Roadtrippers uncovers hidden road trip gems with AI planning. Google My Maps offers free custom mapping basics. Which platform fits your needs?
"I do a lot of road trips, and this app is great for planning. It will arrange stops in a logical way, but it will also allow me to move them if desired. I love the feature that lets you see the stops on a map, so I can see if a stop is too far of my desired trip route. The app can also give great suggestions for whatever your favorite thing to see on your travels is. I wish it included more hiking trailheads, but I can typically get somewhat close to where I want to go."
"I used to love Roadtrippers. Planned some of my best trips with it's help. Went to download it again for another trip coming up and it's completely changed. The awesome feature of being able to explore the area around you is now useless. They try to plan it for you and it isn't at all what you would want. AI can be a great companion, unfortunately for Roadtrippers, it ruined a really great thing. So disappointed."
Roadtrippers' newest feature, Autopilot, uses artificial intelligence and data from over 38 million planned trips to create personalized itineraries. By answering a few questions about your preferences, budget, vehicle type, and interests, the AI generates custom route suggestions with stops tailored to your travel style. This patent-pending technology factors in accommodations, dining preferences, activities, and budget levels to create unique adventures.
Autopilot is exclusively available to Premium members and represents a significant advancement in automated trip planning.
The platform excels at uncovering hidden gems, quirky roadside attractions, and off-the-beaten-path destinations that you won't find on traditional navigation apps. Roadtrippers maintains a database of millions of points of interest across the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with detailed information including photos, reviews, hours of operation, and user ratings.
The app categorizes attractions by type (outdoor recreation, dining, lodging, entertainment, historic sites) and allows you to filter by distance from your route to discover nearby gems.
After acquiring Campendium, Roadtrippers has become a powerhouse for RV travelers. The platform offers RV-friendly GPS navigation that accounts for your vehicle's height, weight, length, and propane restrictions to suggest safe routes avoiding low bridges, narrow roads, and restricted areas.
Enhanced camping features include access to over 150,000 campground reviews, comprehensive map overlays showing public lands, cell coverage, and wildfire smoke, plus advanced filtering by elevation and cellular service quality.
Multiple users can simultaneously edit and contribute to the same trip itinerary, making it perfect for group road trips where everyone wants input on destinations and stops. Collaborators can add suggestions, vote on activities, and help build the perfect group adventure.
The sharing features extend beyond planning, allowing you to share completed trips as inspiration for other travelers or keep family updated on your progress.
Roadtrippers accommodates everything from short day trips to epic cross-country adventures. The free version allows up to 7 stops, Basic membership supports up to 20 stops, Pro handles up to 50 stops, and Premium enables massive 150-stop road trips perfect for extended journeys or comprehensive regional exploration.
Each stop can include detailed notes, photos, and timing information to create comprehensive travel guides.
Premium and Pro members can download offline maps for specific regions, ensuring access to your route and destination information even in areas with poor cellular coverage. This feature is essential for remote road trips and camping adventures where internet connectivity is unreliable.
The app also provides in-app navigation with turn-by-turn directions, though many users prefer to export routes to Google Maps for primary navigation.
Roadtrippers automatically calculates estimated fuel costs based on your vehicle type, route, and current gas prices. The budgeting tools help you understand the financial impact of route changes and plan accordingly for long trips.
The system shows cost breakdowns by segment and provides transparency into total trip expenses before you hit the road.
The platform features handcrafted travel guides created by travel experts and community members, covering popular routes like national park loops, historic trails, and scenic byways. These guides provide inspiration and starting points that you can customize to match your interests and timeline.
Users can also create and share their own guides, contributing to the community knowledge base.
Premium members access multiple map overlays including live traffic conditions, cellular coverage maps, public land boundaries (BLM, National Forest, National Parks), and wildfire smoke tracking. These overlays help you make informed decisions about routes and stops.
The filtering system allows you to search for specific types of destinations, facilities, or amenities along your route.
Roadtrippers allows you to export your complete trip as a PDF guide for offline reference or create GPX files for use with other GPS devices. You can also generate shareable links to let family and friends follow your planned route.
The export features make it easy to have backup navigation options and physical references during your travels.
The platform provides live traffic updates and can suggest alternate routes or detours when road conditions change. While driving, you can check traffic conditions before making stops to avoid delays.
