Road trips are the perfect way to get out and explore your home country, especially during a time like this. What better way is there to social distance but still get that feeling of adrenaline when you adventure to new places? Use this road trip guide to help you plan your next ultimate adventure.

Plan Your Itinerary

The very first step to going on a road trip is to plan your itinerary. Ask yourself the following questions:

How long do I have off to go on my road trip?

Is there a destination that I already have in mind?

Are the places that I’m visiting safe to visit during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Is the place that I want to visit particularly warm?

Tip: You might be uncomfortable wearing a mask if it’s sweltering. Consider visiting an area that is a bit cooler.

What’s my budget? Is there a way to save money on bookings?

Are there certain attractions you want to visit? Where are those attractions located?

Once you answer those questions, you can more easily begin to plan out your itinerary for your road trip.

Use Google Maps

If you find that you’re struggling with trying to figure out your road trip plan, consider using Google Maps. This is a great tool that is often overlooked, yet it’s so powerful. There’s an option to set up a trip with multiple stops, so you can see exactly how long you will be driving from place to place.

Generally speaking, you probably don’t want to spend more than three to five hours on the road actually driving each day. The point of a road trip is to go out and explore, not be stuck viewing the world through your car window! Of course, if you’re okay with driving a lot longer, that’s perfectly fine, but this is just up to your personal preference.

Google Maps can also help you realize that maybe one of your driving days will be too long, or that there’s an easy, different way that you can set up your adventure to visit even more places. I suggest playing around with Google Maps at least for a little bit while you’re in the planning phase because you might be surprised at your findings!

Tip: Google Maps is also a great way to find other attractions that you might not have known about. One of the beauties of traveling on the road is the freedom - if you see something is only a short way off from where you plan on driving, make the detour! You won’t regret it.

If Google Maps still isn’t helping you much, just do a quick internet search! Many people share their road trip itineraries online, making it easier for travelers like you to follow their itinerary with a few slight alterations. This takes most of the hard work out!

Make Reservations

After planning out your Itinerary, you’re going to begin making all of your reservations. Start with your accommodation, because this is the easiest.

Tip: When booking your reservation, make sure you check out the accommodation’s reaction to COVID-19. How are they handling the pandemic? How often are they cleaning your room? Usually, it will be safer to book a stay in a hotel that cleans every day rather than an Airbnb, which might not be reliable during the pandemic.

If you haven’t heard of OYO Hotels yet, I’m about to fill you in on one of my best new secrets. OYO is a young hotel startup that provides cheap accommodations to travelers – in the form of hotels, homes, and unique spaces - across the country and globe at affordable prices. They are currently operating in over 800 cities and in 80 countries….so wherever you are going, you can likely find one of their properties!

One of the things I find them most useful for is road trips! The places are always affordable – yet tasteful. I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I find a really cheap hotel, I worry that it’s going to be outdated and not very comfortable. But you don’t have to worry about this at all with OYO! They have really perfected the art of taking a worn out property and breathing new life and style into it. They believe that a cheap hotel doesn't have to FEEL like a cheap hotel. Which I love.

They also have an app that makes it really easy to book ahead for wherever you plan to be. Whether you’re looking for budget hotels in California, the best affordable hotels on the Vegas Strip, or something else – OYO is sure to have something in your area, at an unbeatable price.

After you make your reservations for your lodging, book your attractions ahead too. Due to COVID-19, many attractions are requiring visitors to book a timed entrance because of limited capacities. Don’t forget to book this ahead of time; it’s just as important as booking your accommodation during a time like this. Otherwise, you might find yourself disappointed because it’s possible that the longer you wait, the less likely you are to gain a ticker.

As a bonus, I use coupon code ‘relax50’ for 50% off your first booking!!!

Road Trip Packing

It can be hard to decide exactly what to pack during a road trip, especially during COVID-19. Below are some items you don’t want to forget to pack!

Chargers

You genuinely don’t want to forget chargers, especially when your phone and computer most likely have all of your itinerary information, reservation tickets, and directions. Consider purchasing a separate phone charger to keep in your car in addition to one that you bring into hotels just in case you lose one.

It would also be worth investing in a portable charger while you’re exploring away from your car. When you’re in a new place, you don’t want to get lost.

Driver’s License

Without a driver’s license, you can’t drive a car. Need I say more? Make sure you have your driver’s license with you at all times!

Important Car Documents

Make sure that you have access to your car insurance information as well as any registration information that you might need while traveling. You don’t want to get pulled over and find out that you don’t have some of these crucial papers.

Face Masks, Gloves, & Cleaning Supplies

Because of COVID-19, you want to make sure that you are staying your absolute safest. To do this, it’s essential that you pack at least a handful of face masks. When traveling, you really need to follow the rule of at least hand washing your masks at the end of each day. These can take a while to dry, so pack as many as you can.

Gloves can come in handy if you find that you’re touching an area that might not be super clean. You’ll also want to pack cleaning supplies such as hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes to clean surfaces and your own hands when you need to. Try to pack a giant hand sanitizer to keep in your car just as a precaution. You should use it every time you get back in your vehicle.

Road Trip Apps

Luckily, there are a lot of great apps that you can download right on your phone to make your road trip even simpler in the 21st century. Here are a few of the best apps to download for your journey.

Waze

Forget the maps app on your phone; Waze works a lot better. It’s the best driving app out there. Just type in your destination, and it will get you there with the least amount of traffic possible! It also has a very friendly and easy to use interface.

Sygic Travel

If you have a lot of places you’d like to visit within one town or city, download Sygic Travel! This app will bring you to all of the places in a single town or city that you’d like to visit with the least amount of travel between attractions. It is a huge time saver, and it’s truly a hidden gem in the traveler community that should not be overlooked!

Google Trips

Google Trips is essentially an app that will help you find other possible attractions to stop at while you’re driving. This is great if you’re more of a spur-of-the-moment type traveler, but can also be helpful if you’re still in the planning stages.

Road Trip Tips

Use gloves when pumping gas at gas stations to be safe during the current pandemic. Make sure you get rid of your gloves after use to avoid cross-contamination.
Make sure you do your research. You don’t want to be surprised if you plan on visiting a certain place only to find later on that it’s closed.
Be flexible, especially due to COVID-19. You never know when you might have to change your plans last minute.
Clean any area that you are at when you’re out in public! This includes restaurant or cafe tables and even your accommodation areas.
Self-quarantine when you return home after your trip. This is a great precaution to take just in case you came across someone who was sick.

Now you know all the best ways to plan a road trip during COVID-19. There are ways to stay safe if you plan and research everything appropriately before you begin your journey. It truly comes down to you being aware and not putting yourself in situations where you may get sick.

Please note that following all of these tips exactly does not guarantee that you won’t get sick - these are all just good precautions and steps to follow to insure the smallest possibility possible.

Have fun planning your next road trip journey!

The Ultimate Road Trip Guide