How to Plan a Road Trip Route

Planning a basic route

The Route tab is the starting point for most trips. Enter a starting location and a destination and RoadTrippin calculates a driving route using OSRM, an open-source routing engine — no account or API key needed.

1. Type your starting city or address in Starting Point (for example, Chicago, IL).
2. Type your destination in Destination (for example, Nashville, TN).
3. Tap Plan My Route. The full map opens with your route drawn in blue and a panel showing total distance and estimated drive time, export buttons, and the option to add points of interest.

You can use any combination of city names, addresses, or landmarks for your start, stops, and destination. Well-known names with a state (such as Denver, CO) give the most reliable results.

Adding stops along the way

1. Tap Add a Stop Along the Way to add a waypoint between your start and destination.
2. Enter the stop's name or city. Repeat for as many stops as you need.
3. Tap the ✕ next to any stop to remove it, then tap Plan My Route again to recalculate.

Stops are routed in the order they're listed, so arrange them before planning. Drive time is based on typical road speeds and doesn't account for traffic, so leave yourself some slack on busy days.

Finding points of interest along your route

Once a route is planned, RoadTrippin can search the corridor around your drive for places worth stopping at.

1. On the map panel that opens after planning (or further down the Route tab), find Add points of interest along the route.
2. Select any combination of Parks, Museums, Historic Sites, Viewpoints, and Trailheads.
3. Tap Find Points of Interest. Every matching stop within your drive corridor appears on the map with its own list, and each one has a ✕ Remove button in case you don't want it.

Once stops appear, the map panel folds into a Route tools pill in the corner — tap it to get the buttons back. Longer routes (500+ miles) produce the most results because the search area is larger. Looking for geocaches specifically? Those have their own Geocaches section.

Taking your route with you

As soon as a route is planned, export buttons appear on the map panel and again in the Export section lower in the Route tab:

• Directions — a written, turn-by-turn list of every step of the drive, inside the app.
• GPX File — downloads a .gpx file with your full route track and every point of interest as a named waypoint. Import it into Garmin devices, OsmAnd, Maps.me, AllTrails, Komoot, or any GPX-compatible app.
• Google Maps — opens Google Maps with your start, end, and up to 8 stops pre-loaded. Tap Directions or Start in Google Maps for turn-by-turn navigation.
• Apple Maps — opens Apple Maps on iPhone with your destination set, ready for driving directions.
• Copy Coordinates — copies a plain-text list of every waypoint's coordinates, ready to paste into Waze, a spreadsheet, or any app that accepts latitude and longitude.

Saving a trip

Tap 💾 Save This Trip to keep the current route. Saved trips remember the route, distance, drive time, and every stop, and they're listed on your My Account page where you can reopen or delete them. Saved trips are stored only on your device.

If something goes wrong

• "Could not find location" — check the spelling or try a more specific name, such as adding the state.
• The route fails with an error — the routing service may be briefly unavailable. Wait a few seconds and try again.
• No points of interest appear — the area may not have OpenStreetMap data for that category. Try a different category or a route through a larger city.