Your Trip Planning and Organization: Google Travel

Automatic trip organization via Gmail integration. 

Offline access so you can see your trip information even when you don't have an internet connection.

Limitations with customizing some day trips exactly the way you want.

You can count on Google to make your trip planning a breeze. Pre-constructed day plans are available for hundreds of the world's most popular destinations, which you can customize to your liking.

It's one of the most versatile travel planner apps out there, giving you one convenient place to see your hotel, rental car, and restaurant bookings.

Find and Book a Last-Minute Place to Stay: Hotels.com

A fast, easy-to-use booking feature.

For every 10 nights you book through Hotels.com, you get one night free, provided it's the average daily rate of those 10 nights.

No option to easily cancel if you change your mind.

Whether your road trip itinerary changed, or you haven't decided on a place to stay yet, Hotels.com can help you find a place and book it when you're on the go, even when it's super last-minute. You can sort and filter hotels, see the amenities they have to offer, compare prices, and catch a glimpse of how many rooms are available.

This is the app you'll want to have handy if you want to see in-depth hotel details at a glance and need to find a place to crash ASAP without breaking the bank.

Find Local Restaurants, Read Reviews, and Make Reservations: OpenTable

Lots of great filter options and suggestions.

Access to gorgeous, high-quality images of menu items and informative reviews from other users.

Reported problems and inconveniences with their built-in reward system.

Searching for specific restaurants is more difficult than simply looking at what's around in the area.

Deciding on a place to eat in a new area is quick and hassle-free with OpenTable. See what's nearby, filter restaurants by cuisine, see photos of what's on the menu, make reservations, and get personalized recommendations based on your preferences.

OpenTable is known to be one of the top  location-based food apps  available, so you know you can trust its information when you're dying for something to eat.

Navigate Like a Local: Waze

Hands-free navigation with voice commands.

Alerts-only mode for road hazards and police.

Share up-to-date ETA with friends.

Spotify and Apple Music widgets get in the way.

Cluttered maps can be confusing.

Higher battery usage than Google Maps.

Waze  is a community-driven travel app that shows you the shortest possible route to your destination. Like Google Maps, Waze makes real-time adjustments for traffic jams and other obstacles—but Waze is often more accurate since it caters specifically to drivers.

The app syncs with your Google Calendar and can tell you when you should leave for appointments based on traffic. There's also a cool option to record your own voice and use it for directions .

Know Exactly When and Where to Make a Pit Stop: iExit Interstate Exit Guide

Access to detailed summaries of what's at the next exit (including gas prices at nearby gas stations).

Search for the next 100 exits from your location.

The app can only be used on major U.S. exit-based highways.

No offline access, so you'll use your data plan while you're on the road.

Making a pit stop for food, gas, or a bathroom break is easy when you have the iExit app. Using your device's GPS, the app offers helpful suggestions for when and where to stop based on your location along the highway.

Whether you're looking for well-known franchises like Starbucks and Walmart to convenient amenities like free Wi-Fi and truck or trailer parking, this app has you covered.

Find the Cheapest Fuel Nearby: GasBuddy

An in-app gas payment feature.

Opportunity to save 10 cents per gallon on your first fill-up and five cents per gallon on every fill-up after.

The app can take up a lot of data and battery life as it runs in the background.

GasBuddy is an app specifically designed to find nearby gas stations and save money on gas. Use it to find the cheapest gas in your area and filter gas stations by amenities like car washes, restaurants, and bathrooms.

It's the app you want to have if you're serious about finding the cheapest gas around. Information comes from users like you, so you have the most up-to-date prices.

Download For :

Never Forget an Item: PackPoint Premium Packing List

Access to a built-in library of items to pack with the ability to add or remove items as needed. 

An elegant, intuitive app interface.

Can't input multiple destinations for a single trip.

Not a free app.

PackPoint helps you make sure you have everything you need based on where you're going and what you're doing. In addition, the app takes into consideration the length of your trip and the expected weather conditions. Perhaps best of all, this app turns a mundane chore into something that's actually quite fun.

Find Out Where to Park and How Much It Will Cost: Inrix ParkMe

ParkMe is the only app that also includes street parking and parking meter rates where available, in addition to parking lots.

Real-time updates on available parking spots.

Rates and hours may be inaccurate in some areas.

ParkMe claims to be the world's largest and most accurate parking database. It allows you to purchase your parking spot through the app and compare prices across parking providers to help you save more money.

If you're road tripping around major cities in the U.S., Canada, or Europe, this app can be a huge help. You can even compare parking options and prices so that you always get the best deal.

Automate Your Itinerary: TripIt

Automatically creates itineraries from your inbox.

Widget displays trip details on your home screen.

Annoying amount of alerts by default.

If you're planning a trip, you'll likely have a lot of confirmation emails for hotels, appointments, restaurants, and attractions. TripIt syncs with your inbox and uses that information to compile an itinerary so that you don't have to scramble for it.

The free version is fine for road trips, but if you ever fly, the premium version gives you the option to upgrade seats and track reward miles.

In addition to your phone, laptop, and tablet, other travel tech essentials include chargers, headphones, travel adapters, cameras, luggage trackers, and off-grid communications

Yes. You can use Google Maps as a trip planner through the “Places” and “My Maps” features. Both the Google Maps website and app let you save locations to lists and get directions.

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The Best Road Trip Apps That Help You Find Cheap Gas, Avoid Traffic, and More

Download these before you hit the highway.

Elizabeth Rhodes is a special projects editor at Travel + Leisure , covering everything from luxury hotels to theme parks to must-pack travel products. Originally from South Carolina, Elizabeth moved to New York City from London, where she started her career as a travel blogger and writer.

Carmen Martínez Torrón/Getty Images

Technology has revolutionized the way we travel in countless ways. Paper maps and GPS navigation systems have been replaced by Google and Apple Maps, old-school CDs by music streaming services, and guidebooks by apps that can notify road-trippers of roadside attractions in real time. One thing is certain: the smartphone has made road trips infinitely easier and, arguably, cheaper.

Whether you need a digital road trip planner to map out your next journey or something to help you avoid traffic jams, here are 11 of the best road trip apps to download ahead of your next adventure.

Roadtrippers

Roadtrippers is one of the most practical and popular road trip planning apps out there. Maybe you want to see national parks or the quirkiest roadside attractions. Perhaps you want to stop for the night at an iconic or underrated hotel. You can plan your stops right in the app, adding up to three waypoints for free or 150 with a Roadtrippers Premium account. There are also Basic and Pro memberships that allot you 20 and 50 waypoints per trip, respectively. The higher-tier memberships allow you to collaborate with friends and family and use navigation. The app features lodging, sights, outdoorsy destinations, restaurants, activities, shopping, fuel, and more all around the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The app is free, but you have to upgrade to a membership plan to enjoy all the bells and whistles. The Basic plan costs $40 a year, the Pro plan $50 a year, and the Premium $60 a year. It's available on iOS and Android .

Google Maps

Every road-tripper needs a trusty navigation app in their arsenal, and Google Maps is consistently one of the most — if not the most — downloaded in the U.S. every year. Its dominance can be attributed to how comprehensive its data is, which allows it to generate the very best directions based on distance, road conditions, and traffic patterns.

Google Maps gives you route options and provides accurate estimates of how long it takes to get from A to B. Plus, you can plot several waypoints along your route — be it a mid-morning coffee stop or a hotel for overnighting (you can see reviews right in the app).

Google Maps is free and available on iOS and Android .

Waze is another one of the top navigation apps. With real-time updates that help you avoid traffic jams, construction, and more, it will have you navigating new cities and unfamiliar streets like a seasoned local. It's perhaps a little more proactive than Google Maps in changing up a route when problems arise, and that means Waze users should prepare for their drive to be a little unpredictable.

No one wants to spend hours sitting in traffic instead of exploring, so the fact that Waze collects data from other drivers to streamline the driving experience is a huge help. The app is free and available on iOS and Android .

Paying for fuel can eat up a good chunk of your road trip budget, but GasBuddy can save you a few bucks. The app crowdsources up-to-date fuel prices for more than 150,000 gas stations around the U.S. and Canada. The app also tells you how recent the submission is so you know whether it's outdated.

GasBuddy is not just helpful for finding cheap gas but also for finding gas stations in general (and parking), which can be difficult in foreign territory. The app is free and can be downloaded on iOS and Android . While using it, be a good road-tripper and submit gas prices you see as you travel.

Roadside America

Barry Winiker/Getty Images

The offbeat and kitschy roadside attractions you can find throughout the U.S. are often some of the most delightful parts of a road trip. The Roadside America app helps you find the most unique attractions worth stopping for, like the large sculpture of a cartoon mouse holding a cheese platter in Plain, Wisconsin — where else? — or the decidedly odd larger-than-life-sized three-way electrical plug that rests on a lawn in Philadelphia. The app features museums, murals, tours, quirky restaurants, and photo ops.

Roadside America costs $3 to download, which gets you access to one region in the app. You can purchase more regions for $2 or get access to all of the U.S. and Canada for an extra $7. The app is available only on iOS .

iExit Interstate Exit Guide

Knowing where to stop for road trip snacks, a drive-through latte, or a public restroom can be challenging with all the exit signs whizzing by at 70 mph, but iExit Interstate Exit Guide takes the guesswork out of it. The app will list which exits are coming up on your route, what's there, and what they offer — including food, lodging, fuel, and even hospitals. It pulls fuel prices from OPIS (the Oil Price Information Service) and displays Yelp reviews for businesses.

The app is free to download. Find it on both iOS and Android .

HotelTonight

Even if you've planned out all your stops ahead of time, you might find that you need to pull over for a night unexpectedly. Driving is tiring, and unplanned naps can be life-saving. HotelTonight can help you find accommodations in a pinch. The app offers day-of deals on unsold rooms, and the user-friendly interface means you can book a discounted room in minutes. There are well over 1,000 properties to choose from in cities all over the world, from Mexico City to Jakarta (in case you happen to take your road-tripping global).