The system automatically recalculates optimal routes when you add, remove, or reorder stops, ensuring efficient travel paths.
Discover amazing roadside attractions, local diners, and unique stops you'd never find on regular navigation apps—all automatically suggested along your route.
With RV-specific routing, 150,000+ campground reviews, and specialized overlays for public lands and cell coverage, it's built for outdoor enthusiasts.
Answer a few questions and let Autopilot create a complete itinerary based on insights from 38 million previous trips—like having a personal travel expert.
Plan epic road trips with friends and family where everyone can contribute ideas, vote on stops, and build the perfect group adventure together.
Download maps and access your entire itinerary without internet, essential for remote adventures and areas with poor cellular coverage.
The free version only allows 7 stops per trip, making it practically useless for anything beyond the shortest day trips—you'll likely need to upgrade immediately.
No monthly options available, and many users complain about unexpected auto-renewals. You must remember to cancel manually or face another year charge.
Primarily focused on the US and Canada with limited coverage for Australia and New Zealand. International travelers outside these regions will find little value.
While it offers in-app navigation, most users still prefer Google Maps or Waze for actual turn-by-turn directions—making it more of a planning tool than navigation solution.
Some users report outdated information about restaurants, attractions, or businesses that have closed or relocated, potentially leading to disappointing detours.
Google My Maps enables travelers to create up to 10 distinct layers per map, each containing up to 2,000 locations. This powerful system allows you to separate hotels, restaurants, activities, and daily itineraries into organized, color-coded layers that can be toggled on and off for clarity during planning.
This organizational approach transforms complex multi-destination trips into manageable visual segments, making it easy to focus on specific aspects of your journey without overwhelming clutter.
The platform mirrors Google Docs functionality, allowing multiple travelers to simultaneously plan trips together. Changes appear instantly across all users, making group travel planning seamless. You can share maps with view-only or full editing permissions, and integrate with Google Groups for team access.
This collaborative feature eliminates the back-and-forth emails and conflicting spreadsheets that often plague group travel planning.
Google My Maps accepts CSV files, Excel spreadsheets, Google Sheets, and KML/KMZ files up to 2,000 rows each. This feature transforms existing travel research into visual maps instantly, whether importing restaurant lists from spreadsheets or GPX tracks from previous adventures.
The import process includes options to color-code and style markers based on data categories, making it easy to convert research into actionable travel maps.
Each location marker can embed photos, videos, detailed notes, website links, and contact information. Maps can store comprehensive trip documentation, from restaurant hours and reservation notes to photo galleries and YouTube videos showcasing destinations.
This multimedia approach creates living travel guides that serve as both planning tools and lasting trip memories.
The platform offers extensive personalization through custom icons, colors, and marker styles. You can upload your own icons, choose from hundreds of built-in options, and create color-coded systems that make complex itineraries instantly understandable at a glance.
Advanced users can create highly sophisticated visual hierarchies that communicate travel priorities and logistics effectively.
Maps support KML/KMZ formats for universal compatibility with other mapping applications and GPS devices. Maps can be embedded in websites, exported for offline reference, or shared through direct links with customizable permissions.
This flexibility ensures your travel planning work can be used across different platforms and shared with various audiences.
The system integrates driving, walking, cycling, and public transit directions directly into custom maps. While not as sophisticated as dedicated route planners, it provides essential navigation between locations with turn-by-turn directions accessible through the Google Maps mobile app.
Routes automatically update when you modify destination sequences, helping optimize travel logistics.
Built-in rulers calculate point-to-point distances, multi-point path measurements, and polygon area calculations. These features prove invaluable for understanding spatial relationships between destinations and estimating travel times.
The measurement tools help identify realistic daily itineraries and prevent over-ambitious scheduling.
Maps automatically save to Google Drive without using storage quota, connect with Google Photos for image embedding, and sync across all devices where you're signed into your Google account. This seamless integration eliminates file management concerns.
The ecosystem integration ensures your travel planning work is always backed up and accessible across devices.
There are no account restrictions on map quantity, meaning you can create separate maps for different trips, maintain ongoing collections of favorite places, or build comprehensive regional guides without storage or quantity limitations.
This freedom allows for detailed organization strategies that suit individual travel planning styles.
