Roadtrippers App Review 2023: Official Travelers Cheat Sheet!

For most of us, international travel still remains a blurred dream as the global pandemic continues to lurk around. So, perhaps the best way to quench your thirst for travel would be to go on a road trip in your vehicle or an RV. Of course, it’s important to make sure it’s safe and advisable to travel with social distancing measures in your region first. 

But how do you plan a road trip? 

Planning road trips isn’t easy, which is why having amazing travel apps designed for road trips can always come in handy to reduce the time, effort, and hassle involved in planning.

While there are many such apps out there, we decided to review one of the best app for trip planning in the market today; Roadtrippers.

What Is Roadtrippers?

Roadtrippers trip planner app is specially designed for road trip enthusiasts in need of a resourceful guide to improving their tripping experience. Ever since its inception in 2012 by James Fisher and Tatiana Parent, the company has grown to be one of the leading road travel apps with over 25 million trips planned to date.

Roadtrippers can be used to map your route and navigate to your favorite destinations. Aside from being available on their website, you can also download their Roadtrippers app, which makes it more than convenient when accessing your travel plans on the go.

The app also boasts of helping travelers plan exciting road trips and make the most out of an ongoing trip with recommendations for detours and stops endorsed by travelers who have been there before. 

Is Roadtrippers free?

Roadtrippers offers both a free version and a paid premium version with more built-in features. Roadtrippers is available for free in web and mobile versions, supporting both iOS and Android operating systems. 

You can either sign up for a free membership with limited features or subscribe for Roadtrippers Plus membership at an annual fee of $29.99 and gain access to all the premium features.

What Features does Roadtrippers Have?

• Plan trips: You can plan short day trips with the free version that allows you to add up to 7 waypoints. With the paid version, users can plan long, multi-day trips with up to 150 waypoints.

• Discover places: Recommendations on hotels, B&Bs, camping sites, bars and pubs, and interesting landmarks along the route. Basic information, reviews, and photos of each place are available to help users determine if they are worth a visit. 

• Budgeting: Automatic estimation of gas cost for each trip.

• Navigation: An in-built map for turn-by-turn navigation.

• Travel content: Inspirational road trip travel guides to different destinations and resourceful articles on RV experiences.

• Collaborative planning: Ability to plan trips with your fellow travel partners and built itineraries together. (only for Plus membership)

What Features does Roadtrippers Plus Have?

Aside from all of the great features mentioned above, subscribing to Roadtripper’s premium version comes with more features that are designed to enhance your trip planning experience. With an annual fee of 29.99$ to Roadtrippers Plus, you’ll get these additional features!

• Plan longer trips of up to 150 waypoints.
• No Ads on all platforms
• Offline maps and new map styles
• Collaborative Trip planning
• RV Routing
• Live traffic conditions
• Special discounts and deals from travel partners

You can also choose to gift a Roadtrippers Plus 1-year subscription to your friends and family that also shares the same passion for planning their trips!

How Does Roadtrippers Work?

Creating or planning a trip on Roadtrippers is quite simple! Once you sign up on their website, make sure you download Roadtrippers app on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store to get started. If you’d like to plan on the browser instead, you’ll be able to access them right away once you’ve signed up.

Start by selecting your departure and final destination and pressing the “Plan Trip” button. From there on, the app will show you the most optimal route they’ve selected for you, with all the attractions and major landmarks on the way. You can always modify the route according to your plan. From there, you can either look at their suggestions along your route or manually input the stops where you’d like to visit.

That’s it! With their RoadTrippers Plus membership, you’ll be able to add more stops on your trip with different customizable maps and traffic features. The free version works very similarly to how the paid version works!

Benefits of Using Roadtrippers.

Very convenient 

The app simplifies travel planning by streamlining many useful functions like mapping, budgeting, booking, and navigation in one place. The fact that you can share your itineraries with your friends and family and grant access to edit trips improves the convenience further. 

Useful features for road trips 

Information on traffic conditions, duration of the journey, the safety level of neighborhoods you are visiting, and first-hand user reviews of hotels you book can add up to a comfortable tripping experience. 

Suggestions on off-the-beaten paths 

Roadtrippers star feature is its recommendations of lesser-known attractions along a particular route. Travelers can make short detours on their way to discover and experience these hidden gems to make their trip more memorable. 

Impressive deals on lodging and dining

One of the privileges granted to Roadtrippers Plus members is the ability to get discounted offers on selected restaurants and hotels if you make the reservation via the app. If you tend to go on road trips often, these savings can outweigh the subscription fee as well. 

Downsides of Using Roadtrippers.

Outdated information

Some users have complained of maps being outdated with suggestions on restaurants and hotels that have been shut down or relocated for some time. Some details like opening hours and addresses of certain locations tend to be inaccurate due to a lack of updates. 

While this may not be the case with most of the recommendations, it’s good to know that Roadtrippers isn’t completely reliable.

Hefty annual fee

Roadtrippers has both free and paid versions. But, only the latter provides users with highly useful resources for your trip. However, the paid version costs an annual subscription fee of $29.99, which is expensive if you aren’t a frequent road tripper. This has also caused many users to stop using the service altogether and shift to alternatives. 

Difficult navigation

Although the Roadtripper app promises you an inbuilt turn-by-turn navigation feature, it’s not user-friendly enough to use it. First, navigation is only available in portrait mode, which can be difficult and annoying. Second, the app also tends to crash more frequently when you use the maps to get around. 

Lack of flexibility 

Although you have the option of changing the selected route manually, it’s far from easy. In fact, making changes to automated functionalities like route selection and ordering of stops/waypoints is very time-consuming and also causes the app to crash. 

Supports only limited countries 

The Roadtripper app only covers the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for now. Even among these countries, it’s highly useful only for people in the USA because there are very few recommendations and attractions provided for routes in other countries.

Is Roadtrippers Worth It?

Our verdict of the Roadtrippers app review is that its a great app for travelers, specifically road trippers, who embark on road trip adventures frequently. The road trip planner app has an exciting appeal and is very easy to use! However, there are many major downsides to using Roadtrippers.

While it’s certainly worth your time to give the free version a try, there are very limited features that you can access with the free version. With Roadtrippers Plus, the additional features that it offers may be difficult to navigate for some. Additionally, for the frequent travelers who plan trips on a budget, they might not be willing to pay 29.99$ for the Roadtrippers Plus membership.

After all, some of the paid features can be found on other travel planning apps for free.

Our Rating: 4.3/5

Pros:

• Convenient to use (cross devices)
• Road-trips-friendly features
• Great recommendations
• Great deals in their premium version

Cons:

• Limited flexibility
• No worldwide support
• Contains outdated information
• Buggy navigation mode
• Pricey annual fee

An Alternative to RoadTrippers

RoadTrippers is decent, but If you need a travel planner that gives you ample flexibility to create itineraries for both local and international destinations without leaving a dent in your pocket, we have an alternative, Pilot.