It's free to download and available on iOS and Android .

If staying in a tucked-away A-frame cabin, a yurt, or a private guest house in someone's garden is more your travel style than bouncing between hotels, then Airbnb is the ticket. On the Airbnb app, you can search properties (millions in the U.S. alone) on a map and read reviews before you book, which you can do in advance or at the last minute.

The app features not just vacation homes but also activities, so if you're keen to experience a city like a local you can do so via a pottery class or a guided walking tour, for example.

The Airbnb app is free. You can download it on iOS or Android .

Patchareeporn Sakoolchai/Getty Images

Travelers who dream of camping out under the stars should download The Dyrt , a free app that helps you find tent, RV, and cabin sites across the U.S. One of the top camping apps on iOS and Android , it has more than a million registered users who submit reviews, pictures, and tips. On The Dyrt, you get real intel on campsites and a built-in community that makes camping on a road trip especially fun and safe. You can even book some of the campsites right on app.

The app is free, but there's a premium version for $36 a year that allows you to plan trips and search campsites while offline — convenient for remote regions.

What is a road trip without a perfect playlist? Whether you're keen to create a soundtrack of nostalgic singalongs, modern pop songs, or music inspired by your destination, you'll find even the most obscure tunes on Spotify , a catalog of more than 100 million tracks. When you tire of Taylor Swift, you can turn to podcasts or an audiobook to keep you company. Road trips are a great opportunity to delve into a docuseries like "Serial," an all-time favorite.

Spotify is free to download and listen to, but the ad breaks are annoying and streaming can chew through your phone data. A better option is to purchase a premium membership for $11 a month. It's ad-free and you can download music to listen to offline. The Spotify app is available on iOS and Android .

Electric vehicles are increasingly commonplace and great for more environmentally friendly road-tripping. The problem is often finding charging stations, as most EVs can go 100 to 300 miles before they need to be plugged in. PlugShare lists 700,000 charging stations across North America, Europe, and beyond. Users share their reviews of the stations, helping to guide EV drivers to the best, fastest, and most reliable charging spots.

PlugShare is free and available to download on iOS and Android .

Best road trip planner apps: 5 apps to map out your adventure

How to plan your roadtrip with apps in the driver's seat

Regardless of your destination, planning your trip is an integral part of the adventure. Otherwise, you’ll spend way more than you need to and, chances are, you won’t get to see everything on your wishlist. 

We live in a golden age of technology that we often take for granted. But, in all the time we spend playing our ‘Spin Addicts’ and our ‘Cat Quests’, very rarely do we think about the utility that our smart devices can provide on the open road. 

As such, we’ve gone out of our way to do the thinking for you.

That’s right, to help you out with your next big outing we’ve assimilated five of the best road trip planner apps for your lengthy expedition below. Above all else, we imagine you’ll be enticed by the fact that they’re all free to download, even if you may or may not be tempted later on to shell out some cash for a monthly subscription fee. (You’ll know what we mean when you see it.)

1. Roadtrippers 

As its name and slogan suggests, this is the only map built for travelers. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of hyperbole, but this app will help you find virtually everything you could ever need along the way. 

Open Roadtrippers and you’ll find millions of locations, including local diners and roadside attractions that, admittedly, Google Maps is prone to miss. Then, once you’ve outlined your road trip plan, you can share it with your travel buddies so that they can make suggestions. 

Download it now on iOS | Download it now on Android

2. Waze 

Like Roadtrippers, Waze hones in on social interaction, but it does so by letting the community decide which routes are the best to take. Users can report nearby collisions, police radar and traffic jams so that you can safely avoid those routes in favor of arriving on time. What’s more, you’ll find the cheapest gas prices around, as gathered by the community. Regardless of whether you set out to save time or money, Waze is the best way to do both.

3. GasBuddy 

Unlike our previous mentions which can potentially save time or money, GasBuddy promises a specific amount of money you’ll save by using it.

Similar to Waze, GasBuddy is a community-driven platform that helps you locate the most affordable gas prices around so that you never have to pay full price for fossil fuels again. The difference is that, with this app, you can subscribe to GasBuddy Pay for additional savings of 15 cents per gallon on your first fill-up and 5 cents per gallon on every fill-up after that. 

Download it now on iOS | Download it now on Android  

4. Hotel Tonight 

We’ve all been in that position. The one where we get too tired to continue driving and we need to find a hotel quickly and cheaply, else suffer the wrath of sleepy driving with the windows rolled down and the music turned all the way up. (Pro tip: don't do that, ever. It's super dangerous.) 

But if that sounds like a horror story that you’ve experienced before, Hotel Tonight is the app for you. Specializing in last-minute hotel deals, Hotel Tonight makes it possible to book a room in three easy taps and one seamless swipe. 

5. Spotify  

Close your eyes. Now imagine you can listen to any song you want, including but not limited to “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers. Now open them. 

Though it seems jokingly obvious now, Spotify would have been a dream come true in the days when top 40 radio hits triumphed over all else. Finally, you don’t have to listen to the same handful of songs on repeat. 

Instead, you can hand-pick your own playlists, choosing between over 30 million songs in the Spotify catalog. Of course, if Spotify isn't your music scene, both Apple Music and Google's own Play Music streaming service are also good travel companions.

  TechRadar’s The Road to the Show 2018 sees our intrepid writers braving a cross-country trip across the US, using the best gadgets to bring you their daily travel blog and offering the best tips for a tech-based roadtrip. The journey is brought to you in association with ZTE and the ZTE Axon M, with car transportation provided by Genesis.  

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Join our Adventure: Get all my insider tips for motorhoming & road trips

21 of the BEST Road Trip Planner apps to get before you go

Looking for the best road trip planner apps , tools and hacks to help you plan your perfect road trip? Look no further! We’ve compiled all the essential road trip apps you need- including ones to help with planning a road trip , apps to use whilst on your road trip and tools we couldn’t (and wouldn’t) road trip without!

Before we found these tools, road trip planning and organising used to take HOURS. Or even days. Now, we’re a lot quicker- partly because we’ve compiled road trip checklists and gear, but partly because these apps make it easy. Promise.

Whether you’re roadtripping in the USA with friends, exploring Europe in a camper or setting off on a road trip with kids *gulp*- these are the only road trip planner tools you need.

Pssst- want to travel healthily on your road trip? Check out these awesome, easy and HEALTHY snacks for road trip travels! 

JUMP AHEAD TO...

The BEST Road Trip Planner Apps and Tools to plan your road trip

Google maps.

I’ve said it before ( Here in fact ), Google Maps is amazing for planning a road trip . And it’s free. (Actually, many of these road trip planner apps and tools are free- we’re thoughtful like that!)

We use Google maps to put together a visual guide to places we want to visit- and then we use it to plan a route. You can see how we do it here

Another option is using Guru maps for offline navigation

Pinterest is an AMAZING road trip planne r resource! There are destination guides, things to do, road trip kit reviews and everything else you need! I never used to use it for anything other than recipes- what a mistake! Now, it’s the first place I go to look for new ideas when we’re heading off.

You’ll be pleased to know Wandering Bird is on Pinterest too, sharing destination guides, travel tips and yep- road trip planner tools!- You can follow us on Pinterest here

Roadtrippers

This is another site I think we underuse in Europe, but it’s a great road trip planner. Use it in the same way as Google maps, but there are also many other cool features; it estimates how much money you’ll spend on fuel and how far you have to drive, among other things.

Instagram is a road trip planner’s paradise! So many amazing destinations, secret locations and beautiful places are shared every single day. Just search the hashtag #roadtrip or your planned destination and see what comes up!

Facebook might not be your first thought for road trip planning apps, but if you ask a question on a relevant facebook group, you’ll get LOADS of ideas and info to help you plan your trip. I love asking advice from real people who’ve been there- and I find people are more likely to respond on Facebook, rather than Instagram.

You can find us on Facebook too- sharing tips, destination advice or general silliness- check out our page HERE

Road Trip Travel Blogs

Not an app, but travel blogs are a fantastic road trip planning tool. To find one for the area you’re planning to road trip to, just search ‘Road Trip Blog ________’ You’ll find people have road tripped all over the place and you can use their suggestions and favourite places in your road trip planner.

I hope if you’re heading to Europe you’ll find a certain road trip blog especially useful *cough cough * Feel free to sign up to our resource library so you can get useful road trip checklists, travel planning tips and destination guides.

Road trip forums are a great source of information- if you use them correctly and accept that there are many people in there who talk a lot, but haven’t necessarily DONE a lot.

That said, there can be some really good road trip planner advice and info- again, type into Google ‘Road Trip Forum for _____’ or even travel forums if you’re looking for destination advice for a particular location. The only downside to forums is you often have to sign up/ register before you can get access.

Other awesome Road Trip planner tools we recommend

Ok, so you’ve planned your road trip destination and started plotting places into your chosen road trip planner- but now WHAT??

If you don’t have a vehicle for your road trip, check out:

I LOVE this site. What a brilliantly awesome idea to help you plan and cut your costs for a road trip. Basically, people just like you and me list their RVs, campers and even trucks- and other people rent them out! Seriously, there are a HUGE number of vehicles on there, all over the world, available for rent at really reasonable prices.

If you’re looking for low-cost vehicle rental, this is a great place to start! Just please be aware that, as with many sites like this, there is the potential for unscrupulous people to take advantage. If in doubt, pick another van or hire through an approved rental agency.

So, now you’ve got a road trip destination, an overflowing road trip planner and a vehicle! Last planning tip- get some:

Packing Checklists

A packing checklist can be invaluable- especially if you’re roadtripping and moving around regularly. It is SO easy to forget something silly as you travel – so get yourself a packing checklist to make it easier.

You can either use a FREE app like My Trip List, which allows you to customise a packing list.

Useful Road trip planner apps whilst ON your road trip

The fun doesn’t stop just coz you’ve started travelling! Oh no, if you’re anything like us, you’ll keep planning your road trip as you’re on the road! After all, what’s the point in having an adventure if you can’t be adventurous?!?