The platform leverages Google's comprehensive location database, making it easy to find and add destinations through powerful search functionality. You can discover nearby attractions, restaurants, and services while building your itinerary.
The search integration provides access to business hours, contact information, and user reviews directly within the mapping interface.
Transform abstract itineraries into clear geographical understanding that reveals logical routing opportunities and helps identify unrealistic schedules—preventing common travel planning mistakes.
Get sophisticated mapping capabilities, unlimited maps, collaborative editing, and data import/export functionality completely free, while competitors charge $35-60 annually.
Enjoy unmatched detail and precision for pre-trip research with full-screen interface, comprehensive toolsets, and ability to import research data from spreadsheets.
Enable seamless group planning where participants don't need premium accounts or app downloads—sharing works through familiar Google Drive permissions.
Preserve travel memories and research indefinitely through Google Drive integration, creating living documents that provide lasting value beyond initial trip planning.
You can only create and edit maps on desktop browsers, forcing travelers to return to computers for any trip modifications—severely hampering spontaneous adjustments during travel.
The platform requires constant internet connection for viewing custom content, creating problems in remote locations or when managing data costs abroad.
No flight tracking, reservation management, automatic itinerary creation, or intelligent recommendations—everything requires entirely manual data entry and research.
Only 10 layers per map, 10,000 total items maximum, and 2,000 features per layer force awkward workarounds for complex trips or comprehensive regional guides.
No budget tracking, expense management, route optimization, or travel-specific integrations compared to dedicated platforms like Wanderlog or TripIt.
The choice between Roadtrippers and Google My Maps ultimately comes down to your planning style and geographic needs. Roadtrippers offers the more automated experience with AI Autopilot planning, curated roadside attractions, and comprehensive RV routing that make it particularly appealing for road trip enthusiasts. Its discovery-focused approach consolidates automated suggestions, gas cost estimation, and travel inspiration in ways that Google My Maps doesn't match.
However, Roadtrippers' automated features come at significant costs. The $29.99 annual subscription, restriction to only four countries (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), and limited customization options make it feel more like a guided service than a flexible planning tool. For international travelers or those wanting full control over their trip visualization, these constraints pose real limitations.
Google My Maps prioritizes unlimited customization and global coverage over automated discovery. Its completely free platform works anywhere in the world, offers extensive visual organization with 10 custom layers and unlimited pins, and provides flexible export options that integrate seamlessly with the Google ecosystem. While it lacks Roadtrippers' automated suggestions and requires manual research, it delivers unlimited trip planning flexibility without geographic restrictions or subscription fees.
The verdict: Choose Roadtrippers if you're a dedicated road tripper in supported regions who values automated discovery and can justify the subscription for AI-powered suggestions and RV-specific features. Choose Google My Maps if you travel globally, prefer complete control over your trip visualization, or need a reliable free tool that offers unlimited customization anywhere in the world.
Google My Maps is completely free forever with no subscription fees or premium tiers. You get full access to all features including unlimited maps, 2,000 pins per map, and 10 custom layers.
Roadtrippers offers a limited free version (7 waypoints, includes ads) but requires Roadtrippers Plus at $29.99/year for full features like 150 waypoints, offline maps, and ad-free experience. Most useful features require the paid subscription.
Google My Maps works globally and lets you create custom maps for any location worldwide with the same level of functionality.
Roadtrippers only supports the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. If you're planning trips to Europe, Asia, South America, or anywhere else, Roadtrippers won't work for you.
Roadtrippers is more beginner-friendly for road trips with its guided approach - just enter start/end points and it suggests attractions automatically. The interface is intuitive and road trip-focused.
Google My Maps has a steeper learning curve since you manually research and add everything yourself. However, once learned, it offers much more flexibility and customization options.
Roadtrippers has full-featured mobile apps for iOS and Android that work well for both planning and navigation during your trip.
Google My Maps is primarily designed for desktop planning. On mobile, you can view your maps but editing capabilities are very limited. You'll need to do most planning on a computer.
Roadtrippers excels at discovery with curated suggestions for roadside attractions, hidden gems, and local favorites. It automatically suggests stops within your specified radius and includes road trip-focused reviews.
Google My Maps provides no discovery features - you'll need to research attractions yourself using other sources like travel blogs, TripAdvisor, or Google searches, then manually add them to your map.
