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
- Customizing Your Route
- Measure Your Drive Time
- Adding Dates to Your Trip
- Viewing Trip Stats
- Using the Distance From Route Tool
- 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:
- If you want to use our Roadtrippers Autopilot™ AI-powered trip planning tool, toggle Plan faster with Autopilot ON. 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 with suggestions from the map, toggle Plan faster with Autopilot want to plan OFF.
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 My Trips in the menu on the left side of the page or click your profile icon in the top right, then select My Trips.
Trip Management
When you open a trip on the map, you'll notice a few tabs in the trip panel. 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.
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 'Add to Trip' button in the left dock and search for your actual starting location.
- Select your starting location from the dropdown 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 correct starting point wasn’t automatically set as the first stop, simply click the dots to the left of the waypoint card and drag it to the top.
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 to Trip" button in the left dock or the (+) button next to dates (if your trip has dates). You can search for and add cities, addresses, or points of interest to your trip.
- Click Explore to filter the map by categories and find places 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.
Customizing Your Route
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!
Measure Drive Time From Waypoints
If you know how far you're willing or able to travel until you need to stop for an overnight or take a break at a rest area or restaurant, then Roadtrippers can help you find a place to stop! You tell us how far you want to drive from a waypoint in your trip, and we'll show you where to look for a stop along your route. Learn more about this feature 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 From Route Tool
The route shade is an area around your trip that can be expanded or contracted to indicate how far off your route you are willing to go to visit places. This tool limits what places load while exploring our categories.
Route shade controls are found in the Explore tab.
The size of the shade will adjust as you select the distance you're willing to travel off route. For example, if the distance control is set to 30, all places within the shade are 30 miles from your route or less.
Customizing Trip Settings
Click the gear icon at the top of the trip banner on the Itinerary or Details tab to open Trip Settings.
The settings you can adjust in Trip Settings are:
- Basics: Edit your trip's name, privacy setting, description, and banner photo.
- Privacy: Set your trip to public so you can share it with friends, or private so only you can see it.
- Delete Trip: You can delete your trip on this screen.