Navigating is hard enough on a road trip- without getting your camper stuck down a narrow street! This app works on any iPad or phone with GPS and allows you to input the dimensions of your vehicle so you can avoid streets and bridges which are too small. Read our full review of CoPilot here.

>>Looking for other sat-navs. These are the best on the market<<

Google translate app to convert languages.

Road tripping to another country? Get the Google Translate app. This is one of our favourite road trip planner apps- because it’s so darn useful. Just open the app and hold it up to a sign, menu, paper, whatever- and Google Translate will translate the words into your chosen language! This is BRILLIANT for roadtripping Europe where the languages change constantly and we don’t always speak them very well.

Recipe Book

I LOVE this app. I use it all the time and it’s so freaking easy- and FREE!! Find a great recipe on Pinterest or Google, make it, and then save the recipe to your recipe book app, so it’s there for the next time you want to cook it. The app syncs between ipad and phone, which is great- I can grab whichever is closest to hand. I prefer following a recipe from a larger screen, but having the app on the phone is SO useful when I’m shopping and can’t decide what I want to cook for dinner.

DroneAssist

The BEST app in the UK for telling you where you can safely and legally fly your drone. It’s a brilliant and easy-to-use app and we use it whenever we want to get our drone out… or at least we did, until we lost our drone in Lake Annecy *sob* Hopefully by the time you read this we’ll have another one ready to go! We haven’t found a similar app for use in Europe or North America- if you know of one, please let me know and I’ll update this list.

Find fuel with these great road trip planning apps:

If you have refillable LPG gas installed on your motorhome (one of our Road Trip essentials!), this app is brilliant for finding places where you can fill up. Most of the locations are current and the app/ website are updated frequently.

This is one for my American friends- find the cheapest gas along your route. (To avoid confusion, by gas I mean petrol. Or diesel. Not gas for cooking.) I asked my group of road tripping RVers which app they recommend and this one was top of the list!!

Road Trip planner apps to help you find somewhere to stay

If you haven’t booked a campsite or a hotel, you’ll need to find places to stop as you road trip. Here are some of the best apps to help with finding somewhere to stay as you road trip:

If you’re exploring Europe, this is THE app to have to help you find free or cheap parking spots. You can even use this in advance as a road trip planner- find suitable looking spots and add them to your itinerary or Google maps before you go. I’m pleased to see Park4night is now coming to the US and Canada too- more and more overnight spots are popping up.

Campercontact

Campercontact is another overnight stop app, but what I love about this one is that you can set your vehicle height and length in order to find appropriate spots. We use this app a LOT when we have a trailer, as many aires or free spaces are too small for us.

>> Read our complete review on apps for navigation here<<

Allstays has a range of campgrounds, rest stops and free camping spots across the US. I believe most of the free places are only available if you buy the Pro version, but there seems to be a LOT of options on there, which would be a great way to help plan your road trip. iOverlander is another option to find places to stay.

Road Trip planner apps to make the miles go faster!

I have become a huge podcast fan over the last few months. They are perfect for driving- and there’s a HUGE range to choose from. Even better- they’re free! I like educational podcasts- learning things helps keeps me awake as I drive, but there are all sorts of different road trip podcasts to choose from and make the miles fly by. Jump onto your podcast app and see what appeals!

Another awesome app. Find and download audio books, listen to them, then return them! I’m slowly working my way through the Harry Potter books- Stephen Fry’s voice is just magical and it’s one the whole family enjoys listening to. Sign up to Audible here and get a FREE TRIAL!

Spotify/ iTunes

Whether you are a die-hard spotify user or an iTunes convert, I think most people agree that all good road trips need an awesome playlist! This section should probably be in road trip planning- creating the perfect playlist takes time, you know!

Want some ideas to get you started? Here are 150 of the BEST Road Trip songs!

Kindle Unlimited

There are very very few books I can read more than once. Even if it was a good one- once I know the end, it’s dead to me. (Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are notable exceptions to this rule!)  What I LOVE about Kindle Unlimited is you can read a book and then return it- and there are some BRILLIANT, well-known books and authors on there. It’s a proper library, ready for you to explore, for only a few pounds (or dollars!) a month. See what you could be reading on your road trip HERE (there’s even a 30-day free trial!)

Notes for Budgeting

Yep, notes. This is what I use for all our budgeting and diary for our road trips. Heck, sometimes I use it as a road trip planner before we even leave!

No, it’s not sexy and yes, there are apps out there which do budgeting and diary entries and everything else- but I find it so easy to grab my phone every time we stop for fuel/ shopping/ an attraction and make a quick note on what we spent and what we thought!

I’ve used notes for years to keep track of our spending as we travel- then I can write it up into a spreadsheet when we return or when we’re stopped in one place for a few days. Whatever you choose, definitely get a way to keep track of your spending!

PSSNGR for Splitwise

You’ve heard of Splitwise, right? It’s a brilliant app which allows friends to split the bill on things like meals out, rent, bills, etc. PSSNGR is an extension of that- but it’s designed for car shares. It can calculate and split the cost of a road trip, with fuel costs, snacks, meals etc- perfect for when you’re road tripping with friends!

Accuweather

Does anyone else have 3 different weather apps on their phone… and they look at all of them until they get a forecast they like? I definitely do that, but then I tend to believe what Accuweather says! The app is a great road trip planner tool as it can help you prepare for the weather ahead- essential for road trip safety.

Star Gazing App

One of my favourite things about road trips is getting far enough away from the world so we can enjoy the night sky in all its glory. I have only seen the Milky Way ONCE- and I plan to see it again as often as possible because it was breathtaking.

There are several star apps available, which will show you which stars and planets you are looking at as you gaze in wonder at the sky. There’s also one called Photopills, which will help you line up the perfect shot of the Milky Way (it also works for sunrise/ sunsets.)

Can’t go on your own road trip?

Check out ‘Roads by Porsche’- a road trip app filled with videos of other people driving some of the most beautiful roads on this planet! It’s a perfect road trip planner app- but it’s also a lovely way to while away a rainy afternoon, dreaming about your next adventure!

I hope you find these travel apps useful. Is there one you LOVE which I’ve missed? Let me know! If you enjoyed this and think others would find it useful, please share on Facebook or Pinterest.

Safe travels!

More road trip tips:

Best road trip gadgets you need, amazing destination ideas for a european road trip, how to plan a road trip to europe.

Kat never planned to buy a motorhome. She also never planned to quit her job as an air traffic controller, go touring around Europe in said motorhome, start one of the UK’s largest motorhome travel websites… or get a cocker spaniel.

Find out how she went from stuck in the rat race to being a digital nomad and inspiring thousands of people to have their own epic adventures here.

If you’d like to connect with Kat, send her an email or follow her adventures on social media.

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Nice post! Thanks for sharing this wonderful post with us. These apps sound interesting definitely gonna very helpful planning road trips. I really found this post very helpful for me. I bookmarked this for future. Thanks a lot for sharing.

Absolutely stunning! Thank you on a detailed impressive guide!

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• Scenic Drives
• Road Trip Planner

Road Trip Planning Made Easy

Create custom day trips, weekend getaways, and cross country adventures worldwide

Powerful features for planning your epic road trips (and the shorter adventures in between)

Unlimited stops.

Add unlimited stops and sub-stops. Combine your own stops with our pre-planned routes and recommended places of interest.

Smart Scheduling

By the minute, hour, or overnight, set preferences for each stop. Export your trip to your own Calendar.

Set Vehicle Type

Car, RV, camper trailer, truck, motorcycle, pulling a boat? Get a realistic estimate of driving time. Adjust travel speed by percentages for each unique situation.

Divide Trips Into Days

Divide your trips into manageable driving days based on your custom settings by time or distance. And of course you can customize each day differently.

Route Preferences

Configure route preferences such as avoiding highways or tolls for each day or any segment of your trip.

Use Any Device

Plan trips from your desktop computer, iPad, Android tablet, and mobile phone with the same easy-to-use interface. No app to download or software to install.

Automated To Do List guides you through the road trip planning process.

Manage Your Budget

Track expenditures before you go and along the way. See a summary of expenses for entrance fees, activities, restaurants, and lodging, etc.

Gas Calculator

See the estimated fuel cost for your vehicle type.

EV Charging

Find EV charging stations along your route. Get reminders to recharge. Use Charging Ranges to display icons on the map where your vehicle will require recharging.

Export Options

We support Google Earth (KML), Garmin Communicator, BaseCamp and MapSource (GPX), Co-Pilot Live (TRP), Microsoft Streets and Trips, TomTom itineraries (ITN), TomTom Places of Interest (OV2), Comma Separated Files (CSV), and Tab Separated Files (TSV).

Directions on paper come in handy. Print your road trip with turn-by-turn maps and full directions, divided into your day-by-day itinerary.

Is This Really Free?

Yes! It is free to use our Scenic Drive Itineraries and Road Trip Planner. Please consider purchasing your National Park or National Forest passes on myscenicdrives.com.

Why Do I Need An Account?

A free account is only required for the Road Trip Planner, enabling you to create, edit, and save your trips. Your account is secure. We never share your information.

Do I Need to Download An App or Install Software?

No app or software is needed. myscenicdrives.com works in any browser. Simply go to myscenicdrives.com

More Resources

Documentation, myscenicdrives.com, how it works.

41 Best Road Trip Planning Tools and Apps in 2024

Is a road trip in your future? These road trip planning tools will help you choose destinations, find a place to stay, get there, and so much more.

Planning a road trip is one of the most exciting parts of the experience. When you first decide to go on this adventure, you’re filled with anticipation and possibilities.

But it can also be overwhelming. Where do you start? How do you find interesting places? How do you keep everything organized?

Don’t fret; I’ve got you covered. I’ve found the best road trip planning tools to help make the process fun and easy.

I’m somewhat obsessed with road trips, and have written a few books about them (including Planning Your Perfect Road Trip ) as well as dozens of articles.

