Have you found yourself daydreaming a little more often lately? Does your mind often wander somewhere else? Have you been longing to go somewhere new? You’re not alone. People suffer from this condition call it wanderlust. Those who live with it call themselves explorers and adventurers. Not to worry; this condition is not deadly. It may, however, be highly contagious. Please remain calm ladies and gentlemen, for there is a simple solution: a road trip.
Even if you’re not thinking of taking a life-changing drive across the U.S., feeling the wind in your hair and a long, open road before you is a great way to cross off some bucket list items and go to some place you’ve always wanted to go.
To make some road trip magic happen, many ingredients must first go into the pot. With so many options to choose from, planning can get a little overwhelming. That’s where roadtrippers.com comes in.
The user-friendly website is a little more than a year old, and has already helped users plan more than 800,000 road trips across America. Roadtrippers asks for your starting point and destination, and lets users play around with the details from there.
After the trip from point A to point B has been set, users can search for what they want to do, see, eat, and stay. The website allows users to discover all kinds of places with tabs on the side of the screen. From attractions to food and drink to scenic drives, users can choose which places to pin to a virtual map. With links to other websites, Roadtrippers makes booking reservations an easy thing to do.
James and Tatiana Fisher, the founders of Roadtrippers, wanted to make the hectic planning stages of a road trip easy for travelers just like them. They designed the website along with a mobile version that fully encompasses all the features of a great road trip. The app synchronizes to selections from the website for easy navigation.
If you’re drawing a blank on where to go or what to see, Roadtrippers features guides with different themes. From offbeat sights to legendary trips, the guide section on the website can set a variety of road trips for you.
There’s a guide for every kind of traveler. The bacon-lover will enjoy “United States of Bacon,” a guide featuring various places around the country to dine on all kinds of bacon cuisine. For the haunted house aficionado, “Horrorville, USA” features haunted houses, cemeteries, castles and hotels across the U.S.
Each guide is divided into bucket lists and trips. The “Bucket List” tab lays out things to do across the country from the specific theme. This allows the traveler to decide where to go based on where they are in the country. The “Trips” tab is slightly more specific in setting the voyage up itself.
Even though summer is done, a road trip is the perfect way for students to travel on the weekends. International security and conflict resolution senior Roberto Berumen loves to travel, and thinks Roadtrippers could come in handy on his next trip.
“I would use it because if you’re going all over the country, especially to places you’ve never been to before, you’re not going to know where to go,” Berumen said. “With an app you have everything in one place. You don’t have to go looking around for all the information you need. The app is really easy because it’s practical.”
Beruman said the app is easier to use than a map.
“When I’ve gone on a road trip, we didn’t know where to eat because we only had a map. It didn’t tell us where there were restaurants or things to do.”
Because it is still relatively new, the website only plans trips across the U.S. The Roadtrippers staff is working on launching an international version soon, according to the website.
The app is not yet available for Androids, but iPhone users can sync their planned road trips from the website to their phones. While you’re driving down the open road, the app will help you navigate to your dream destination. So grab your phone, a few friends, fill up the gas tank and hit the road.
