How to Plan a Road Trip
Plan a road trip with a daily driving figure, a stop every 2 hours, a bed booked for each night, a budget built from real prices, and a car checked before you leave.
You will end up with a route broken into driving days, a place booked for each night, a budget built from real prices, a car that has been checked, and a plan for staying alert at the wheel.
Settle two numbers first, how far you drive each day and what the trip costs. A day that looks short on the map still has to fit meals, fuel stops, and the breaks a driver needs, and step 1 sets a daily figure that does. Step 4 prices fuel, food, lodging, and entrance fees from your own route.
Leave the daytime loose. Fix where you sleep and how far you drive each day, and keep the stops in between flexible.
Decide on your destination and total timeline
Start with where you want to end up and how many days you have. Those two facts set the route, the daily driving distance, and how many stops you can make. Plan 4 to 6 hours of driving a day, which is 200 to 350 miles depending on the roads. That is our planning figure. It leaves time for meals, the stops in step 2, and arriving at your accommodation before dark. To test a trip against it, divide the total miles by 300. A 1,500-mile round trip needs 5 driving days, so a 5-day trip leaves no day at the destination. Add days or shorten the route until the count fits. NHTSA names midnight to 6 a.m. and the late afternoon as the peak sleepiness periods to avoid. Schedule no driving in the first, and put one of your stops in the second (step 7).
Plan your route with a stop every 2 hours
Plot your main route in Google Maps, then mark a stop about every 100 miles, which is roughly every 2 hours of driving. That interval is AAA's advice for longer trips, a break every 2 hours or every 100 miles, so each stop is also the driver's rest. Pick scenic viewpoints, small towns, national parks, roadside attractions, a restaurant you have looked up, or a gas station and coffee shop in a town you have never heard of. If a scenic road adds 30 minutes over the fastest highway, count those minutes against the daily figure from step 1 before you choose it. Before you leave, check the weather and road conditions along the route, and tell someone your route and when you expect to arrive, both of which NHTSA advises.
Good to know: Download offline maps for the whole route before you leave, so navigation keeps working where there is no cell signal. In Apple Maps, tap your picture or initials next to the search field, then Offline Maps, then Add Offline Map. In Google Maps on Android, search for a place, tap More on its page, and choose Download offline map. Both paths are from Apple's and Google's help pages, checked October 2026.
Book accommodations in advance for each night
Decide where you will sleep each night and book it before you leave. Book as soon as the route is fixed, and choose a rate with free cancellation where one is offered, so the plan can still change. Hotels and motels need no gear, a vacation rental gives a group a kitchen and shared space, and a campground needs a tent or a camper. With every night booked, nobody is searching for a room at 9 p.m. after a day of driving.
Create a realistic budget
Price each part of the trip from real numbers. For fuel, divide your total miles by your car's miles per gallon, then multiply by the gas price along your route. For example, 1,500 miles at 30 miles per gallon is 50 gallons, and if gas costs $3.50 a gallon that is $175. Add 15% for detours, which brings it to about $201. The Department of Energy's Trip Calculator at fueleconomy.gov runs the same sum from your car's model and your route. For food, price a few real meals along your route, and decide up front how many meals you will cook or pack. For accommodations, use the prices of the nights you booked in step 3. For attractions, look up the entrance fee for each place on your list, because a national park and a roadside museum are nowhere near the same number. Add a 20% buffer on top of the total for tolls, car trouble, and stops you did not plan.
Prep your car before departure
Do these checks at least a week before you leave, so there is time to fix what they find. They follow NHTSA's summer driving checklist. Check the tire pressure, spare included, with the tires cold and against the figure on the driver's door placard, not the number printed on the tire. Our guide on how to check tire pressure has the steps. Look over each tire for cuts and bulges, and replace any with tread below 2/32 of an inch, the minimum NHTSA gives. Check the oil level, which our guide on how to check oil covers, and if an oil change will come due during the trip, do it before you travel. Make sure the coolant is at the level your owner's manual specifies, top up the windshield washer fluid, test the headlights, brake lights, and turn signals, and replace wiper blades that show wear. Confirm the car has a spare tire, a jack, and a lug wrench. If it has a tire inflator kit in place of a spare, AAA warns that a kit cannot fix every kind of tire damage. Our guide on how to change a tire covers both. Have the battery tested too. In AAA's study of its 2015 roadside calls, battery failures, flat tires, and keys locked inside the vehicle were the top requests. AAA recommends a battery test when the battery reaches 3 years of age and every year after that, because most batteries last 3 to 5 years. If a scheduled service in your owner's manual falls due during the trip, have it done before you leave. If you are renting the car instead, our guide on how to rent a car covers the inspection at pickup.