With the help of the right road trip planning tools, you can make the process much simpler, more organized, and fun!

Below are some of the best road trip planner apps, websites, and real world tools to help you plan your next road trip. They’ll help you find great places to explore, figure out how to get there, and keep track of it all.

Ready to plan a road trip?

FREE Road Trip Packing Lists

36 best road trip planning tools and apps.

There may be affiliate links in this post, which means we may get a small commission. It’s at no extra cost to you and helps keep TLT free. Everybody wins!

Before you go, check out this road trip packing list .

15 Useful Websites for Road Trippers

There are approximately 1.3 gazillion travel websites, give or take a few bazillion. There’s no way to keep up with all of them. I’m not even going to try. Instead, I’ve curated some useful favorites.

This selection of trip planning websites is by no means comprehensive (because that would be impossible), but these should provide a plethora of ideas.

America’s Byways

fhwaapps.fhwa.dot.gov/bywaysp/

If you’re looking to drive a scenic route that’s been designated as such by the Federal Highway Administration, visit here first.

National Scenic Byways & All-American Roads lists a collection of 184 “distinct and diverse roads.”

To be officially designated, a National Scenic Byway must be considered regionally significant, and an All-American Road needs to be a “destination until itself.”

For example, the Santa Fe Trail follows one of the country’s early trade routes and is a National Scenic Byway.

Beartooth Highway , which provides access to the northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park , is an All-American Road.

America’s State Parks

stateparks.org

Our National Park System gets lots of love, and rightfully so, but you know who else deserves your outdoor affection?

State parks.

The America’s State Parks website, hosted and developed by the National Association of State Park Directors, is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a resource to help you find every state park in the country.

Their Locate a Park function links to each state’s official parks system website.

Atlas Obscura

Welcome to the atlas of the obscure . If you’re looking for interesting places, this is the site for you.

A cool function is to search nearby. Let the site use your location and it’ll pull up attractions close to you.

For example, near me there’s a funeral home with a mini-golf course inside and a house without corners – because the owner wanted spirits to feel more comfortable.

Back Road Ramblers

Back Road Ramblers focuses on family-themed travel in the US, emphasizing slower-paced journeys and off-the-beaten-path adventures.

If you want to visit someplace new and know how far you’re willing to drive, CalcMaps will show you what’s within that distance.

Draw a circle and it’ll show the radius in miles, or enter an address and the miles you’re planning on driving. A circle overlay will display on the map, which you can resize with the drag of a mouse.

You can then browse within that circle and start researching potential cities, towns, parks, and attractions. It’s important to note that mileage is based on straight lines and not the routes you’ll take.

For example, from my home to Des Moines, Iowa, is less than 280 miles as the crow flies. To drive it would be around 320 miles. However, you can at least get a rough idea.

Find Your Park

Find Your Park is a collaboration between the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation to help plan visits to NPS sites.

You can choose from a range of activities, including geocaching, off-roading, and whitewater rafting.

Historical Marker Database

If you’re the type of person who pulls over at every historical marker, Historical Marker Database is going to be your new best friend.

You can browse thousands of listings or you can plug in an address. If you give it permission to see your location, it’ll show markers near you.

Individual listings display an image of the marker, a transcription of the inscription, and usually an audio recording. They include the latitude and longitude so you can plot the exact location.

Topics are also listed, which comes in handy when planning a road trip themed around Native Americans or the Civil War, for example.

National Park Service

If you plan to visit any of the 423 units of the National Park System , start at the source. NPS.gov includes all their sites, including National Battlefields, National Monuments, National Historic Sites, National Scenic Trails, National Seashores, etc.

They also help you plan your trip with lists of ideas. There are trip ideas by park, activity, topic, duration, and more.

You can also purchase your America the Beautiful Interagency Pass, which provides admission to every fee-based NPS unit.

National Register of Historic Places

History geeks rejoice! Part of the National Park Service, the National Register of Historic Places offers tools and resources for researching historical sites deemed worthy of preservation.

RoadTrip America

Online since 1996, RoadTrip America is one of the original sites for online travel planning. In addition to tons of road tripping advice, there’s also a route planner.

It’s free, and if you want to save, print, or modify your route, you’ll need to register. That’s also free and provides access to their Great American RoadTrip Forum where you can connect with other road trippers.

Roadside America

Roadside America ‘s also been around since the 1990s, and in all that time it’s amassed a giant collection of curiosities. Or, as they say, “little pushpins of peculiarity.”

Browse by state or search by keywords or city to find your road trip inspiration, like a giant ball of twine or a 30-foot-tall old-fashioned bicyclist.

See something intriguing? Save it to “My Sights.” When you’ve accumulated the ones you want, you can create a route that includes them all.

There’s a Roadside America app, but sadly for us Android users, it’s only available for Apple devices. 

The Local Tourist

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include my own website. It has been around since 2002, after all.

The Local Tourist is a good resource for outdoors, culture, history, kitschy attractions, and road trips (duh).

As of 2024, destinations are primarily in the Midwest and Western United States. But, I’m working on covering the whoooole country, and eventually, the world! Muah ha ha.

TV Food Maps

Want to eat at a place you’ve seen on the telly? TV Food Maps not only has a searchable database, but they’ll also show you results based on your road trip route.

Shows include the obligatory Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and Man vs Food . There’s Cheap Eats when you’re on a budget. Chopped fans can find the winners’ restaurants.

It’s a veritable smorgasbord of places to eat.

Related: check out all my tips on eating on the road .

Visit the USA

visittheusa.com

Visit the USA is the official travel site of the United States. There’s a ton of information for people traveling internationally, but it’s also good for US residents.

Browse iconic landmarks, trip ideas, and experiences. You can search geographically. There’s also a cool “this or that” quiz that provides recommended trips based on your answers.

In addition to the site, there’s a trip planner, too. Put in your starting point and your final destination and the dates you’ll be traveling and you’ll get a suggested itinerary.

Not every place is listed, however. My hometown is missing, so I entered the closest bigger city.

Want more road trip tips? Download Planning Your Perfect Road Trip, a Step-by-Step Guide to Hittin’ the Road

World Waterfall Database

If you love waterfalls (and who doesn’t?), you’ll love World Waterfall Database . It’s a comprehensive resource that ranks waterfalls and allows users to browse by state and country.

6 Online Trip Planners

Trip planners are fantastic tools for, you guessed it, planning your trip.

Road trip planners are especially useful when you have an idea of where you want to go. You plug in your start and end destinations and fill in “waypoints,” or stops.

With their interactive maps, you can experiment with alternative routes. Each tool has a different interface and offers different features.

I recommend experimenting with each to see which works best for you.

Furkot is an online road trip planner that offers a range of features to help you plan and organize your trips effectively.

To begin, you enter your starting and ending destinations, what dates you’ll be traveling, how long you want to travel each day, and more.

You can also enter what type of accommodations you like and whether you prefer to drive highways or toll roads. Traveling with pets? You can include that, too.

If you’re not sure where you want to go, you can click on “Inspire me” for suggestions.

Google Maps

Did you know you can use Google Maps as a trip planner? When you find a place that looks interesting or you know you want to include on your itinerary, you can save it.

For example, search for Rocky Mountain National Park. Then tap the “Save” icon. From there, you can add it to Favorites, Want to go, Travel plans, or Starred places.

You can also create your own lists, which will make it easier to plan an entire trip.

Once you add a place to a list, you can add a note.

Maybe Aunt Sue recommended the peach pie at a diner. Write it down in the notes. Then when you’re planning your itinerary, you’ll know why you added that diner to your list.

You can keep your list Private or you can choose to share it. This comes in handy when there are multiple people planning the trip.

Google My Maps

Google My Maps is a powerful tool that can be extremely useful for planning a road trip. It allows you to create custom maps with your own locations, routes, and markers.

One of the most useful features of Google My Maps is the ability to create custom routes. You can add as many locations as you want to your map, and then easily connect them to create a custom route.

This can be helpful when planning a road trip with multiple destinations, as you can see the entire route and estimate the time and distance between each stop.

You can add markers to your map, which can be used to indicate points of interest, hotels, gas stations, rest areas, or other places you want to visit or stop at during your road trip.

You can add notes, photos, and videos to the markers, which can be helpful for remembering more details about a place.

Google My Maps also allows you to share your maps with others, which can be especially useful when planning a road trip with a group of friends or family.

You can share a link to your map, and others can view and edit it, making it easy to collaborate and plan your trip together.

Another useful feature of Google My Maps is the ability to export your map to a GPS device, which can be helpful when you are on the road.

This allows you to use your custom map offline, without an internet connection and navigate with turn-by-turn directions even in areas with limited cell service.

Overall, Google My Maps is a powerful and versatile tool for planning a road trip. With its custom route and marker features, collaboration options, and offline capabilities, it can help you plan and navigate your road trip more efficiently and enjoyably.

Roadtrippers.com

Roadtrippers.com allows you to plug points into a map, but it’s so much more than that.

Once you’ve added your starting point and your destination, Roadtrippers displays attractions along your route. The more you zoom in, the more attractions you’ll see.

You can add the type of vehicle you’re driving and its estimated fuel efficiency and Roadtrippers will calculate your approximate expenses.

Besides plotting the route itself, there’s a ton of user-generated content offering recommendations for attractions, restaurants, places to stay, and great photo ops.

Previously you could specify whether you wanted to drive interstates or not per segment of your trip. That’s no longer the case, and to choose any routing options you’ll need to upgrade.

However, upgrading enables you to collaborate with other users and increases the number of waypoints from three in the free version to up to 150.

There are three levels of membership, with Premium getting you the most benefits with downloadable maps, live traffic, and special discounts.

At time of publication, Roadtrippers membership ranges from $35.99 to $59.99 per year, and there’s a seven day free trial. If you upgrade, you can save $5 off your first year with code BTR5QTP. Click here to start your free trial .

TripTik by AAA

triptik.aaa.com

AAA’s TripTiks have come a long way since the spiral-bound guides of my youth. Today you can plan your trip online or on your phone.

