Summer is the time for epic road trips, start planning today and you will have the trip of a lifetime.
Plan a cross country road trip in three steps, divide the trip into legs, book your lodging and pack the necessities. A cross country road trip will take between 12 and 14 days of travel round trip. Plan to stop about every 3-400 miles and plan to spend two nights in the same place a few times.
Planning a cross country road trip is a big job. There are 6 people in my family and they all have to eat and get dressed. This post will give you all the information you need to get the trip planned and to make it really great.
A cross country road trip is going to be around 1,500-3,400 miles, this depends on where you start and where you plan to end up.
Divide the Trip into Legs
How far should you drive in one day? Some of this is preference, but do not be too ambitious. I have surveyed a lot of experienced roadtrippers and there is a rule that full time travelers use, its the 2/2/2 rule, or the 3/3/3 rule.
There is a great free printable in this post to help you organize the trip on paper.
The 2/2/2 Rule
Drive no more than 200 miles, arrive before 2pm and stay 2 nights. The 3/3/3 rule is the same, but allows for 300 miles, 3pm and 3 nights. This is the equation for a comfortable road trip.
This is about 4 hours of driving each day, you could leave at 8-10am and drive to your next destination and set up and enjoy the afternoon.
I grew up driving 600 miles in one day and only stopping once, so this was a wild concept to me, but the goal here is an enjoyable trip.
Use this rule to determine how many miles you want to cover. Experienced road trippers plan to cover about 50 miles each hour. This includes time for bathroom and eating breaks.
Destination
Take your whole number of miles and divide it by 2-300. Then start planning each leg of the trip.
We do a big annual trip out to St. Louis and the trip is about 600 miles, we like to do two big legs, one is about 400 miles and one is about 200. If your destinations make sense, just plan to leave early.
You can see some of our favorite things to do in STL in this list of attractions, it is a really great stopping point for lots of road trips. It is called the gateway to the west for a reason.
When it is time to start dividing up the trip, jump on Google Maps. I like to do this on my computer.
You can see your whole trip easily on the screen, maybe it’s the math teacher side of me, but I like to start in the middle and keep dividing the sides in half… I’ll show you.
When you zoom in on the middle you will start to see city names, then go over to Google and find things to do in that city.
You can also use specially designed tools for planning a road trip, the biggest one is Roadtrippers. Roadtrippers is a paid road trip planning app that offers the ability to plan all your stops and save your routes. If you sign up with my link and use the discount code: BTR5QTP you can save $5 on the app.
Each leg of the trip should have something to look forward to, there will be a lot of driving.
Choosing really interesting places to sleep or eat can be a destination all their own.
Book Your Lodging
Choose interesting places to sleep. There are a lot of memorable options.
Young kids will love Great Wolf Lodge, its a hotel with an indoor water park. Amazing, book ahead and look for deals, it is pricey.
I also like to search Hipcamp for cool affordable accommodations. I learned about HipCamp when planning our annual road trip and the accommodations available on HipCamp are really really cool. Yurts, trampoline tents and super cheap boondocking and camping. They even have some amazing treehouses.
If you are gonna go the hotel route, get into a loyalty program. As I understand it, Marriott has the best program that saves you the most money.
There are ways to save money and avoid hotels if you are on a tight budget, I have eleven alternatives in this post.I guarantee that there is new idea in that post.
I suggest a mix of hotels, camping and staying with friends and family.
Pack the Necessities
I have a very specific packing strategy that I recommend that everyone use. The layer system has you start planning 1-3 weeks before you leave for the trip.
Find more about my packing method and print the checklist.
You can also plan to do laundry a few times along the way.
Let’s talk about food.
I did a very large survey of frequent road trippers and I found that, on average people spend about $21 per person, per day on a road trip. My family cannot afford that. Find all the tips and tricks to bring down your road trip food costs in this post. There are even some ideas to find free food on your trip.
Be sure to plan to spend your normal food budget on your trip, even if you were home, you would have spent that money.
Using a tool like the Hot Logic or Sabot Heat portable food warmers you can eat just like you are at home while you are on the road.
I love the Hot Logic and I just received the Sabot Heat and I think it is probably better for a family road trip because it has several heating settings and can heat food more quickly.
These food warmers are also called a portable oven and that is because you can really cook food in them! We use ours every day and we use it often when we travel.
On our last trip we bought a big box of frozen breakfast sandwiches and heated them in the Hot Logic and it kept everyone’s belly full.
I highly recommend that you invest in this 12v appliance and find 34 lunch ideas and even a road trip meal plan that uses the Hot Logic at the links.
Check Your Car
Make sure you get the printable checklist for checking your older or high mileage car before you set out on your trip.
This is easy to do at home for most people and it will help you feel much more confident about taking your car on a long trip.
Be sure to check tires and batteries.
Other Preparations
I have written a bunch of posts about planning cross country or long distance road trips, so be sure to check them out to ensure a smooth trip:
When Is the Best Time for a Cross Country Road Trip
How to Plan a Long Distance Road Trip: A Simple System
