It’s been nine years since I visited New Zealand for a once-in-a-lifetime holiday with my wife and son. We planned the adventure with input from family members, friends who had visited the country, and a few natives dotted around the country itself. Despite all this wealth of knowledge and lived experience, the three-week trip still took the best part of a year to plan.
The trip ended up being absolutely incredible, thanks for asking, but the complication of planning everything could easily have derailed the whole experience. We may have even decided not to travel on account of the logistical challenges.
Since returning, I’ve discovered an app that I wish I’d known about during the planning stage of our trip. It’s called RoadTrippers, and it functions as a planner that creates a detailed breakdown and itinerary that you can use to keep things on track as you navigate around a new place.
Homescreen heroes
This is part of a regular series of articles exploring the apps that we couldn’t live without. Read them all here.
These types of planners are not for everyone, and I appreciate that you could argue that it takes some of the fun out of the potentially enjoyable part of investigating options and making plans. But, if you’re happy putting your trip into the hands of an app, then there’s nothing better than RoadTrippers. Let’s dive in and see whether this app will revolutionize your next holiday.
Planning a trip like a human
The very first step after launching the RoadTrippers app is to enter your start location, followed by an end destination. Nothing novel so far. From there, you have the choice to either plan the trip yourself or let RoadTrippers plan it for you, thanks to, you guessed it, AI.
To begin with, I wanted to try out the standard functionality, so I decided to plan a trip myself. RoadTrippers quickly presents the itinerary as a list of waypoints, each of which is editable, meaning you can add specific information, including arrival dates, spending budget while at each place, and even hotel reservation numbers. This functionality does away with any need for carrying lots of documents while you’re traveling. Happy times.
After setting the from and to locations, as well as adding any other specific waypoints, you’re now ready to add in other stops, including restaurants, bars, activities, fuel stops, and more. You might want to add places you already know about or that friends have recommended, but it’s also possible to search along your route within a set deviation distance. For those like me, who love to explore places and make stops along routes, this is a fantastic feature.
While planning stops, it’s possible to delve deeper into each stop location with details including websites, opening times, and addresses, and you can even see the location’s Yelp star rating. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to read these reviews within the app, which is probably my biggest bugbear from my overall RoadTrippers experience.
Finally, you can add trip collaborators, which is a fantastic feature if you’re traveling with family members or friends. Each person can be given different privileges, so if you’d like someone else to join you on your ‘planning committee,’ then that’s possible too.
Planning a trip like a computer
Manual trip planning is all well and good, but if you don’t have the time or inclination, then the new Autopilot feature built right into the heart of the app is going to be your new best friend. All you have to do is enter your from and to locations, answer a few simple questions, and Autopilot will generate a personalized itinerary.
RoadTrippers will take your answers, make cross-references with over 38 million trips that real travelers have made, and present you with options that you can then further customize to your heart’s content. I was doubtful at first, but it is really quite good. I found it perfect for those parts of my trip where I was done with making decisions and just wanted someone (or something) else to take control.
With the trip all set up and personalized, you’ll want to turn on notifications for the app. That way, you’ll receive trip information and essential updates and get directions.
Take control of your next road trip
RoadTrippers is one of the best trip planning apps around, but if you want the full benefits, it’ll cost you $59.99 a year. The Premium subscription gives you access to Autopilot and other features, which I’d argue you really need to make having the app worthwhile.
The app is only available for planning trips in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, so if that applies to you, why not download RoadTrippers on iOS or Android and try the 7-day free trial?