Plug in your starting and ending points and add up to 25 stops. Specify how often you’d like to stop and it’ll build breaks into your turn-by-turn directions.

You can choose to display gas stations, attractions, campgrounds, hotels, restaurants, AAA savings, and rest areas.

My Scenic Drives

myscenicdrives.com

My Scenic Drives is a completely free trip planner that lets you add as many stops, or waypoints, as you like. After you create an account, you can plan away.

Plan road trips either by adding your own locations or by choosing one of their existing scenic drives. Those are somewhat limited.

At time of publication, only Great River Road and Stagecoach Trail are listed for Illinois, skipping Route 66 , the Ohio River Scenic Byway, the National Road, and Lincoln Highway.

Depending on how many miles your trip will be, My Scenic Drives may split it up into days. You’ll also see an estimated fuel cost, although I’m not sure how accurate that is.

If you’re planning on visiting any National Park Service sites, you can buy an annual pass through My Scenic Drives.

The interface is a little awkward and they don’t have an app, although their site is mobile friendly.

16 Best Apps for Road Trips

From before you go to when you’re on the road, there are tons of tools to help get the most out of your road trip. Because of the fluidity of online tools, I’m only recommending a few that I know are likely to continue.

You can learn more about these apps in our Best Road Trip Apps guide.

Search the Apple or Google Play stores to download them to your device.

Like to hike? Bike? Go for a walk? AllTrails is a great app to help you discover hiking and biking trails based on where you’re located.

You can read reviews, store trails you’d like to explore, and record the hikes you do take. You can choose to make your hikes public, or keep them private.

There’s also a premium version, which allows you to download offline maps.

With Expedia , you can easily search for and compare prices on rental cars, hotels, and activities along your route. Rates are often discounted, and you have the opportunity to earn rewards.

When you sign up for an Expedia Rewards account, which is free, you also get access to member prices.

The app is easy to use and keeps an itinerary with your confirmation numbers.

Until electric cars have battery life that will take you through the country’s most remote stretches, gas is a necessary evil of the road trip.

GasBuddy uses crowd-sourced data to provide real-time information on gas prices at different stations.

With GasBuddy, you can easily find the cheapest gas prices near you, as well as see which gas stations have the best deals on certain days of the week or at certain times of the day.

In addition to displaying fuel prices, you can save more when you sign up for Pay with GasBuddy.

Pay with GasBuddy also gives you access to Deal Alerts, which knock the price down even more.

Check out our complete guide to saving money on gas with GasBuddy .

I almost feel like this goes without saying—but I’ll say it anyway (obviously): if you have just one road trip app, make it Google maps.

Not only can you get directions and the best routes, but because it’s Google you can find anything around you, too.

One of the route options you can choose is which is most fuel-efficient, and you can even select the type of fuel: Gas, Diesel, Electric, and Hybrid.

Another great feature of Google Maps is the ability to download maps for offline use.

This is helpful if you’re planning a road trip to a rural area or somewhere with limited cell service.

By downloading the maps in advance, you can still access them and navigate even if you don’t have an internet connection.

Google Maps can also be used as a trip planning tool, and there’s more on that in the Online Trip Planners section.

HotelTonight

If you’re looking for a last minute hotel room, HotelTonight wants to help. Primarily in larger towns and cities, the website and app can help you find same-day and next-day hotel stays at discounted rates.

The app will find accommodations near you, and you can also search for hotels by location. You can filter your search by price, star rating, and neighborhood.

Taking the interstates? iExit shows you what’s available at each exit, including dining, shopping, restrooms, and attractions. It also pulls up gas stations and gas prices.

The app uses real-time data to provide information on the services and amenities available at upcoming exits on the highway, making it an ideal tool for planning rest stops, gas fill-ups and meals.

You’ll see a list of services such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and rest areas along with their distance from the exit. You can filter your search results by categories such as fast food, lodging, and gas stations.

NPS (National Park Service) App

Not only does the official mobile app of the National Park Service show you where to find National Parks, it helps you discover every site in their system. It’s free to use and you can explore by topic, by activity, by state, or near your location.

The app provides information on park hours, fees, and regulations, as well as maps, trail guides, and other resources to help you make the most of your visit.

The commercials ain’t lyin’— Priceline Express Deals are amazing. What’s the catch? You have no idea where you’ll end up. You can see a general area and a star level, but that’s it.

While they no longer give you the option to Name Your Own Price, in addition to Express Deals, they also have pricebreakers. They pick from one of three different hotels.

While you won’t know which one you’re getting until you pay for it, you’ll be able to see in advance what your options are.

Like Expedia, you can search for hotels by location, price, and amenities. You can also search by brand and star level, making it easy to find a hotel that fits your budget and preferences.

Priceline VIP is a rewards program that provides discounts, add-on deals, and Express Deal coupons after your trip is complete.

The app will show you deals on hotels near your location. You can also book rental cars, flights, and cruises.

Knowing what’s happening weather-wise is kind of important when you’re on a road trip. My favorite way to see whether I’ll stay dry or will need to break out the slicker is Rainy Days.

This free radar app has helped my anxiety level on several occasions, especially while driving in North Central Nebraska. It was good to know we were driving the opposite direction of an intense storm.

Recreation.gov

Recreation.gov is the official website and app for making reservations for recreational activities and facilities managed by the U.S. federal government.

You can find campgrounds and lodging, tours and activities, sign up for lotteries for the most popular things to do, and find information on what permits are required near you.

Once you do make reservations, they’re stored in the app.

This is the site and app to use when you plan to visit parks that require vehicle registration, like Glacier National Park, or want a permit to hike Angels Landing in Zion National Park .

You can reserve campsites on the website and app. We did, while sitting at the entrance to a campground in Mississippi. We didn’t realize the park was a NPS site when we drove up, and the kindly gent in the booth directed us to make our reservations through the app.

There’s also a trip planner. Plug in your dates, number of people, your starting location, and your potential destinations.

You can then see all the available options on a map, add them to your road trip itinerary, and then make any necessary reservations.

ReserveAmerica

If you’re planning to camp on your road trip, you’ll want this app. ReserveAmerica enables you to make reservations for campsites all over the country.

Some state park systems use the site, and you can find KOA campgrounds.

Apex Club is ReserveAmerica’s membership. Members get a rebate for a free night of camping (up to $25) at eligible state and regional parks. There are also discounts on gear, accessories, apparel, and activities.

Restaurant.com

Eating where the locals eat is a great way to get a real “taste” for a town. If you want to save some dough on your dining, sign up for restaurant.com .

This app provides discounted certificates, and I’ve found participating restaurants in towns with fewer than 10,000 residents.

You’ll have to spend a minimum amount to use your certificate, and it’s usually double the face value. For example, if you get a $10 certificate for $4, you’ll have to spend at least $20 and you’ll save $6.

You can search for restaurants by your current location and by zip code. You can also choose larger cities, including Chicago, Seattle, and Austin.

Once you’ve narrowed down the location, look at the menu and the ratings. I’ve found several real gems using this app, and they’ve been places I never would have known about or tried without it.

If you’re going to be in any urban areas on your road trip, you’ll definitely want this app.

SpotHero has probably saved me thousands over the years. I’ve been using it since it launched over a decade ago (and the founder used to write articles on Chicago parking for me!).

I found a spot three blocks from the Los Angeles Convention Center on the day of the Grammys and paid $10 for seven hours. The day of the Grammys, y’all!

Driving highways or in urban areas? TollGuru provides detailed information, including pricing, methods of payment, and which transponders (E-ZPass, SunPass, FasTrak, TxTag, etc.) are accepted at tolls.

It will also give you an estimated fuel cost if you include the type of vehicle you drive and the average gas prices.

While Google Maps now provides toll price information, TollGuru gives you more detail.

Upside is a free app that gives you cash back on gas, groceries, and restaurants. Brands include most of the big fuel chains (Shell, Marathon, Valero, BP, etc.).

Upside works similarly to Pay with GasBuddy in that you get cents off per gallon, but you get it in the form of cash back.

For example, at the Casey’s near me I can get eight cents per gallon cash back. To get the discount, I claim the offer, pay with a credit card, and then check in or take a photo of my receipt to upload it.

Once the cash back processes, which is usually within a couple days, I can transfer it to my bank account or use it to buy gift cards for places like Domino’s, H&M, and Starbucks.

Upside also offers cash back at restaurants and grocery stores. The offers vary, and when you first sign up there’s an increased discount.

The app saves you a few cents here and there, but they add up, especially when you’re on long road trips.

Download Waze for an alternative to Google Maps. Beyond turn-by-turn navigation, one of the key features of Waze is its crowd-sourced traffic information, which allows users to report accidents, road closures, and other incidents in real-time.

This helps you stay updated on the latest traffic conditions and avoid any delays on your route.

You can set your type of vehicle for preferred routes, including Motorcycle, Electric, and Taxi. You can also add your Toll and HOV passes, and you can tell it to skip unpaved roads.

I can think of a few trips I’ve taken where that option would have come in handy.

In addition to its routing and traffic features, Waze also offers a number of other useful tools for road trips.

For example, the app allows you to find the cheapest gas prices along your route, restaurants, and parking at your destination. If you connect your calendar, the app will tell you when it’s time to leave.

4 Real World Trip Planning Tools

While online discovery tools are wonderful, don’t forget to check out these real-world tools, too.

Travel Shows

Travel Shows are a fun and interactive way to find new destinations. While many people attend hoping to connect with someplace exotic (a.k.a. a place requiring several hours in a plane), travel shows are a wonderful way to find someplace a little closer to home.

I’ve exhibited and spoken at the Travel & Adventure Show for years. At each show, I’ve found new road trip destinations.

Places I’ve visited as a direct result of these shows include Cottonwood, Arizona; Ridgeland, Mississippi; Bishop, California, and Traverse City, Michigan.

The people working the booths at travel shows are, generally speaking, from that destination. They know more than anyone about their home and it’s their job to entice you to visit.

