If you're planning a trip using our desktop website, this article will help you get started! If you're planning a trip in our mobile app on iOS or Android, check out this article instead.
Some Roadtrippers features are available only to Roadtrippers members. Roadtrippers offers 3 types of membership and you can choose your plan based on your specific trip planning needs.
- Getting Started
- Starting a New Trip
- Trip Management
- Changing Your Starting Point
- Adding Waypoints to Your Trip
- Editing Your Waypoints
- Using Via Waypoints
- Adding Dates to Your Trip
- Viewing Trip Stats
- Using the Distance Slider
- Adjusting Trip Settings
Getting Started
The Roadtrippers.com homepage is the perfect place to start planning a trip or to just start exploring some places on our map!
With the "Create a Route" tab selected, use the fields that are front and center to enter your starting point and destination to start planning a new trip, or switch to the "Explore Destinations" tab to just browse an area on the map.
If you enter your start and end points to start a trip you'll be presented with 2 planning options:
- Select Plan it for me if you want to use our AI-powered trip planning tool, Roadtrippers Autopilot™. This feature is only available to Premium members, and you can start a free trial if you want to give it a try. Learn more about Autopilot here.
- If you aren't interested in a Premium membership or if you'd prefer to plan the trip yourself while exploring categories on the map, select I want to plan it myself instead.
Starting a New Trip
Ready to plan your epic road trip? If you used those fields on the homepage to start a trip or browse the map, then you're already on your way! Whether you use Autopilot or the Plan it myself option, you should see a trip on the map with the start and destination places you entered on the homepage.
If you already started a trip but don't have it up on the map anymore, click the My Trips link at the top of the map. That will take you to your profile page, where you'll find your saved trips.
Trip Management
When you open a trip on the map, you'll notice a few tabs in the trip panel on the left. Click through the tabs below to learn more about what you can do in each section.
This is where you'll see all the stops added to your trip. You can add, edit, rearrange, or remove waypoints here.
This is also where you can add or edit dates and view daily totals for estimated driving distance and time.
If you scroll right/left through the buttons at the top of the itinerary, you'll see more planning options such as applying routing options, duplicating the trip, making a round trip, and more.
This is where you'll find your trip stats.
This tab shows the total number of waypoints, total estimated driving time, total estimated distance, and estimated cost of gas + budgets added to your waypoints.
You can also invite collaborators and add or edit your vehicle here.
This is where you can apply categories to the map and browse all sorts of places near your route.
Whether you're looking for a place to stay overnight, a roadside attraction, or a park to stretch your legs at - we've got you covered!
After selecting a category, you can apply filters to narrow down the results and use the radius slider to limit results based on distance from your route.
Changing Your Starting Point
We recommend saving your home address to your profile so that all new trips will automatically start from there. You can learn more about that here!
If you didn't apply a home address or manually enter a starting point while starting a new trip, then your trip will start from your current location (as best as we can detect). You can easily correct or change the starting location by following the steps below:
- Click the "Add a Waypoint" button and search for your actual starting location.
- Select your starting location from the list to add it to your trip.
- Click the waypoint card for the original starting location, click the "Remove Waypoint" link and confirm the removal.
- If your new, correct starting point didn't automatically get added to the first position in your trip then you can click the dots to the left of the waypoint card and drag/drop it to the first position.
Adding Waypoints to Your Trip
Whether you use Autopilot or the Plan it myself option, now it's time for the fun part - perfecting your trip by finding and adding stops along the way!
- Click the blue "Add a waypoint" button at the bottom of your itinerary or the blue Add (+) button next to dates (if you have dates on your trip). After clicking either Add button, you can search for and add places to your trip. You can search for cities, addresses, and points of interest here.
- Go to the Explore tab to apply categories to the map and discover all sorts of places you might want to add to your trip.
Learn more!
Learn more about how to add places to your trip and explore our categories in the articles below:
Editing Your Waypoints
- Remove a waypoint by quick clicking the waypoint then clicking Remove Waypoint.
- Rearrange waypoints by clicking the 6 dots to the left of the waypoint, then dragging and dropping it in the list of waypoints.
- Add details to waypoints like notes, budget, and reservation numbers by clicking a waypoint to see all the options you can use.
Using Via Waypoints
Via waypoints are pins that are dropped after dragging a route. They are typically used to slightly modify a route between stops or to add a general area to a trip (such as a metropolitan area or region) without entering an address.
To drag a route and drop a via waypoint, start by hovering your mouse over the route until a dot or crosshairs appear along the line. Click and hold the dot, and begin moving it across the map. Notice that as you move it, the route automatically updates to show you where the trip will be going. This is handy if you are trying to avoid a specific road and vice versa.
Via waypoints will appear in the Trip Planner with the via symbol: 
. They can be removed and rearranged just like regular waypoints. Learn more about customizing your route here!
Adding Dates to Your Trip
If you didn't use Autopilot and haven't added dates to your trip yet, then you'll see an Add Dates button at the top of the trip planner. (If you see Clear Dates, then you already have dates on your trip!) Click that button to provide start and end dates for your trip, then we'll automatically assign dates to the waypoints in your trip. Learn more about using dates here.
Don't worry - you can easily move waypoints to a different date if you don't like where we put them! To move a waypoint to a different date, you can drag and drop the waypoint within the itinerary or click the waypoint to view the waypoint details and change the date there.
We don't currently have a feature to edit the date range for the entire trip, so the best way to extend the trip after already applying dates is to edit the date on your final waypoint by clicking the waypoint within your trip and selecting a new date there. That will push the date on your final waypoint out to the new end date and it will add new empty date ranges between the last date with a waypoint and your new end date.
Viewing Trip Stats
Once your trip is routed on the map, your trip stats will appear in the Details tab of the trip planner.
This is where you'll find the total number of waypoints, total estimated driving time, total estimated distance, and estimated cost of gas + any budgets added to your waypoints.
You can also invite collaborators and add or edit your vehicle here.
Using the Distance Slider
The route shade is an area around your trip that can be expanded or contracted with the distance slider at the bottom left of the Trip Planner. The distance slider indicates how far off your route you are willing to go to visit places and limits what places load while exploring our categories.
The size of the shade will adjust as you move the distance slider. For example, if the distance slider is set to 30, all places within the shade are 30 miles from your route or less. Move the distance slider by clicking and dragging the marker.
Customizing Trip Settings
You can open the Trip Settings for your trip by clicking the gear icon at the top of the trip banner.
The settings you can adjust in Trip Settings are:
- Basics: Edit your trip's name, privacy setting, description, and banner photo.
- Vehicle & Fuel: Specify the type of vehicle you're driving and adjust fuel settings.
- Collaborators: Invite friends to collaborate on your trip (only available for Roadtrippers Premium members).