Are you planning a road trip?

Do you have a few days off and are determined to not let a minute of it slip by?  

Do you have an entire summer to explore destinations you have only dreamed of?      

If so, then you are in the right place.  This guide will give you the essential tools and resources needed to plan the perfect road trip!

I admit I sometimes begin planning a road trip when I’m stressed and need something to look forward to. I describe some of the health challenges faced by my family in About. Spending time researching unfamiliar cities has been a great distraction for extended visits to the hospital. We have gone on some of those trips. Others are still dreams I add to when I discover an interesting attraction or landmark along the way. Planning can be part of the adventure!

Key Factors When Planning A Road Trip

For me, planning the perfect road trip comes down to the interplay of five factors: transportation, lodging, location, time, and cost. Finding the perfect balance of these five is essential for planning the itinerary. I’ll briefly discuss some of the considerations within each of these factors.

Type of Transportation

How we plan to travel will narrow down the possible destinations. In general, if we are driving, I like to limit us to 6 to 8 hours per day on the road. Your daily limits may differ from mine depending on your personal preferences. The time spent on the road will determine the number of cities or areas you can visit. If we are flying to the starting point of the road trip, then I limit us to the direct flight locations of the carrier I have chosen. The inside of multiple airports is not a vacation for our family! Keep in mind that the length of time traveling per day may impact you. Feeling sluggish the next day as you rebound from traveling can easily interfere with your plans.  

Type of Lodging

The type of lodging is another factor to consider. For us, this is typically a chain hotel or a resort. For others, this includes camping or RVing. I dream of van life and stealth camping in the future! Until then, we prefer the Hilton brands of hotels. We can check in on their app and quickly earn rewards for future stays. AAA rates can also provide nightly savings when booking your travel. We save more annually than the cost of the membership.

In recent years, our road trips have been determined by a combination of family commitments and bucket list travel dreams. You’ll likely find your travel destinations change over time as well.

Another way that our road trips have changed in recent years is the number of cities or areas we visit in one trip. When the kids were younger, we tended to visit one destination and stay in the same hotel room the entire trip. All of our recent road trips have involved multiple destinations and moving hotel rooms every night or two. They are both great ways to travel. The first lets you settle into an area and explore all it has to offer. The latter option lets you see so many different places and things. There is no correct way to road trip, just pick what feels right for you.

Length of Time

Planning your road trip as a quick weekend getaway or a one-month epic trip is largely dependent upon how long you can get away from home. This will differ for each person. Work responsibilities, school, pets, and prior commitments will all have an influence. Our most recent three-week road trip was several years of dreaming before a year of planning to ensure we could travel for an extended period.   

The Cost of Travel

No road trip planning blog post would be complete without addressing the cost. All of the above factors will influence your final cost. On road trips, we like to stay at one unique hotel, lodge, or resort. Typically, this reservation cost more than a chain hotel room. Besides lodging, the activities we select along the way and at the final destination tend to have the biggest impact on our budget.  Selecting free or inexpensive activities can help you stay within your budget.  Entry fees into national parks and state parks are often inexpensive. Utilizing reciprocal admissions agreements for any memberships you have is also a great way to experience destinations at a reduced fee. For example, our family has a membership with our local botanical garden. This allows us to visit over 320 other botanical gardens around the US for a reduced fee or for free.

Recording Your Travel Plan

As you research road trip destinations, keeping track of restaurants, activities and lodging can be challenging, especially if you are planning well in advance of your trip or just researching ideas every so often. Keeping all of the information in one place saves you from searching for that link, article, or recommendation you read a few weeks prior.

Google Slides

I document all of my road trip ideas and plans in Google Slides because it is easy to access on any of my devices and I can include a variety of different data types in the slides. As my plans change and evolve, I can easily move the slides around or add additional ones. I even include screenshots of reservations, so all of my essential information is in one place. I am often dreaming of more than one trip at a time, so Google Slides is one of my favorite tools to keep everything organize.

Final Itinerary

Before we leave, I record the most essential details for each day of our trip in one form. I like to keep this to one to two pages so that I’m not searching through a stack of papers or files when I’m looking for addresses or confirmation numbers. I like to screenshot the itinerary and then set the photo as my home screen on my phone. This allows me to always have the essential details right at my fingertips. I’m happy to share the editable file I use for recording our itinerary.