Libraries & Bookstores

Libraries and bookstores are fantastic resources for helping you plan your destinations. It’s fun to browse the stacks to see all the possibilities.

When it’s time to narrow down your choice to specific destinations, you might be able to find a guidebook.

If a book you want isn’t available at your local library, it could be available through a reciprocal lending program, and booksellers are usually happy to special order books they don’t stock.

It’s also fun to read travelogs and travel memoirs for ideas and inspiration.

As an author , one of my biggest thrills is when someone tells me my books provided inspiration for their trips, especially when they go somewhere they never would have considered or had never heard of before.

One of my road trip rules is to always visit AAA before heading out when I’m planning on visiting a new state.

Why? One word: Maps.

Even though GPS is great, sometimes, like in the canyons of Utah or the middle of the Mojave Desert, it doesn’t work. That’s why we always have paper maps.

AAA’s app is also a good resource on the road, if you do have a connection, for finding attractions and restaurants. PLUS, don’t forget their roadside assistance.

If you’re of a certain age (cough cough) you probably remember those spiral-bound TripTiks. When I was growing up, mom and dad would pick up their custom‐made travel guides from our local AAA.

Guess what: the association still offers these route‐planners, only now they’re online.

One of the coolest features is the ability to specify how many hours you want to drive before taking a break and it will suggest locations to stop.

It also shows places that offer discounts to AAA members, including hotels and restaurants. It’s a handy overall tool for any road trip planning.

Local Visitors Bureaus

My favorite part of travel is the people. On our road trip to the Oregon coast and back, not a whole lot was planned. We relied on the kindness of locals to point us in the right direction, and we were richly rewarded.

People who live where you’re going are always your greatest resource.

While you could drive by the seat of your pants, like we did, there’s an easier way:

Visitors Bureaus .

These gems are my (not so) secret weapon.

When you’re planning your trip, make sure you contact these founts of regional knowledge.

In the “biz” we know them as CVBs—Convention and Visitors Bureaus—and DMOs—Destination Management Organizations. These are the Mother Lode of local info.

Once you’re at your destination, ask the people you meet—the gas station attendant, the cashier at the grocery store, the concierge at your hotel, the host of your B&B—where they go to lunch.

Where do they take friends and family when they come to visit? I’ve never been steered in the wrong direction, and have found some real gems just by asking the locals.

I hope you’ve found these road trip planning tools useful. If you want the ultimate guide to how to plan a road trip, get Planning Your Perfect Road Trip, a Step-by-Step Guide to Hittin’ the Road .

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The 10 best road trip apps to make your next journey more epic

T hese days, the phrase “there’s an app for that” can easily be replaced with “there’s, like, 50 apps for that.” Now that warm weather is almost upon us, we’re helping you cut through some of the noise with the best, must-have road trip apps to help you eat, sleep, and sightsee your way across America . All we ask is that you let your co-pilot work them while en route. Otherwise, you’re gonna need a “Send an Ambulance” app.

Google Maps: Navigation

This one shouldn’t be a surprise, but we can’t round up the best road trip apps without including the world’s best navigation app. Even if this is your very first road trip, Google Maps is probably already on your phone. You can plan your route ahead of time and easily share it with friends and family.

The app will highlight traffic along your route and offer detour suggestions in real time, whenever possible. A soothing A.I. voice will shout at you like a perpetually disappointed mother to “key pleft” so you don’t miss a single turn. Plus, in a pinch, you can search for the nearest gas station (with current prices), food stop, hotel, or t-shirt hut.

Waze: Traffic info

A well-equipped shotgun navigator should be equipped with both Google Maps and Waze. While Google Maps provides a snapshot of upcoming traffic, it just doesn’t give you the same highway play-by-play that Waze does. It isn’t nearly as playful as Waze, either.

Waze lets users tag locations along their route to notify fellow drivers of anything from potholes to speed traps to stopped vehicles and debris. If there’s an accident or construction up ahead, good Samaritans might even save you a headache by letting you know which lanes are closed. It also displays the current speed limit so you can avoid speeding in areas you’re not familiar with.

GasBuddy: Gas

One of the biggest road trip expenses is fuel. You can’t get where you’re going without it, but prices can be frustratingly inconsistent. GasBuddy finds the cheapest gas stations along your route, helping you save cash every time you fill up. Google Maps does this, too, but we think GasBuddy does it better, plus the app even offers exclusive discounts of up to $0.25 per gallon.

That alone is pretty dang handy, but it gets even better: By reporting gas prices for the stations you stop at, you help others save big time and rack up points that can save you even more. You can also link the app with your checking account and GasBuddy will help you recoup some costs by giving you cashback on your fuel purchases.

Plugshare: Electric car charging

If you’re road-tripping in a Tesla or other electric vehicle, you’ll need a way to find charging stations along the way. Plugshare is a community-driven app with details on every available electric charging station along your route. Search for stations based on the type of vehicle you’re driving, where you’re headed, and what sort of amenities are nearby. Users can upload photos, leave reviews, and share helpful info like how many chargers a location has available.

HotelTonight: Lodging

There’s no shortage of great hotel booking apps. But if you’re taking a road trip with few or no set plans, HotelTonight makes it easy to book same-day hotel reservations. In addition to booking rooms up to 100 days in advance of your stay, the app can also help you find a hotel, well, tonight . You can search a specific city or just find available rooms nearest you. The more you use the app, the more perks you’ll enjoy in the form of discounted rates. App users also score access to exclusive discounts only available to HotelTonight guests.

iExit Interstate Exit Guide: Food

How many times have you missed out on a fine dining experience or exquisitely sloppy roadside BBQ in the name of getting just a few more miles under your belt? You may never know the true scale of your past mistakes, but thankfully you can put your days of missing out (DOMO?) behind you. iExit lets you view the next 100 exits along your route so you can see precisely what’s waiting for you up ahead.

In addition to showing every tasty restaurant at a given exit, the app will also let you enter a custom search for when you just gotta get that In-N-Out Burger Double-Double Animal Style in your belly tout suite . While we’re (clearly) recommending the app as a food-finder, it can help you find other things, too, including rest stops, hotels, gas stations, convenience stores, local attractions, and much more.

Honk: Roadside assistance

A reliable roadside assistance app is a great thing to have on your phone at all times, but it’s an absolute must if you’re planning a trip through unfamiliar areas. What we love most about Honk is the lack of surprises when it comes to cost. If you’re stranded with car trouble in the middle of nowhere, the last thing you want to hear is that the tow you called is going to cost twice as much as you expected.

With Honk, every service price is provided upfront, so the cost you pay is always the same as the cost you were quoted. The app is completely free to download, and it costs nothing to sign up. Honk works with more than 75,000 professionals nationwide to offer towing, jump-starts, flat tire changes , vehicle lockout service, fuel delivery up to two gallons, and even roadside winching.

RV Parks & Campgrounds: Camping

Aside from saving money on hotels, camping adds a dash of adventure  to any road trip. Tracking down the best sites can be tough if you’re in unfamiliar territory, though, so we recommend downloading RV Parks & Campgrounds from ParkAdvisor. The app provides locations for tons of camping options, from commercial parks to government and military campsites to RV-friendly parking lots and rest areas.

It can also help you find fuel stops and provide extended weather forecasts based on your current location or destination. Click on a site that piques your interest and you can call, visit the website, get directions, and see all the amenities it has to offer. This one’s a must-have for outdoorsy road-trippers.

Spotify: Music and podcasts

Bouts of boredom are a given on long drives. To stay alert and entertained, get those mitts on Spotify, if you haven’t already. Aside from a library of over 70 million tracks, Spotify hosts more than two million shows in its podcast catalog, too.

Create a playlist of your best highway jams, dive into a totally addictive, road-trip-worthy podcast , or let Spotify’s unparalleled discovery algorithms build the new over-the-road soundtrack you didn’t know you needed. Sign up for a free account and gain instant access to enough content for a road trip around the world. Upgrade to Premium and you can enjoy all of it ad-free and offline.

Audible: Audiobooks

Audible is an audiobook service that offers a vast library of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that you can listen to on your mobile phone in your car while on your adventure. Once you have downloaded an audiobook to your device, you can listen to it even when you don’t have an internet connection. You can adjust the playback speed of audiobooks to listen to them faster or slower, and you can even set a sleep timer to turn off the audiobook after a certain amount of time.

Bookmark your place in an audiobook when you stop for food, lodging, gas, or a pit stop, so you can easily pick up where you left off later. Make sure you browse and purchase audiobooks from the Audible store before your road trip, so they’re ready to go when you’re on a long and boring highway.

There you have it: Our favorite road trip apps. Stay safe out there , and happy trails!

The post The 10 best road trip apps to make your next journey more epic appeared first on The Manual .

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The Trippy road trip planner automatically calculates the optimal itinerary including stops recommended by Trippy members, favorite restaurants and hotels, local attractions and things to do based on what people who live in the area have suggested, and more.

Once you have a quick trip planned, you can customize every detail, adding or removing stops, or changing what time you leave in the morning or how long you stay at each stop. Then you can save your custom trip and share it with friends and family.

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— Plan Your Perfect Road Trip Adventure! Explore, Park, and Camp with Ease! — Embark on the ultimate road trip experience! Discover the perfect parking spots, cozy campsites, and breathtaking sights along your journey. - Search & Filter: Effortlessly find your ideal destinations using our powerful search and intuitive filters. Tailor your results based on parking availability, camping amenities, nearby attractions, and more. - Favorites: Save your favorite spots with a single tap and easily revisit them whenever you want. Create your own personal bucket list of must-visit locations for future adventures. - Sync Across Devices: Seamlessly plan and sync your road trip itineraries across all your devices. Start mapping out your adventure on your device, then effortlessly switch to your other device, ensuring a smooth and consistent planning experience. - Tour Planning: Visualize your road trip routes on a dynamic map interface. Plan your journey by pinning destinations, creating waypoints, and optimizing your route for the most efficient and exciting adventure. — Key Features — - Extensive database of parking spots, campsites, and sights - User-friendly search and powerful filtering options - Easy saving and managing of favorite places - Seamless syncing across all your devices - Intuitive tour planning on an interactive map - Regular updates and new locations added Unleash your wanderlust and make every road trip a memorable adventure. Start exploring, camping, and parking like a pro! Download now and embark on the journey of a lifetime! --- Terms & Conditions: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

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RV Trip Wizard vs. Roadtrippers: What Planning Tool is Best?

