The 5 Best Apps to Make Every Road Trip Easier

Take the stress out of planning a road trip with these genius phone apps that will make your journey go a lot smoother

Back in the day, planning a road trip meant grabbing the atlas and mapping out your route, booking hotels in advance, and stopping at a restaurant at the turnoff you passed while everyone in the car was hungry.

Then came the handheld GPS devices, followed by the smartphone days. Suddenly, mapping your route was a breeze — and thanks to a slew of apps that have popped up, finding the best food, having in-car entertainment everyone can agree on, and finding quirky places to stop along the way is a breeze, too. Whether you’re just looking to take the fastest route to your vacation or get the most out of your drive, here are our top picks for apps to make your road trip easier.

Roadtrippers

A free app that helps you plan your road trip? Believe it or not. Roadtrippers makes planning your trip easier by combining a GPS system that updates in real time, integration with Google Maps and Apple Maps, a points of interest locator along your route, and the ability to read reviews of local attractions from other users.

The app features the company’s patented AI-powered travel wizard, Roadtrippers Autopilot™, which uses knowledge from a database of more than 38 million trips to help you plan your trip.

Download the app, click “start a new trip,” and you’re on your way. Enter your starting and ending points (let’s say Los Angeles to New York City). Roadtrippers can suggest the best direct route to get you there, but it also lets you plan routes with stops along the way — maybe you want to stop in Las Vegas? Roadtrippers will work out the route for you so it makes the most sense.

As you drive, you’ll get real-time updates and the chance to explore interesting places along your route, such as the world’s highest thermometer just outside Las Vegas, interesting places to eat like celebrity diners, and national parks. You can read reviews from other travelers to decide if a certain place is worth stopping at, or share your itinerary with friends.

Cost: There is a free version of the app that lets you plan trips with 7 “waypoints,” or stops along the way. The premium subscription offers an ad-free experience with 150-waypoint trips and additional user-curated content for $29.99 per year.

Guide Along

If you’ve ever wondered where you’ve been — or just find yourself getting bored easily on a long drive — this is the app for you. Formerly known as GyPSy Guide, GuideAlong is an audio guide app that uses GPS coordinates to determine your location and plays audio guide commentary based on where you are. It’s a great way to learn about interesting spots along your route and pick up fun facts you might not have heard otherwise. Launched in 2010, the app became famous for its “Road to Hana” guidebook that helps drivers navigate the 620 curves of the famous road in Maui, Hawaii, while telling them where to find everything from hidden waterfalls to black sand beaches and teaching them about Hawaiian culture.

“It’s like having a guide in your car telling you the best places to see, the history behind what you’re seeing, and all the travel tips that will help you along the way,” says Michelle Shainess, a travel enthusiast and founder of Almost There Adventures. Download the app and go on a tour before you leave home. Once downloaded, you won’t need Wi-Fi, so you won’t be bothered by bad service in the mountains.

Guidepoint has written narrated tours for national parks in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, as well as classic scenic drives like California’s Pacific Coast Highway. “My family has visited over 30 national parks, and we always use GuideAlong Tours to provide informative and entertaining commentary on our national park road trips,” Shainess says. “It makes road trips more fun and educational.”

Cost: Varies, you can buy individual guides or bundle packages. For example, the Maui Road to Hana guide is $19.99.

Top

Do you groan every time you pull out your credit card to fill up your tank during a long road trip? Upside is a popular tool for consumers to get cash back and ease the pain at the pump. A quick search for nearby stations will connect you with locations that will reward you with anywhere from 3 cents per gallon to 25 cents. In addition to gas stations, you can also shop at 100,000 grocery stores, restaurants and convenience stores nationwide, meaning you have even more reason to stock up on the tempting junk food at the convenience store.

When you arrive at your desired retailer, check in and activate the offer, using the credit card associated with your account to pay. Rewards dollars are loaded onto your account in the Upside app and can be transferred directly to your bank account, PayPal, or to a gift card for sites like Amazon.com.

Cost: Free

America along the road

Driving through Amarillo, Texas? You might want to stop by Cadillac Ranch. It’s a row of half-buried Cadillac cars sticking out of the ground and adorned with funky graffiti. Planning on visiting Cawker City, Kansas anytime soon? You’ll want to stop by the world’s largest ball of twine (well, the one with the largest circumference—there’s also one in Minnesota that’s the world’s largest, made by one man, on display at the Darwin Twine Ball Museum). Are you an art lover? Next time you’re driving through Boston, be sure to stop by The Museum of Bad Art for some conversation-starting art with your fellow travelers. These are just a few of the many quirky and unusual attractions you can find using this favorite road trip app. It’s the perfect excuse to break up your drive and see things you’d probably never make a specific trip to see, but can easily see along the way.

Roadside America prides itself on providing in-depth information and maps for the country’s funniest and weirdest attractions. And it features more than 15,000 attractions in the United States and Canada. Be sure to take advantage of the “Nearby” feature, which will show you all of these destinations that are within driving distance of wherever you are. The app gives you a map, location, phone number, and hours of operation for any of the destinations you’re interested in—luckily, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine is open 24/7 (the largest by a man, though, requires a private appointment at certain times of the year). You can save directions for offline use, and view images of attractions and read editors’ reviews to help you decide if the detour is worth it.

Cost: $2.99 ​​for 1 of 7 regions. $6.99 for all regions in the US and Canada or $1.99 per region, a la carte.

Libby

The beginning and end of a road trip are often a blast, but the middle stretch—especially if you find yourself unexpectedly stuck in traffic—can be a long one. And anyone who’s ever fruitlessly flipped through radio stations in a new market knows how annoying it can be to find a song that everyone agrees on. To pass the time, many people turn to audiobooks, which are now more available than ever before, thanks to the ability to download them straight to your phone. (And listening to them might even make you a better driver! One study found that drivers were better able to react to road hazards and adhere more to speed limits when driving on boring roads while listening to an audiobook.)

Libby is a library app that lets you borrow audiobooks, e-books, magazines, and more from your local library. Once you upload a photo of your library card, you’ll have access to millions of book titles to check out (which can be accessed offline once downloaded). It’s compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, so you can play your chosen audiobooks and control the volume right through your car’s speakers. And it has some cool features, too, like the ability to change the speed of your audiobook narration.

Each library limits how many audiobooks you can have or borrow at a time, but the average is about 15 titles. And Libby works with 90% of North American libraries.

“Audiobooks allow my son and I to explore the cultures of the cities we visit on our road trips while enjoying entertaining and relatable stories. There are so many options available on the Libby app that make our travels both educational and incredibly connecting,” said Tonya Briggs, manager of public library collection development at Libby.

Cost: Free. All you need is a library card.

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