Road trips are a truly epic form of travel that every adventurer should experience at least once. But with so much to plan it can be hard to even know where to start. With my experience planning and executing road trips, I have created a comprehensive guide on exactly how to plan your first road trip !
The very nature of a road trip screams ADVENTURE!
Driving long hours on the open road, exploring new exciting destinations, living out of your vehicle for the trip, vibing to good music, and bonding with yourself or whoever you’re with. Road trips can be truly EPIC!
Road trips take up an entire category of adventure on their own and are a completely different way to travel. I am a strong believer that a road trip should be on every adventure traveller’s bucket list.
But where do you even begin? Sitting down to start planning a road trip with multiple stops can be so intimidating. With so many destinations, activities to do, logistics to figure out, it can be overwhelming to know how to go about planning your first road trip.
I faced this exact problem when I planned my first road trip back in 2018. I had no idea where to start, how to budget the trip, and I definitely forgot to consider a few things along the way. Like where the heck was I supposed to do laundry??? There were so many things to plan that I had to just dive in and learn as I went.
But the great news is, you don’t need to learn as you go! After successfully planning and executing my own road trips, I have learned so much and am here to tell you exactly how you should plan your first road trip completely from scratch. I’ve got your back!
I have created this comprehensive, tried and true guide on how to successfully plan your first road trip from start to finish using google maps. Broken down into 12 steps, here is exactly how to plan the road trip of your dreams.
A Step-By-Step Guide to Planning Your First Road Trip
Step 1: Choose Your Major Destination
The first step in learning how to plan your first road trip is to decide on a major destination. Whether you have a final destination in mind or not, you should determine a “major” or “final” stop as a starting point. Even if this is just one exciting spot you for sure want to visit, it is good to have one in mind to help guide the route for your itinerary.
For example, when I planned my own first road trip from Toronto, Canada, I knew that the ultimate goal was to make it to the Grand Canyon. This was an excellent starting point in determining what a reasonable route was, while still getting to check off some other exciting spots along the way.
Step 2: Determine Your Vehicle Logistics (If Applicable)
The next step in the process is determining the rough logistics of your transportation. This step only applies if you intend to rent a vehicle.
First you’ll want to decide what type of vehicle you need for the your road trip. Some opt for Rv’s or camper vans that will double as your accommodation for the trip. Others simply choose a vehicle large enough to transport them and their belongings between destinations. Whichever of these you are, this is the time to figure it out.
If you have rough dates in mind already, now would be a good chance to check out if the vehicle of your choice is available. You can also determine a rough cost at this point that will help you with budgeting in a later step.
Make note of these plans, but hold off on booking them until you have a rough plan for the rest of your trip.
Step 3: The Dream Stage – Pin Point All Potential Stops
3 a) Identify All Road Trip Stops You’d Love to Visit
Now for my favourite step in the planning process… picking out any and all destinations you’d like to visit.
For this part, don’t hold back! Think of all the stops you’d like to make within a somewhat reasonable distance of your main destination (eg. within the same country or region). For example, if you are planning a road trip in the US, think of all the destinations within the country you’d love to see.
Do some research! If you are looking for hiking and outdoor adventuring in the US, then google the best national parks. At this point, don’t worry about where each stop is located and if it will fit into the itinerary. Simply record every single spot you would like to see.
Keep in mind throughout this process that you might not actually be able to hit every single destination spot you record. Unless you have a lot of time and flexibility, you will likely have to narrow it down.
3 b) Use Google Maps to Pin Point These Destinations
As you identify potential road trip spots, I highly recommend you use Google’s My Maps. If you have a gmail account all you need to do is sign in and its completely FREE.
Here’s the Link | https://www.google.ca/maps/about/mymaps/
You can create a map for your road trip and pin point all the destinations you identified above. To do this you simply type in a destination in the top search bar. Then you click “add to maps”.
From here you can customize the colour, add notes, and photos.
Bonus Tip | When you first pin all the destinations, customize the colour in rank of priority. For example, pin all the destinations you really want to make happen in one colour. Then choose a different colour for the other spots you’d like to visit but would be ok if not. This will help narrow it down in the route planning stage.
Laying out your desired stops on a map helps you visualize all the destinations you are interested in visiting. This will make it way easier to conceptualize a route that bangs off as many of your dream spots as you can.
Step 4: Determine Your Maximum Road Trip Budget and Trip Length
It is still not time to narrow down the route for your road trip just yet. Before this, you’ll need to determine the maximum budget you can afford and the length of your trip. This will give you a great guideline for narrowing down your destinations list to what can realistically fit within these parameters.
The reason I put these two together is because they will heavily relate and influence each other. For example, if you have a max budget, the length of your trip will be partially determined by how many days you can afford to be travelling.
If you are pretty flexible for both budget and trip length, then create a rough idea of how long you’d like to be travelling for. You can always adjust this later.