Pack the car and an emergency kit
Pack a cooler with water, snacks, and meals for the first day, which saves a restaurant stop. Pack clothing in layers if the route changes elevation or climate. Put an emergency kit in the car. NHTSA's list starts with a cell phone and charger and includes a first aid kit, a flashlight, jumper cables, a tire pressure gauge, a jack, drinking water, nonperishable food, and emergency blankets. Our guide on how to jump-start a car shows how to use the cables. Keep the things you reach for on the road in the cabin, not the trunk: sunglasses, napkins, a trash bag, and the charger. For passengers, load audiobooks, playlists, podcasts, and offline games before you leave, while you still have Wi-Fi.
Share driving and take breaks
Start rested. NHTSA says getting adequate sleep is the only true way to protect yourself against drowsy driving, and it urges 7 to 8 hours a night, including the night before a long trip. If you have more than one driver, change drivers at each 2-hour stop. If only one person can drive, still stop every 2 hours or 100 miles, get out of the car, and walk around. Drowsy driving killed 644 people in 2024 by NHTSA's count, and the agency says a precise count is not yet possible, because the clues that drowsiness caused a crash are not always identifiable. It lists three things these crashes have in common. They happen most often between midnight and 6 a.m. or in the late afternoon, when your circadian rhythm dips. They often involve a single driver running off the road at speed with no evidence of braking. They frequently happen on rural roads and highways. Pull over if you have trouble keeping your eyes open, drift out of your lane or onto a rumble strip, or cannot remember the last few miles. Those are the warning signs AAA and NHTSA list. NHTSA's advice from there is 1 or 2 cups of coffee and a 20-minute nap in a safe, well-lit place such as a rest stop, and it says this raises alertness only for a short time. Coffee alone is not a fix. NHTSA warns that a sleep-deprived driver who drinks coffee can still have micro sleeps of 4 or 5 seconds, which at 55 miles per hour is more than 100 yards of road. Do not drink alcohol before driving, and check the labels of your medications for drowsiness. The federal hours-of-service limits apply to commercial drivers, not to you in your own car. They allow 11 hours of driving for freight drivers after 10 hours off duty and 10 hours for passenger-carrying drivers after 8 hours off duty, and freight drivers must take a 30-minute break once they have driven 8 hours. Those are ceilings for professionals who start after a required rest. Plan the 4 to 6 hours from step 1.
If you fall behind on the road, cut a stop or add a night before you add driving hours, and move the next booking if its rate lets you. If the car breaks down, FAQ 3 below gives the order of what to do. If a booking falls through, book the replacement before you drive on, so nobody is left looking for a bed at night. If the driver gets drowsy, stop at the next safe place and follow step 7.
Questions we get asked about this
Answers from experience, not a textbook.
Plan 4 to 6 hours of driving a day, about 200 to 350 miles, on a multi-day trip with stops. That is our planning figure. The NHTSA and AAA pages this guide draws on give no daily hour limit for private drivers. The nearest benchmarks are AAA's break every 2 hours or 100 miles and the federal ceilings for commercial drivers in step 7, which are 10 or 11 hours after a required rest. On a day with no sightseeing you can drive longer than 6 hours if you keep those breaks and stay out of the midnight to 6 a.m. window. If your trip needs more than 6 hours of driving on most days, add a day or cut a destination.
Use Google Maps for routing, traffic, and finding gas stations along the way. Add Roadtrippers if you want help finding stops. It is a road trip planner with a catalog of 5 million points of interest, and its free plan allows 3 stops per trip, with paid plans allowing 20, 50, or 150 (checked October 2026). For a scenic route, turn on Avoid highways in Google Maps' route options, or search for designated scenic byways in your region. Whichever app you use, download its offline maps first (step 2).
Signal, slow down gradually, and pull onto the far right shoulder, as far off the road as you can while staying on level ground. Turn on your hazard flashers. What you do next depends on where the car stopped, according to AAA's breakdown safety guide. If you got the car away from traffic, AAA says it is safest under most circumstances to stay in it until the police or road service arrive, with the windows almost closed and the doors locked. If you could not get it away from traffic, or you think it may be struck from behind, do not stay in it. Get out on the side facing away from the road, move well away from the car and the traffic, and never stand behind or directly in front of the car. Then call for help. Call your roadside assistance (through AAA, your insurer, or your car's maker) or, without one, a local towing service. Give your location by mile marker, last exit number, or nearest cross street. Keep your phone charged while you drive, and carry a portable charger.
Pack food and a cooler instead of eating every meal at a restaurant, and cook at your accommodation when it has a kitchen. Compare gas prices along your route in the GasBuddy app before you fill up. Book accommodations that include breakfast, and camp on the nights you have the gear for it. Pick stops with no entrance fee, such as scenic overlooks and small towns, and check the fee page of any park or beach before you count it as free. Split fuel and lodging with your travel companions.
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