The Best Sources to Find Road Trip Ideas

Pinterest

Pinterest is, of course, a great way to find information about your destination. I like to keep boards with broad categories such as the North East, Northern Midwest, etc. It not only lets me quickly save pins if I see something interesting, but it also makes it easier to find stops along the road trip route. It also keeps the board more timeless for me. There’s always more to experience in a region than we can squeeze into one trip. Keeping the board as a broad category means I can continue to add to it and use it for future road trip planning. When I find a destination I want to include in our road trip, I add the information and link(s) to my Google Slides. If I find a piece of information on a link particularly helpful, I’ll take a screenshot and add it and the link to the slide. 

Interent Searches

Again, an obvious suggestion, but still worth stating. I find broad internet searches with specific criteria can allow me to customize my planning. For example, I may search a broad geographical area with the specific criteria of wheelchair accessibility. This type of search has led to some great finds for us. For example, this type of search found a wheel-chair accessible miniature golf course in the area we were traveling to. For our family, that was a huge win because almost all miniature golf courses are inaccessible. This allowed us to do something that we enjoyed but typically avoided because our daughter couldn’t be included.

Internet searches are partially helpful when you want to find current details about a location. I always check updated hours and pricing. Not all locations are open 7 days a week! Pinterest links are not always removed or updated if a location closes or makes significant changes. Searching the business, park, or activity website before a trip can avoid disappointment and wasted time.   

Other Internet searches that can yield helpful results are visitor bureaus or tourism offices. You can often search by destination, city, county, or state. These sites are not only a wealth of knowledge for the area, they often have coupons or discount codes for you to use. Many will have a digital visitor’s guidebook to immediately preview. I often request a paper copy and let the kids read it as we are traveling to the area. 

Locations Based on Theme

Searching for information based on a theme is another great source of information for planning a road trip. Popular themes include national parks, professional stadiums, and Route 66. Searching for organizations related to a hobby allows you to further personalize the trip. My daughter enjoys nighttime photography. The International Dark-Sky Association has a list of ideal locations to visit.

Step 1 – Select The Key Locations

The key locations are the definite places we want to visit on the trip. These are the stops I am going to build our trip around. I typically identify several key locations for each trip. Oftentimes we have to narrow down the selection because there just isn’t time for everything. When selecting our key locations, I pay particular attention to their hours, especially days of the week they are not open. If tickets or reservations are required, I purchase as soon as the itinerary is confirmed. If I am planning a portion of the trip around a specific event, tour or activity, I want to ensure that we will be able to do it. I note the open hours and the times of any shows or activities in Google Slides.

Step 2 – Enter the Key Locations into Mapquest.com

I enter the key location addresses into the directions page of Mapquest.com. I make sure my home address is the first and last stop. Next I toggle the slide button labeled “Re-Order stops for the most optimized route”. Mapquest then calculates the shortest route among my key locations. By clicking on “Get Directions”, the mileage and estimated time between stops are also listed. 

Step 3 Itinerary and Timeline

I use the driving route to plan the timeline in my itinerary. In Google Slides, I create a table with five columns using the following headings: Date, Location, Miles/Time, Activities, and Cost. I estimate the amount of time needed for each key location and the driving time from one key location to the next. At this point, I’m able to break my trips into days. 

Step 4 Filler Locations

Finding additional filler experiences along the route has resulted in some of our best memories. Once I know our route and the time we’ll stay at each key location, I can determine if I need to find any locations or activities to fill our time. I look through my notes to see if I have recorded any interesting sites along the route. If so, I add those to our itinerary. If I need additional filler, I search Pinterest or the internet for things to do in the cities along the route. I typically set a limit of approximately 30 miles off of the route for a filler experience. A quick word of advice is to plan carefully otherwise these experiences can quickly add up in cost.

Step 5 – Select Lodging

Using the table I’ve created, I decide if we will stay in the current city or drive part of or all of the way to the area we will be visiting the next day. If we want an early start at the next location, we will often drive at least part way the evening prior. Once I know the city or area, I begin to search for a hotel. Many of the hotel websites allow you to search by a map. I follow our route on the map and select the hotel based on price, location, and availability. I record the reservation number in Google Slides.

My Best Advice for Planning a Road Trip

Be flexible in your planning!

Be willing to adjust your itinerary if your family is too tired or if you discover something your family wants to do.  Taking a little time off to rest can improve moods!  Likewise, the “out of the way” drive or last-minute reservation may lead to the best memories of your road trip. 

What are your favorite sources for road trip planning?