Monday, April 6, 2015

Roadtrippers...my new favorite trip planning tool

I've recently discovered an app called Roadtrippers that is now my favorite go to app for planning our next move. 

You start by having this on the computer, using their website, which gives you a nice big screen to work from.




You start by entering the beginning and ending points.  Then the fun begins.  

I like to begin with the filter of "attractions" to see what might be fun to find along the way.  






The photo bar at the bottom shows each of your attractions planned on the way.



You can use the search button to find specific things as well.

 You click on what sounds good and it brings up a mini description of photos, as well as the website for further info (if available).  If you want to see this you simply click on "add to trip" and it's placed on your route.  Should you change your mind you just go back to it and then have an option of "remove" if you've changed your mind.

If you click on the mini selection it brings up more information and photos.  I can't wait to use the bathroom here!




Once all the oddball things I want to visit that make Left Brain roll his eyes are in place, I add the filter for campgrounds.  There is an option for hotels for people like my friends Bob and Marti who are homeless.  They say "home free".  I say "homeless".  I'm right, of course....they're just in denial.  In the example below, the one I've chosen has a number 4 on our trip.














This filter shows all the campgrounds along the route.  You can designate how many miles off the route (up to 30) that you are willing to travel to reach any of these options.



Again, each option gives a mini link and description.



Once that is clicked in the program computes the mileage from your last stop.  If I decide it's too far (or too close), I can remove it and pick another one.

You can set your miles per gallon and it will compute the final cost as well as total number of miles for the trip.  Somethings are best left to the imagination, but there's no way to turn this off that I've found.  This examples shows the cost for our whopping 6 mpg that we average.




When you to go the itinerary/print option it provides a complete listing of each stop, the miles between and even allows for notes and dates to be entered.

In the following example, I wanted to stop at the world's largest McDonalds for lunch since I know there will be adequate parking for us.

As you can see, the distance from our starting point is 56 miles and since we tend to start out about 10:00 or so this should work nicely. There's even a calendar option to show which days you plan to be at each spot.



It auto saves for you from your first time, and everything is updated immediately for you.

This is handy to print out and share for comments and any alterations to the plan as well as keying the address into the gps before driving.

There is a mobile app that goes with this and since everything is in the cloud....magically, mystically "up there somewhere", you can see the same results on the phone and then use it as the gps navigation if you chose.

Another great feature (are you loving this as much as I do yet?) is the ability to share this information with another person.  I think you can post it to Facebook as well, but not sure why I'd really want to do that.

I'm sure I'm missing some of the beauty of it yet since it's still new to me, but it's so user-friendly that I just can't not be smitten with it.  It's like discovering a new best friend.

Give it a look and I'll bet you can find some uses for it as well!

Long Live the Queen of Road Tripping

1 comment:

  1. Love your post today. I've looked at the sight but haven't used it yet. I'm guessing we will get to "share" this new best friend!

    To clarify, we are NOT in denial! Homeless implies you don't have an option. Home Free is definitely a choice we made to get the most we can out of retirement. LOL I'm guessing this banter will continue for a long time !

    I think I will try this website for our trip back to WI later this month. Guessing I will love it enough to chart Alaska for our May departure.

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