Driving across the United States is an aspirational trip for many people, but also a daunting one: How do you plan it? What route do you take?
This was the challenge I faced when my partner, Cliff, and I decided to drive from our home in New York City to Los Angeles, where two of our children live. Our priorities were to hit some states we’d never visited and craft an itinerary that included our favorite things: vintage diners, Frank Lloyd Wright homes, automotive landmarks (for him) and factory tours (for me).
We started by picking a few intriguing waypoints and building the trip around them. One was Polymath Park, a collection of Frank Lloyd Wright homes in Pennsylvania where you can stay overnight; another was the “Field of Dreams” movie site in Dyersville, Iowa; and a third was an Airbnb rental made out of a refurbished grain silo in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho.
To connect the dots, we used an assortment of apps and websites that helped us plan a master route and improvise along the way, finding hotels, restaurants and weird attractions. Cliff drove, and I rode shotgun as navigator, wielding the apps. We wound up driving cross-country and back: 8,300 miles over 28 days, through 24 states. The tools below are the main ones we used.
Itinerary Planning
Roadtrippers
Roadtrippers was the scaffolding of our trip, and I found it as addictive as it was helpful. It lets you plan an itinerary on a virtual map from point A to point B — in my case, drawing a line from New York to Los Angeles and filling it in — and suggests everything you’ll need along the way. For instance, as we were making our way west from Mount Rushmore, the app surfaced nearby attractions, prompting us to make a detour to “Carhenge” in Nebraska (a Stonehenge replica made of junked cars) and the Durham Bison Ranch in Wyoming, where we got up close and personal with the beasts.
There’s even info for R.V.ers and vanlifers, and integration with the National Parks Service (which has its own app and various buy-in-advance passes).
As with so many apps, it takes some practice to get the hang of Roadtrippers. The basic plan, which gives you three trips of up to 20 stops each, costs $35.99 a year. But I recommend paying $59.99-a-year for premium, which lets you design lots of trips with up to 150 stops each.
A competing app called Furkot costs only $14 a year and has overlapping functionality. I found it less intuitive to use, but people’s tastes will differ.
Atlas Obscura
Want to see the world’s largest truck stop, thermometer, cherry pie tin or picnic basket? You’ll find them on Atlas Obscura, a crowdsourced collection of the world’s novelties. The free mobile app is useful for advance planning as well as on-the-go discovery, though it lacks a turn-by-turn driving feature.
Many people who come to Atlas Obscura are D.I.Y. “planners” who want to “find the most awesome, mind-boggling things in really practical ways,” said Louise Story, the company’s new chief executive (and a former New York Times journalist). Indeed, the site just published a list of “Our Favorite Roadside Attraction in Every State.”
Roadside America
Roadside America bills itself as “your online guide to offbeat tourist attractions,” and it delivers. For us, it served up such oddities as the “Birthplace of Television” in Rigby, Idaho, where the television inventor, Philo T. Farnsworth, grew up, and the suppertime pig races at the Bear Creek Saloon and Steakhouse in Bearcreek, Mont. Its crowdsourcing guidelines explain that it eschews merely “beautiful” or “normal” listings in favor of “the unexpected, humorous or strange side of history.” (While Roadside America has a stand-alone website, its app has been subsumed into TripBucket, which curates a worldwide list of unusual destinations.)
Some attractions are what Cliff and I refer to as “fails” — underwhelming, or no longer what they once were. You, for example, may enjoy the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wis., but we found it to be a big collection of condiments in what looked like someone’s basement.
FactoryToursUSA.com
FactoryToursUSA.com starts with a clickable state-by-state map, from which you can find public tours of manufacturing plants. It lists big name-brand companies (like Jelly Belly, Airstream and Ben & Jerry’s) and small regional ones, like local breweries, chocolatiers and craft artisans. We toured the Martin Guitar factory and the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, both in Pennsylvania, as well as the Hallmark Visitors Center, in Kansas City, Mo. The site is maintained by contributors, and some listings can be out of date. Check a company’s website to make sure the tour is still running.
Autio
Autio maintains an audio library of more than 25,000 history stories about locations around the world, some narrated by luminaries like Kevin Costner and John Lithgow. Driving through Michigan? Maybe you’d like to listen to a three-minute clip about why there are no cars on Mackinac Island, or hear about President Gerald Ford’s experience playing football on a segregated college team (which influenced his stance on civil rights). Subscriptions are tiered, starting at $3 a month after five free stories. (Roadtrippers now offers Autio to premium subscribers.)
iExit
iExit is a guide to all the exits on America’s interstates. Want to know if an upcoming exit has an electric vehicle charging station, barbecue joint, rest stop or motel? You’ll find it on the iExit app, arranged by roadway and city.
Breathtaking Detours
Scenic America has a state-by-state list of America’s Byways, a federal designation given to 184 beautiful roadways. The most memorable one we took was the Beartooth Highway, a 69-mile road of gut-churning switchbacks between Red Lodge, Mont., and Yellowstone National Park. According to Scenic America, the road is the “highest elevation in the Northern Rockies.” It is sure to enhance your appreciation of Lewis and Clark’s journey.
Lodging
Thanks to a recent makeover, Airbnb emphasizes local services and experiences as much as it does lodging. It’s trickier to search the country for weird spots like our Idaho grain silo, but easier-to-find options once you’ve narrowed down your destination. The newly muscular “Guest Favorites” designation can help you find accommodations with dramatic architecture or distinctive features (or a bare-basics motor inn), and the “services” and “experiences” tabs can point out a nearby hot-air balloon ride, photography class or vegan chef.
While we relied mostly on Roadtrippers and Airbnb, many other lodging apps are road-trip friendly. Google Maps and Apple Maps will show you nearby hotels as you drive, and apps like VRBO, Hotels.com, Trivago and Booking.com are good for comparison shopping. For quirkier options, try Historic Hotels of America (which has a state-by-state locator map but not an app), Hipcamp and The Dyrt (for camping), or Farmstay, a website where you can book rooms or cabins at farms across America (and sometimes milk a cow).
Food
Many apps and websites surface terrific places to eat, but finding good local specialties can be a challenge. I consulted state-by-state lists of iconic foods, including those published by Food & Wine, Business Insider and Food Network. There are also lists of the best diners by state: Taste of Home has one, as do Food & Wine and Food Network.
If you’re looking for food, Yelp, Eater and Local by Toast are helpful in larger cities. The website Roadfood, run by the travel writers Jane and Michael Stern, points you toward homespun regional specialties and where to get them, while TVFoodMaps shows you how to find restaurants featured in shows like “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” “Cheap Eats” and “The Bear.”
Thanks to internet sleuthing and recommendations from friends, we enjoyed runza in Nebraska (meat pies with cabbage in pastry) and Hoosier sugar cream pie in Indiana, plus more obvious delectables like baked potatoes in Idaho and sweet corn in Iowa. The memories are sweet, too.
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