Step 5: Choose Your Road Trip Route
Alright, now that you have a rough idea of where you’d like to go, how long your road trip will be, and roughly how much you can afford, it is time to narrow down a route. Here’s how you do it:
5 a) Narrow Down Your List to Top Priority Destinations
Out of all the destinations you chose, examine where your top priorities are located. Start trying to see a route you could take to hit all or most of them. The map will help you start to visualize a route for this. You should look for a reasonable route that takes you towards your main destination point chosen in step 1.
This is the stage to be realistic about what you can accomplish in your designated time frame.
Maybe you take a circular approach in your route, or maybe you drive there and back to your major destination. Identify which pins you’d like to see the most, and a general route that makes that possible.
5 b) Determine Your Length of Stay in Each Destination
Now it is time to further develop your itinerary by choosing how long you’ll be staying in each spot. Make sure that you do not stretch your itinerary too thin. You may want to see as much as possible on your trip, but if you are rushing through each destination you are going to miss out on a lot of what each spot has to offer. Depending on the length of your trip, you could also experience some serious travel burn out.
For this part, do a little research into each of the destinations you are hoping to visit. Find out what kind of activities you’ll want to do in each. Discover roughly how long is a good amount of time to spend there.
You’ll also want to leave room in your itinerary for a little bit of flexibility. What if you get a flat tire and have to spend part of your day at the garage? You don’t want to put yourself in a position where interruptions like that could derail your entire road trip.
Or perhaps you get to a destination and find it is way cooler than you thought and want to stay a little bit longer. Leaving room for an extra day or even just an extra half day can help.
5 c) Determining Drive Time to Allow for Flexibility
One way you can increase the amount of flexibility in your road trip itinerary is to simply not budget too much driving time for each day. For example, instead of planning for several 12 hour days, maybe budget about 8 hours / day on average. That way if you decide to stay a half day longer at one spot, you can easily make up the extra driving the next day.
Allow for a little spontaneity!
When I visited the Badlands on my 2018 road trip, I realized I had seen everything in a full day less than I intended to stay. So I took the longer scenic route that brought me the best driving of my entire trip. I found an amazing cliffside coffee shop in the middle of nowhere. It had amazing views and ended up being a highlight of the trip.
5 d) Finalize (Almost) Your Road Trip Route
Now that you have chosen a rough route and how many days you’d want to stay in each spot, you can finalize your route. If the amount of days you wanted to spend in each destination pushed you over your time limit for reaching all your destinations, then narrow it down further.
This will also be the point where you can look at where you are going to stop between your destinations. For example, if it takes a few 8 hour days to drive between two of your destinations, you can look at where you will be sleeping for these drive days.
You can pin point exact camp grounds or hotels that you want to stay at for these drive days. However, if you are like me and are just planning to stay in random hotels and motels along the route, then you can simply record rough cities that you intend to stop and find hotels in. Doing this left the schedule way more flexible, in case we wanted to do extra driving to push to our destination a bit sooner.
In Google’s My Maps you can actually label the spots you are planning to sleep in with a specific accommodation icon.
Step 6: Determine Your Accommodation Locations
The next step in planning your first road trip, is arranging your accommodation.
First consider, do you want to camp? Sleep overnight in your vehicle in Walmart parking lots? Stay in hotels? Maybe a mixture of all 3?
Either way, it’s important to figure out where you are planning to sleep while you are away. It also provides a good framework for further planning the trip, because all the other logistics will work around this.
In this stage you can find exact campsites, hotels or other spots that you intend to stay at.
Consider the distance from your accommodation to the activities you want to do in each of your destinations. This may seem pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised at how this can sneak up on you.
When I planned my US Grand Canyon road trip, I intended to visit Yellowstone National Park. When we went to book our accommodation in the park, they only had campsites located 30 minutes just outside the park.
At the time, I thought 30 minutes was not bad at all. However, upon further research I realized how big Yellowstone is. While a 30 minute drive to the entrance of the park was not bad, it was actually roughly 3+ hours to get into the main part of the park where all the spots we wanted to see were located. Obviously that was a no go.
As a result, I ended up taking Yellowstone off of the itinerary and dedicated some extra time to the other destinations I already chose.
Step 7: Get Organized by Recording Your Itinerary in a Trip Planner
With a road trip, there are so many different destinations, accommodations, activities, and other logistics. It is super important to be organized and have all this information in one spot that is easy to see and access.
This is the point where I ended up writing out my own trip planning itinerary. I wrote out where I was going to be each day of the road trip. Then I recorded specifically which hotel, campsite or city I was planning to stay at within those areas. And finally, the cost for the night.
Guys, I can’t even explain to you how much this helped! Believe me when I tell you that having a trip planner that creates one stop access to all your road trip information is a life saver. Not only does it create a clear image of where you will be each night, it also keeps track of budget and any confirmation information you’ll need to access on the trip.