Whether you live in your RV full-time or are an occasional weekend warrior, RV trip planning can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. It’s time-consuming and involves a lot of different logistics regarding finances, activities, and stops. Plus, researching an unfamiliar place — while fun — isn’t always straightforward and simple. 

That’s where RV and road trip planning tools come in. One of the biggest benefits of the RV lifestyle today is the availability of seemingly infinite apps, websites, and other resources that make the once-tedious task of road trip planning easier and even somewhat enjoyable. 

Two of the biggest names in this space are RV LIFE Trip Wizard and Roadtrippers, and it’s common for people to wonder which is best: RV Trip Wizard vs. Roadtrippers. We did the hard work, reviewing each in detail and then putting them through a head-to-head comparison. 

RV LIFE Trip Wizard Overview

$19.99 per month or $59.00 annually; 7-day free trial

Standout features

• Customized information based on your specific RV
• Advanced Driving Radius
• Cost estimator

Commonly referred to as simply Trip Wizard, RV LIFE Trip Wizard bills itself as “the best RV trip planner.” The “RV” in that tagline is important — Trip Wizard isn’t a general road trip planning tool but one explicitly designed with RV campers in mind.  

Itinerary Planning

One of the most deservedly popular aspects of Trip Wizard is its level of personalization. Yes, it has all the requisite basic trip planning resources that many similar apps do, but Trip Wizard takes it a huge step forward and asks for specific information about your rig, such as its length, weight, height, fuel type, and even average gas mileage. 

Trip Wizard then uses this information to give you hyper-custom recommendations, like the most fuel-efficient routes and campsites to accommodate your vehicle length. The app also tells you where to get gas based on your average fuel economy, and the “RV Safe Routes” feature even allows you to remove low-clearance obstacles and steep grades from your route altogether. 

As you plan your trip, you can add stops for everything from gas stations to major points of interest and even quick grocery runs. This comprehensive trip planning gives you a realistic overview of how much time you’ll spend on the road (and off!). Plus, The Wiz cost estimator  calculates the approximate total of your stops, factoring in things like fuel and campground fees.

After you finalize your itinerary, you can save or print the complete directions or even send them directly to your device’s GPS app (like Google Maps). One thing to be aware of about Trip Wizard’s routing is that if you add waypoints after you’ve already finalized your itinerary, the app doesn’t always behave well. It sometimes moves the waypoints out of order, suggesting that you stop at one, then backtrack hundreds of miles to another. 

The only way to avoid this, it seems, is to delete all waypoints and then re-add them in order. It doesn’t always do this, so it may be a good idea to wait until your itinerary and stops are finalized before actually creating the route within Trip Wizard. Also, always preview the suggested route and pay careful attention to where GPS is taking you!

Another excellent feature of RV LIFE Trip Wizard is its display of campgrounds. Many road trip planners are affiliated with specific membership programs such as Good Sam and Passport America and will show you only their associated campgrounds. This is not the case with Trip Wizard! Here, you’ll see ALL RV parks and other campgrounds. Having said that, you can integrate your memberships into the app, and it will then highlight those affiliated campsites with a special notation. 

Trip Wizard also includes free parking areas like state rest areas, casinos, and Walmarts in search results. You can either add these to your route ahead of time or search nearby, which is especially helpful for those times when you just need a place to grab some shut-eye for a few hours but not a full-blown campground. 

Pro tip: it’s smart to save some of these free places to your itinerary for those “just-in-case” times when you have a long driving day but aren’t exactly sure where you’ll want to pull over. There’s nothing worse than being exhausted and having no idea how far you are from the closest safe stop!

Roadtrippers Overview

$29.99 annually; free version with limited features also available

• An extremely robust itinerary planner, with thousands of unique stop ideas and numerous ways to customize them
• The ability to easily toggle destinations on and off as needed
• Offline maps (with the paid version)

At its core, Roadtrippers helps you plan the best route for your trip in terms of both time and cost, plus offers suggestions for unique attractions along the way. Roadtrippers is specifically known for connecting travelers with quirky, off-the-beaten-path sights and activities. 

Much like Trip Wizard, Roadtrippers calculates your distance and time between stops, as well as approximate fuel cost. It also allows you to easily add stops, called waypoints also like in Trip Wizard, along your route. 

One of the biggest things you’ll notice right off the bat when comparing RV Trip Wizard vs. Roadtrippers is that Roadtrippers has a free version, whereas Trip Wizard does not. The free version of Roadtrippers is so robust that many people appropriately refer to it as “freemium.”

Roadtrippers Paid vs. Free

Of course, there are a handful of differences between Roadtrippers’ free and paid versions. The two main ones, however, are that you get just seven waypoints per trip with the free version, but a whopping 150 in the premium version, and the ability to download offline maps when you have a paid subscription. 

Even in areas where you have absolutely no cell service, Roadtrippers premium allows you to download a map with turn-by-turn navigation directions. This is especially helpful in areas like national parks , which are notorious for having spotty cell coverage, but there’s a ton to explore. 

Those two features alone are, understandably, enough reason for many people to upgrade. However, if you tend to take shorter trips or keep stops to a minimum when you’re on the road, and you’re not particularly concerned with having access to your maps when you don’t have service, the free version of Roadtrippers will serve you very well. 

Let’s take a closer look at Roadtrippers’ itinerary planning capabilities. Whether you have the free or subscription version, one of its best features is the ability to toggle waypoints on and off and get automatic rerouting in live time. Better yet, Roadtrippers doesn’t delete a stop just because you toggled it off. 

For example, say the weather looks dicey later in the day, but if it’s clear, there’s a stop you’d like to check out. If an hour before conditions have turned worse, you can quickly toggle that stop off, but keep it in your itinerary so you may be able to hit it on your way home. Without missing a beat, Roadtrippers also reroutes you, calculating a new time and distance, if necessary. 

Another amazing thing about the Roadtrippers itinerary planner is its inclusion of unique, quirky, and off-the-beaten path stops. In addition to basics like restaurants, gas stations, and RV parks, Roadtrippers allows you to search for things like abandoned sites, filming locations, “World’s Largest…,” and “Offbeat Attractions.” You can even filter the results to see only those that are free or accommodate big rigs!

It’s also worth mentioning that the company behind Roadtrippers, Togo, also makes a few other wildly popular apps: Togo RV, Campendium, and RVillage. If you’re already a fan of any of them, this may be a selling point for you in the RV Trip Wizard vs Roadtrippers argument because Roadpass Pro bundles all four apps into one package for just $49.99 per year. There is no free version, but there is a 7-day free trial.

RV Trip Wizard vs. Roadtrippers: Which Is Better?

Both of these road trip planners offer robust suites of tools, and you’ll meet just as many people claiming that one is better than the other — and vice-versa. Ultimately, it comes down to deciding which one serves your personal needs better. With that in mind, here are some side-by-side differences when you’re looking at RV Trip Wizard vs Roadtrippers. 

• Trip Wizard is $59 annually or $19.99 per month and does not have a free version, whereas Roadtrippers has both free and paid versions
• Both apps include downloadable maps for offline use
• RV Life Trip Wizard includes customized recommendations and routing based on your RV’s exact specifications, while this feature is only available in the paid version of Roadtrippers
• Roadtrippers’ ability to toggle waypoints on and off is a much more intuitive route-planning feature than the way Trip Wizard behaves when adding a waypoint to a finalized itinerary
• Trip Wizard’s Driving Radius feature is perhaps its biggest single selling point over Roadtrippers, as the latter simply doesn’t offer anything comparable

One final thing: Many people think Trip Wizard caters slightly more toward RVers, rather than general road trip planning. To that point, Trip Wizard has far more campground and RV park reviews, and you have to search through two layers of filters to find the “RV parks” option in Roadtrippers. Having said that, if you do a lot of road tripping without your RV, you may find that Roadtrippers is a better fit. 

Choosing the Right Road Trip Planning App

You really can’t go wrong with Roadtrippers or RV LIFE Trip Wizard, and both make great companions for a getaway in an RV rental . Choose any of our nearly 130 convenient rental locations and start planning your trip — it really is that easy!

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Published: April 08 , 2024 01:53 PM IST

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കാർ യാത്രകള്‍, ഇഷ്ടമുള്ള സമയത്ത് എവിടെ വേണമെങ്കിലും ഇറങ്ങാം, പോകുന്ന വഴി നിറുത്തി സാവധാനം പോകാം, എന്തിനേറെ അവസാന നിമിഷം യാത്രയുടെ ലക്ഷ്യങ്ങളില്‍ മാറ്റം വരുത്തുകയും ചെയ്യാം. ചില കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ ശ്രദ്ധിച്ചാല്‍ കാര്‍ യാത്രകളെ കൂടുതല്‍ അനായാസവും ആസ്വാദ്യകരവുമാക്കാന്‍ സാധിക്കും. ഈ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ ശ്രദ്ധിച്ചാല്‍ കാർ യാത്ര സൂപ്പറാക്കാം.

