These must have free road trip apps are sure to help make your trip more convenient, memorable, and more fun. It’s travel season and one of the most memorable ways to get to your destination is a road trip! Some of my favorite memories from my childhood is loading up the car and hitting the road with my family.
My sister and I would play games, read books, and listen to music. My parents would navigate with a giant paper atlas and we often had to book a hotel room last minute along the way, never knowing what we might get – which often led to even more memories! These days road trips have changed a bit and there are many apps out there to help you plan, navigate, and enjoy the journey. That’s why I’m excited about these must have free travel apps. They will make your trip easier, more memorable, and even more fun.
Road Trippers
The Road Trippers app is the ultimate road trip must have. Part of the fun of road tripping is finding places just off the beaten path. To use the app you simply type in your starting point and your destination. It will map your route and you can mark whether you would like to visit various attractions along the way including: amusement parks, children’s attractions, zoos & aquariums, tours, and even offbeat attractions. You can check each attractions ratings, prices, hours, and more to see if it will fit into your itinerary. This app makes enjoying everything there is to see and do (and eat!) on your road trip simple and just as fun as arriving at your destination.
National Parks By Chimani
Another fun app to find things to do along your road trip is National Parks By Chimani. When traveling the road for long hours at a time it can be relaxing to pull off into a National Park and enjoy really the scenery and wildlife. This app has information on more than 400 National Park units so you can figure out exactly where you want to go, anywhere in the country. You can also score points and earn badges for checking in at parks and also use it to navigate without a cell signal. There are many great features of this app if you are a park lover and if not, this app may turn you into one.
USA Rest Stops
Part of road tripping is making sure you take enough breaks and often there are many stops, some you plan and some unplanned. When you don’t want to get caught without a rest stop for miles, use the USA Rest Stops app to search for rest areas, welcome centers, service plazas, and their amenities along your route. You can browse by state and interstate or you can browse on a map. This app will make planned (and unplanned!) breaks and stops much easier which will make everyone happy.
Google Maps
I don’t know where I would be without Google Maps. Lost! That’s for sure. I love using the Google Maps voice feature so on roadtrips I can set my destination and let the voice guide me along the way without ever having to look at the app. I like that it’s prompts are early and clear and that it readjusts quickly if you miss a turn or decide to go a different way. I also find it easy to use as a passenger to type in “restaurant” etc. and move around the map to see what is nearby. This app is a must have for those on the go.
Spot Hero
Traveling to a big city and hate having to find parking? The Spot Hero app comes to the rescue! I love that their tagline is “Easy parking for all.” They definitely take the headache out of parking in busy places and can save you money too. Simply download the app, use your current location and Spot Hero will show you all of the available parking and the prices on an interactive map. You can save up to 50% compared to the drive up rate. You can book your parking space right in the app and then follow the simple directions to your spot. No more driving in circles around unfamiliar cities trying to figure out where to park.
TV Food Maps
Do you watch all of those fantastic travel food shows on television? With the TV Food Maps app you can visit the restaurants featured on tv along your way. You can even set notifications so you will be alerted when you are near restaurants or when restaurants are on tv. This app tracks over 40 different tv shows and makes it easy to visit any of the 5000 restaurants featured on tv. You can filter searches by specific shows or popularity and create lists of places you’ve been, want to go, or make custom lists for upcoming trips. Yum! This is one delicious way to road trip!
Travelmath – Trip Calculator
Are you a numbers person? Then you will love the Travelmath app. With this app you can measure travel distance, travel time, and use the travel costs tools to keep an eye on your budget. It calculates the cost of driving including: how many miles per gallon you’ll be getting, how much gas costs per gallon, totals it for you, and records your fuel usage as well. You can also find a list of cities near your destination so you can plot stopping points and even find the halfway point between two cities. On top of that you can easily browse the surrounding cities to explore your local area. This app is for great for road trip planning, budgeters, and those looking to explore along the way and at their destination.
Road Games
Keeping the kids entertained during a road trip can be a challenge. That’s why I love the app, Road Games. It’s a modern twist on the classic license plates game. Remember trying to write down all of the license plates you saw from different states and then always misplacing the paper? This app allows you to record each license plate with the tap of a finger and you get points for every license plate you find so you can play on your own or against your family and friends. If you play with GPS enables it will give you more points for license plates from regions further away then where you are currently driving. It even plays state songs. The app also comes with additional games including Little Traveler, which is similar to the old Frogger game we played as kids. It also has a fun Sliding Tiles game as well as a Tic Tac Toe board. This is one app that is full of road trip fun and you can’t beat that it’s free!
Hotel Tonight
When you are on a road trip, it can often be tricky to figure out where you are going to be stopping over for the night along the way. You don’t want to make reservations too far out and be too exhausted to make it and at the same time you don’t want to make them too near, when you are feeling energetic and could still drive for many miles yet. That’s where the Hotel Tonight app comes in handy. It’s a great way to find last minute deals on hotel rooms near your current location. Hotels give the people behind the app last-minute discounts on their un-sold rooms and when you book through the app you save money on those rooms. The rooms are vetted by their team and you can book a room in under ten seconds. Perfect for those days when you wanted to drive “just a bit longer.”
Gas Buddy
Last but not least I can’t forget old reliable Gas Buddy. This app is amazing at helping you find affordable gas along the way. You may have heard of it in the past or have even already downloaded it to your phone, but I find it so helpful that it was worth mentioning here and reminding you how with just a few simple taps you can find the cheapest gas on your route and search for gas by location. There’s even a chance to win $100 in free gas every day! Now that’s the way to start a road trip!
These apps are all must have free road trip apps that you can’t leave home without. Not only will they help you plan your trip, adapt to changes along the way but they will also help get a good nights sleep and allow you to have lots of fun along the way too.
Happy Travels!
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Awesome list. My family and I have been traveling around Texas for the summer and hopefully in a few months will be traveling to WDW. I’m definitely going to check out some of these apps.
Definitely the gas buddy app and the rest stop app has helped my family along on the longer 14-18 hr road trips across country. Always make sure they are updated too!