How to Plan the Perfect Road Trip

When you plan a road trip, do you plan it down to the minute? Do you have all your stops laid out, or do you just wing it? There are many ways to plan your road trip.

Road trips come in many different styles. There is a direct route to a specific destination. Maybe you are planning on travelling to an area and exploring there or just a general direction. I have done all three a few times.

Come along as I share with you how to plan a perfect road trip.

Choosing Your Destination for Your Road Trip

How and why you choose your destination is a personal choice. Is there a place you always wanted to see? Do you have family and friends in an area that you want to visit? For me, it is usually a custom van show I want to go to or something I have come across that I just have to see or experience.

Your destination could be a place that you have on a bucket list. When I traveled to Pickle Lake in Northern Ontario it was that I wanted to drive to the most northern point in Ontario that you could drive to. Maybe you have to travel for work. When I worked for Canada Post, my favorite destination to drive to was Thunder Bay Ontario. Highway 17, along the top of Lake Superior, is the most beautiful drive in Ontario. I would do it over and over.

Your destination could be a person, place, or thing. Pick one, and let’s get road tripping!

Choosing Your Route for Your Road Trip

Here is where the fun begins. Choosing the route to take to your destination depends on a few different scenarios. Do you love to fly down the highways, or are you a backroads person? Maybe you would like to do both. Highways to get there and backroads to explore. Also, a lot of planning is determined by how much time you have to get there.

Backroads and off-highway bi-ways are fun and filled with adventure. I did that when I went to Maine. I had been through Maine but never to Maine. I took the highway to get there from southern Ontario and then hit the back roads when I arrived.

Road Tripping the Backroads

I must say this is my favorite way to road trip. Travelling the backroads allows you to see and experience the small towns and feel the culture of the community you are visiting. Find exciting new attractions and visit the small shops and cafes along the way.

How do I travel the backroads without getting horribly lost or in scary situations? OK I will admit I have had a couple of scary situations but so far I have been able to get out of them. Pheww! 

I set my GPS to no highways and hit go. There are things you must watch out for. Never trust your GPS to know whether you can make it down that road. Is it really a road, or is it going to be a road someday? I have heard so many stories of people blindly following their GPS and getting into situations they have a hard time getting out of. If the road looks like an “I don’t know if I can make it road,” I do not go. My GPS will find another way.

Sometimes the road will look ok, but as you travel down it, it seems to be getting not ok. Maybe it’s turning from gravel to dirt or narrowing into a path. I always make sure I can at least back out. I have backed up miles to get back to a place I feel I am safe on.

I will also turn my Google Maps to satellite to look at the road. A lot of times, when you are travelling the backroads, you can not get a cell signal. Make sure you have downloaded the map and checked the roads before you enter the no cell service area.

I encourage everyone to take a backroad road trip, but please be safe about it.

It’s all About the Timing

Now that I am retired, timing is less of a factor than it used to be, but it still is a factor. How much time to get to my destination and back, as well as how much time will I have to spend there? Are there specific things I want to see and do while I am in the area, and how much time will be spent doing that?

When looking at the timing, I will look at Google Maps, which is my favourite app for planning road trips, plug in my destination, and look at the options it gives me. I then add time to the time given for the option I choose. I stop and look a lot. Bathroom breaks, food stops, and a right turn sometimes, because something interesting happened there, all become a factors in timing. Google Maps does not factor in those times. Depending on the distance, an hour or two will be added.

The Search for Things to See and Do on Your Road Trip

Included in the timing are the attractions that you would like to see. If you are travelling a route like Route 66, maybe the destination is the Route. Make a lot of time for stops if you are travelling that route. Some road trips are all about the journey.

How do you find the attractions to stop at? There are a few different ways to research roadside attractions, both along the route and at your destination.

• Google Maps is a very useful tool. I will usually search for interesting things to see or historical places, and move that search along my route.
• Atlas Obscura is one of my favourite attraction maps. I like weird and wonderful, and they have a wonderful selection from all over the world. A map on the app allows you to search for where you are going as well as the route to get there.
• Roadside Attractions are fun to see and explore. Canada (roadsideattractions.ca) and the US (roadsideamerica.com) have great roadside attraction websites, so you do not miss a thing.
• Your destination’s city website always has Things to do and see. A great resource for finding interesting attractions to see while you are there.

No matter how you plan your road trip, make sure you get the most out of the miles you travel. Whether it is a destination or the journey, do it safely and make memories that will last a lifetime.

Let me know what your favourite road trip has been and why. You never know, I may have to take a road trip to see it. 🙂

Thanks for coming along on Chipmunk Adventure. See you next week.

Chipmunk

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