My husband and I love taking road trips together. We pride ourselves on finding the fun stuff like kitschy tourist places off the beaten path, movie filming locations, as seen on TV restaurants, and anything geek-out worthy. We often need our destinations to be within a budget as well. But who doesn’t enjoy having a nice vacation that doesn’t leave you broke at the end?
Over the years, I’ve discovered some wonderful apps that making trip planning and the travel itself more enjoyable. These apps help us to calculate our route, keep under budget and find great tourist attractions. They can be used before the trip to plan or even while on the trip to be spontaneous!
If you travel at all, you should give some of these apps a try. They could really enhance your vacation experience and help you discover something new!
Here’s my list of free apps for travelers that help plan a better road trip:
- Roadtrippers – one of my absolute favorites. You can look by city and filter what here is to see in the area. Filters like offbeat attractions, photo ops, scenic overlooks, museums and more. You can also create a driving route for your road trip and share it with friends.
- Waze – good for the actual driving part of the trip as your default GPS app. I love the ability to avoid toll roads. It’s saved us so much money over the years.
- Trip Advisor – good for checking reviews of places by other users. The community is huge.
- Roadside America – this is a gem and best kept secret of ours. This app is made in conjunction with their website. You can look by region for truly touristy type things. It does look outdated and can be hard to navigate. I like to use it to find random odd things and then add it to my list in RoadTrippers. (I actually got a pic featured on their site!)
- GasBuddy – for the long hauls where every cent counts, use this app to find the cheapest gas prices near you.
Fuel My Route – Put in your start and end location, fuel type and milage then it will tell you the best places along the route to fuel up on the way. (discontinued)- Sit or Squat – yes, this is hilarious… you can find bathrooms near you with ratings. Super useful in big cities when you’re wandering aimlessly.
- TV Food Maps – if you are like us and love checking out places as soon on shows like Man VS Food, this is your cup of tea! It will help you find noteworthy establishments worth making a pit stop.
- Road Food – similar to TV Food Maps
- Field Trip – this app runs in the background. When you’re near a place worth a detour (based on your profile of likes) it will alert you. Great for those who are spontaneous!
Have you used any of these apps on your travelers? Know another app I should add to the list? Comment below!
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Chelsie
August 2, 2015 at 9:56 pmWhere was this post two weeks ago when we were driving from california to Idaho?! haha, so helpful! Will use these on our next road trip!
Jenn
August 2, 2015 at 11:05 pmHaha! Thanks for stopping by, Chelsie. I’m thinking of updating this. Found some alternatives ????
Sarah
July 31, 2015 at 2:02 pmyes yes yes yes to all of these! I love to travel and have a whole folder of travel apps on my phone! I have never heard of field trip but, it has just been downloaded!
Have a great weekend!
Jenn
July 31, 2015 at 2:17 pmThanks for stopping by, Sarah. I could go on and on with this list. Heck, I just might. But these are my favorites!
The Southern Thing
July 31, 2015 at 1:18 pmI’ll def have to try this during my next trip!
Becky @ Disney in your Day
July 31, 2015 at 10:49 amTrip Advisor is a must, and we also use Gas Buddy and Waze. I will have to look into TV Food Maps and Field Trip, they both sound really cool! I’ve also used TripIt which is good. And this might sound basic but a weather app is very important for traveling! And if you’re going to a theme park almost all of them have their own apps now so I recommend downloading those before you go.
Jenn
July 31, 2015 at 10:51 amI forgot about apps for attractions. I was thrilled to find one for our local museums. So helpful and usually packed with info you might not otherwise know.
Clay
July 30, 2015 at 7:11 amGas Buddy has been a life saver for us many times. Never heard of Sit or Squat, but sounds very useful, so we’ll check it out. Thanks for sharing.
Jenn
July 30, 2015 at 11:02 amThanks for stopping by, Clay. Sit Or Squat is actually made by Charmin, so it’s a well run app with a fair dose of humor 😉