The great news is…. I have created a FREE downloadable trip planner just for this purpose! It is a tried and true planner that models the exact one I used for planning my own road trip. I basically took the sloppy one I made and made it even more organized for you.
Subscribe below to access your exclusive trip planner for FREE!
Step 8: Book Your Flights, Vehicle and Accommodation
This step is pretty straightforward. You have planned out your entire itinerary and understand how it all fits into your budget. You have dates set and know where you will be staying for each night of the trip. Now all you need to do is start booking.
First, book your flights. This is the most expensive option and the least flexible, so it is important to do this first. If the flight dates available don’t work with your original plan, you can adjust your itinerary to make it work around this. However, it is much harder to do this if you have already booked your accommodation and activities.
Second, book your vehicle. If your vehicle is your accommodation (i.e. an RV or camper van) then you are all set to move on to step 9.
Finally, book your accommodation. This is the most flexible and therefore should be booked last. Simply run through the list you created in step 6 and book each spot you already decided to stay. I recommend doing this in order from your start date/destination so that if accommodation is fully booked in one of your spots, it will be easier to adjust the route moving forward. For example, when I realized I had to cut out Yellowstone National Park from my US Grand Canyon road trip itinerary, I was able to just add those extra days on to destinations that came after it without having to adjust any already made bookings.
Helpful Tip | Record all your confirmation numbers and other similar information for your flights and vehicle in your trip planner. That way, you have access to all the information you could ever need for your trip in one unified spot!
Step 9: Book Your Activities
Next, its time to make a list of all the activities you are going to be doing along the way. You may have already gotten a rough idea of what these activities are going to be from the itinerary building phases.
Even if most of the activities you plan to do are technically free, such as hiking, you should have a rough plan of the specific ones you’ll be wanting to do in each location. This will ensure you don’t miss any hard to think of expenses. A good example of this is with hiking. While hiking itself is technically free, there could be costs associated with park entrance or parking that might be overlooked.
When planning my US road trip, I knew I wanted to visit Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. When researching if there were any entrance fees, I discovered that the canyon is actually fully restricted to pre-booked tours. Imagine if I had shown up and found this out, it would have been too late to book!
This is also an important step if you are going to be doing any activities that you do need to actually book and pay for. For example, I found some awesome rafting tours in Moab, Utah and I had to book this in advance.
Book these trips and add all the confirmation numbers and costs to your handy trip itinerary planner.
Step 10: Buy Travel Insurance
Now that you have your road trip route, transportation and activities finalized, you can and absolutely SHOULD buy yourself some travel insurance.
I am a huge advocate for travel insurance being a necessity when you travel.
Make sure that if any of your activities you’ll be doing on the trip are outside of typical insurance coverage, you top that up. Activities that fit into the extreme sports category is an example, such as white water rafting, outdoor rock climbing, and sometimes hiking if it reaches certain altitudes.
My go to for travel insurance is World Nomads
Step 11: Determine What Equipment You’ll Need to Bring
Lets talk about packing. Obviously the thorough packing lists don’t need to be addressed until closer to your departure, but it is a great idea to make a rough one sooner than later. This will help give you an idea of any items you intend to bring that you may need to purchase or borrow before the trip.
For example, if you intend to do a lot of your own cooking, then you may need to source a cooking stove or coolers. Having a packing list will prevent any last minute scrambling as you realize what you need to bring.
It will also work into your budget, as your pre-departure expenses can add up.
Step 12: Take Care of Final Logistics
Now that your trip is fully booked, it is time to take care of any other final logistics that are easy to overlook. Some of these may include:
- Book a car appointment to get your vehicle checked and fine tuned before your road trip
- Potentially get roadside assistance if you want the added reassurance in case your vehicle experiences troubles on the road
- Tie up personal loose ends such as booking time off work, getting a dog sitter, etc.
- Purchase the local currency if you plan to use a lot of cash
You can make a list of all of these that need to be addressed before leaving. I recommend keeping it as a running list in case you think of something you originally left out.
Final Thoughts on How to Successfully Plan Your First Road Trip
Congrats! You now have all the steps and are ready to plan your first road trip.
From figuring out which destinations to visit to finding accommodation, planning your first road trip can be quite an intimidating task. It can be hard to think of everything that goes into this complicated form of travel, but the end goal is sooooo rewarding.
A road trip can truly be an adventure of a life time, so it’s important to be thorough and organized in the planning process. With these 12 steps, you don’t need to worry about the mess of the process and can simply plan out the whole trip in a cohesive and organized fashion.
Make the planning process even more organized by downloading my FREE trip planner that is an exact model of the one I use to plan my road trips. All you have to do is subscribe below so I can send it to you (I promise no spam and you can unsubscribe any time).
You are officially all set to plan the road trip of your dreams.
Happy adventuring!
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