കുടുംബവുമൊത്തോ കൂട്ടുകാര്‍ക്കൊപ്പമോ ആയിരിക്കും സാധാരണ കാര്‍ ട്രിപ്പുകളുണ്ടാവുക. സാധ്യമെങ്കില്‍ നേരത്തെ തന്നെ യാത്ര ആസൂത്രണം ചെയ്യുക. നിരവധി ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ മാപ്പുകളും ജിപിഎസ് സാങ്കേതികവിദ്യയുമൊക്കെ ഇതിനു സഹായത്തിനെത്തും. പോകുന്ന വഴിയില്‍ മനോഹരമായ വേറെന്തെങ്കിലും സ്ഥലങ്ങളുണ്ടോ എന്നു തിരയാനും ഇതുവഴി സാധിക്കും. ഏകദേശം എത്ര സമയം യാത്രയ്ക്കെടുക്കും? എവിടെയെല്ലാം നിര്‍ത്തേണ്ടി വരും? എവിടെ നിന്നു ഭക്ഷണം കഴിക്കാം? നല്ല  ഭക്ഷണം കിട്ടുന്ന സ്ഥലങ്ങളുണ്ടോ? എന്നിങ്ങനെ നിരവധി ചോദ്യങ്ങള്‍ക്കുള്ള ഉത്തരം കയ്യിലുണ്ടെങ്കില്‍ ആ യാത്രയില്‍ നിങ്ങളൊരു ട്രാവല്‍ എക്‌സ്പര്‍ട്ട് തന്നെയായി മാറും. 

ട്രാവല്‍ ഇന്‍ഷുറന്‍സ് 

ദിവസങ്ങളും ആഴ്ചകളും റോഡ് ട്രിപ്പുകളില്‍ ട്രാവല്‍ ഇന്‍ഷുറന്‍സ് എടുക്കുകയെന്നതു നിര്‍ണായകമായ നീക്കമാണ്. ഭൂരിഭാഗം യാത്രികരും ഇക്കാര്യത്തില്‍ അര്‍ഹിക്കുന്ന പ്രാധാന്യം നല്‍കുന്നുണ്ടോ എന്നു സംശയമാണ്. നമ്മുടെ യാത്രാ ചെലവുകളില്‍ ട്രാവല്‍ ഇന്‍ഷുറന്‍സുകള്‍ ഉള്‍പ്പെടാറില്ല. അപ്രതീക്ഷികതമായുണ്ടാവുന്ന അപകടങ്ങള്‍ക്കും യാത്ര പൂര്‍ത്തിയാക്കാന്‍ പറ്റാത്ത സാഹചര്യത്തിലുമെല്ലാം ട്രാവല്‍ ഇന്‍ഷുറന്‍സുകള്‍ നല്‍കുന്ന ആശ്വാസം ചെറുതല്ല. യാത്രയിലും ജീവിതത്തിലും സമാധാനം വളരെ പ്രധാനപ്പെട്ടതാണ്. പ്രീമിയത്തിനൊപ്പം കവറേജ് സംബന്ധിച്ച വിശദാംശങ്ങളും മനസ്സിലാക്കിയ ശേഷം മാത്രം യോജിച്ച ട്രാവല്‍ ഇന്‍ഷുറന്‍സ് എടുക്കുക. 

കാറിന്റെ അവസ്ഥ

യാത്രകള്‍ക്കു മുമ്പു തന്നെ കാറിന്റെ കണ്ടീഷന്‍ ഉഗ്രനാണെന്ന് ഉറപ്പു വരുത്തേണ്ടതുണ്ട്. ഓയില്‍ ചെയ്ഞ്ചുകള്‍ ടയര്‍ പ്രഷറും ടയറിന്റെ കണ്ടീഷനും ലൈറ്റുകളുടെ പ്രവര്‍ത്തനം ഇവയെല്ലാം ഉറപ്പിക്കണം. നിങ്ങളുടെ വാഹന മെക്കാനിക്കിനെ കൊണ്ട് വാഹനം നോക്കിപ്പിക്കുന്നതാണ് ഏറ്റവും ഉചിതം. വഴിയില്‍ അപ്രതീക്ഷിതമായി സംഭവിച്ചേക്കാവുന്ന ബ്രേക്ക് ഡൗണ്‍ ഇതുവഴി ഒഴിവാക്കാനാവും. കാറുകള്‍ നല്ല കണ്ടീഷനല്ലെങ്കില്‍ യാത്രകളുടെ രസം കളയാനും യാത്ര തന്നെ മുടക്കാനും ഇതു ധാരാളം മതി. 

കുടുംബമായും മറ്റും കാറില്‍ യാത്ര ചെയ്യുമ്പോള്‍ അത്യാവശ്യം സാധനങ്ങള്‍ കൂടെ കരുതേണ്ടി വരും. ഇതാണ് ശ്രദ്ധയോടെ സാധനങ്ങളും ബാഗുകളുമെല്ലാം ക്രമീകരിക്കേണ്ട ആവശ്യകതയിലേക്കു വിരല്‍ ചൂണ്ടുന്നത്. യാത്രയ്ക്കിടെ ആവശ്യം വരുന്ന സാധനങ്ങള്‍ പ്രത്യേകം ഒരു ബാഗിലേക്കു മാറ്റുന്നതു നന്നായിരിക്കും. ലഘുഭക്ഷണങ്ങളും വെള്ളവുമെല്ലാം കയ്യെത്തും ദൂരത്തു വയ്ക്കാം. പണവും തിരിച്ചറിയല്‍ രേഖകളുമുള്ള പേഴ്‌സും അടുത്തു തന്നെ വയ്ക്കണം. ശ്രദ്ധയോടെ സാധനങ്ങള്‍ അടുക്കി വയ്ക്കുന്നതു സമയം ലാഭിക്കാനും ആവശ്യത്തിനു മാത്രം സാധനങ്ങളെടുക്കാനും അനാവശ്യ സമ്മര്‍ദം ഇല്ലാതാക്കാനും സഹായിക്കും. 

സാങ്കേതികവിദ്യ ആവശ്യത്തിന്

ജിപിഎസും ട്രാവല്‍ ആപ്പുകളുമെല്ലാം നമ്മുടെ യാത്രകളെ അടി മുടി മാറ്റിയെന്നതു സത്യമാണ്. വഴിയറിയുന്ന ഒരാള്‍ പോലും കൂടെയില്ലെങ്കിലും ആരോടും ചോദിക്കാതെ ഇന്നു വരെ പോവാത്ത സ്ഥലങ്ങളിലേക്കു പോവാനുള്ള ധൈര്യം ഇത്തരം സാങ്കേതികവിദ്യകള്‍ കൊണ്ടാണ് നമുക്ക് ലഭിക്കുന്നത്. അങ്ങനെ പോവുമ്പോള്‍ ഒരിക്കലെങ്കിലും പണി കിട്ടാത്തവര്‍ ചുരുക്കമായിരിക്കും. സമര്‍ഥമായി മാത്രം ജിപിഎസ് സംവിധാനം ഉപയോഗിക്കുക. വഴി ചോദിക്കേണ്ട സമയങ്ങളില്‍ ചോദിച്ചു തന്നെ മുന്നോട്ടു പോവണം. പോവുന്ന വഴിയില്‍ കാണുന്ന ചായക്കടയിലോ കരിക്കോ ജ്യൂസോ വില്‍ക്കുന്ന കടയിലോ കയറി എന്തെങ്കിലും കഴിച്ചോ കുടിച്ചോ സാവധാനം വഴിയും ചോദിച്ചു പോവുന്നതു തന്നെ യാത്രയില്‍ അനുഭവമായിരിക്കും. ജിപിഎസ് ലക്ഷ്യത്തിലേക്കല്ലല്ലോ അനുഭവങ്ങള്‍ക്കു വേണ്ടിയാണല്ലോ നമ്മുടെയെല്ലാം യാത്രകള്‍. 

ഒരു യാത്രയില്‍ ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതല്‍ പ്രാധാന്യം എന്തിനു നല്‍കണം എന്നു ചോദിച്ചാല്‍ ഉത്തരം സുരക്ഷയ്ക്ക് എന്നായിരിക്കണം. എന്തു കാരണം കൊണ്ടാണെങ്കിലു ധൃതി പിടിച്ച് അമിത വേഗത്തില്‍ മുന്‍ പരിചയമില്ലാത്ത വഴികളിലൂടെ കാര്‍ ഓടിക്കുന്നത് അപകടം ക്ഷണിച്ചു വരുത്തുന്നതു പോലെയാണ്. രാത്രി സമയത്തെ ഡ്രൈവിങ് പരമാവധി ഒഴിവാക്കണം. ഫസ്റ്റ് എയ്ഡ് കിറ്റിനൊപ്പം അത്യാവശ്യം മരുന്നും ടോര്‍ച്ചും ബ്ലാങ്കറ്റുകളുമെല്ലാം കരുതണം. 

പോവുന്ന സ്ഥലത്തെ കാലാവസ്ഥയെക്കുറിച്ച് മുന്‍കൂട്ടി അറിയുന്നതു നല്ലതാണ്. ഇതിന് അനുസരിച്ചു വേണം വസ്ത്രങ്ങളും മറ്റും എടുക്കാന്‍. ചൂടു കൂടിയ സ്ഥലത്തേക്ക് ഓവര്‍കോട്ട് ധരിച്ചു പോവുന്നതോ തണുത്തുറഞ്ഞ സ്ഥലത്തേക്ക് ടീഷര്‍ട്ടിട്ടു പോവുന്നതോ ബുദ്ധിപരമായ തീരുമാനമായിരിക്കില്ല. ഗതാഗതക്കുരുക്കുകളോ പ്രകൃതി ദുരന്തങ്ങളോ നമ്മുടെ ലക്ഷ്യങ്ങളിലുണ്ടെങ്കില്‍ നേരത്തെ അറിയുന്നതു സഹായകരമാവും. യാത്രാ സംഘത്തിലെ ആര്‍ക്കെങ്കിലും ആരോഗ്യ പ്രശ്‌നങ്ങളുണ്ടെങ്കില്‍ ഡോക്ടറെ കണ്ട് വിദഗ്ധാഭിപ്രായം തേടിയ ശേഷം മാത്രം അന്തിമ തീരുമാനങ്ങളെടുക്കുക. യാത്രകള്‍ ദുരന്തമാവാതിരിക്കാന്‍ ഏറ്റവും കൂടുതല്‍ പ്രാധാന്യം സുരക്ഷയ്ക്ക് തന്നെ നല്‍കണം. 

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