Summer is prime road trip season—whether you're chasing national parks, hitting the beach, or just making the most of the long days. Spending hours on the road traveling across the country is the highlight of many people's year.
That said, road trips aren't necessarily easy. There are always times you'll get stuck in traffic, wonder if you're lost, or need to find the next gas station as soon as possible. Luckily, there are smartphone apps to help with all that.
I've tested and reviewed five essential apps to help with your summer road trip. These apps can help in every stage of your journey, from planning your route to finding gas. Plus, we've also included options that show interesting pit stops and help pass the time when flying down the highway.
How we picked the best road trip apps
WhistleOut searches for Android and iPhone apps that are easy to use and affordable. We evaluate apps through hands-on testing and rate them on a five-star scale based on the following criteria:
- User experience: We search for apps that enhance the user experience, improving the power of your phone and making your life less complicated. The apps we recommend are intuitive, allowing users to put them to use as soon as they open them.
- Price and value: We select apps that charge minimal download fees and tend to favor apps that don't charge anything. We do include some apps that charge fees, though we guarantee that they're worth the price tag.
- Efficacy: App developers like to talk a big game; we test their products to see if they deliver on their promises.
- Practicality: Your phone has a limited amount of storage, so you don't want to clog it with single-use apps that don't improve your day-to-day life. We reward apps that are worth their weight in data.
- Privacy & security: We evaluate the permissions an app requests, sussing out the legitimate from the suspect. We also scour user reviews on relevant app stores to see if customers are reporting security concerns and investigate the veracity of those complaints.
1. Roadtrippers: Best road trip planning app
Roadtrippers is one of the most popular travel planning apps on both app stores. You can find people singing its praises from travel blogs to the r/roadtrip subreddit. It's designed to help you plan out stops and activities along the route of your road trip. That could include cool roadside attractions, national parks, or even great restaurants and hotels. Roadtrippers can populate options automatically or you can select specific kinds of stops based on your interests.
Image: Max McCaskill | WhistleOut
The app is free to download, but you'll need to make an account to create a trip. You also have the option to upgrade to Roadtrippers Plus or Roadtrippers Pro for extras like live traffic, offline maps, and RV-specific tools. That said, most casual road trippers can get plenty of mileage out of the free tier, which lets you create trips with up to 150 waypoints—more than enough for a summer adventure.
Over on r/roadtrip, the app is a consistent recommendation. As one Reddit user put it: "Roadtrippers is by far my favorite. It finds the weirdest, coolest stops you'd never know about otherwise."
While Roadtrippers is great for planning your trip's route, it won't help you pack. Check out our best organization apps for help with your to-do lists and reminders.
Visiting the U.S.? Try these translation apps
The United States is a popular destination for vacationers from around the world. With the lack of a nationwide public transit system, many visitors choose to rent vehicles and go on road trips through the nation's interior.
If you struggle to speak English, these awesome translation apps can help you get around with ease.
2. GasBuddy: Find cheap fuel across the country
Got a gas guzzler? GasBuddy can help you save. This app uses live data to monitor gas prices at almost every gas station in the country. Prices are added by station owners themselves or by crowdsourcing customers passing through the area.
Image: Jessica Santero | WhistleOut
I love this app and have used it extensively for years. You can use your current location to find the cheapest gas around, or you can type in your road trip destination, and the app will show you the cheapest gas on your route. It's also completely free and includes a free rewards program. GasBuddy helps keep your fuel costs down for road trips specifically, but it's also just a handy app to keep on your phone.
Fans on r/roadtrip agree. One commenter summed it up well: "A must-have—I saved a noticeable amount on a single cross-country trip just by routing past cheaper stations."
3. Waze: Real-time traffic and community alerts
Waze is one of the most popular navigation apps on the planet, with tens of millions of reviews across both major app stores and consistently strong ratings on each.
Image: Google Play Store
The app is popular because it offers real-time traffic analysis. Waze collects this data through crowdsourcing its massive pool of users. You can see live updates for traffic, car accidents, bad weather, and even speed checks. If the app detects trouble slowing down traffic on your route, it will reroute you to save time. As a bonus, our testing shows Waze uses less mobile data than Google Maps and Apple Maps.
Waze is free on both app stores and is an essential tool for any road trip.
Track your road trip caravan with Apple's Find My app
If your traveling party is split between several cars, it can be helpful to have a live location for every vehicle. Apple's native Find My app is an easy way to share locations and see live data for every member of your group.
4. iExit: See gas, restaurants, and hotels at every interstate exit
Your GPS may show you the perfect route for your road trip, but iExit will show you the best places to stop along the way. The app uses your location to determine upcoming highway exits on your trip. From there, you can choose between restaurants, gas stations, and hotels.
Image: Max McCaskill | WhistleOut
The app's interface is extremely basic and easy to understand. It's designed to be used while traveling (though not by the driver), so the buttons are large and the information is short and to the point.
While I recommend this app for your road trip, you should note that it only works on interstates and highways. If you're traveling off the beaten path on a side road, the app will only show you locations at nearby highway exits.
5. Road Trip!: Fun games for kids in the car
Road Trip! is an all-in-one travel app. It has a travel planner function that can help you map out routes and find places to stop. It also offers weather reports about your destination and a gas tracker to help you keep up with how much you've spent on fuel. However, our favorite part of the Road Trip! app is the travel games section.
Image: Max McCaskill | WhistleOut
The app offers a modern twist on the games you've probably played your entire life. There's a game for license plate spotting, state trivia, road sign bingo, and even a Name That Song function if you have an Apple Music subscription. All of these options are great for keeping kids entertained on long summer drives.
Road Trip! is only available on iOS since it includes an Apple Music function. That said, all of its features are free with no additional purchases required.
Do I have enough data for my road trip?
For most of these apps, you're going to need an internet connection to get the full experience. These data-monitoring apps make it easy to track your data usage on the road. That said, the last thing anyone wants is for their phone to slow down because their travel apps sucked up all their data. Luckily, there are great unlimited plans that will give you plenty of data without blowing up your road trip's budget.
Smaller carriers called MVNOs offer service at discounted rates on the larger carrier's networks. These carriers typically don't offer as many perks, but you can find solid plan options with plenty of priority data at a much friendlier price. Plus, these carriers usually offer access to 5G networks too, so you can count on having fast speeds.
Best phone plans for road trips
Mint Mobile offers excellent service on T-Mobile's network. You can snag an Unlimited Data plan with 50GB of premium data and a 20GB mobile hotspot for just $30/month. Mint requires you to prepay for at least three months in advance, but the overall cost is much cheaper than many other carriers with comparable options.
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Mint Mobile
Unlimited Data Plan
$25.00/mo
$75.00 upfront payment for 3 months (equals to $25.00/month). Intro pricing for new customers only.
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Visible is our favorite option for service on the Verizon network. Visible has competitive unlimited plans. The $35/month Visible+ plan and $45/month Visible+ Pro plan include unlimited premium 5G ultra-wideband data. Plus, both offer an unlimited mobile hotspot with speeds limited at 10Mbps and 15Mbps respectively. That's plenty of speed for basic browsing tasks like social media and streaming.
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Visible
$35 Visible+ Plan
$35.00/mo
Taxes & Fees included
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Visible
$45 Visible+ Pro Plan
$45.00/mo
Taxes & Fees included
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Customers wanting AT&T service can look into Red Pocket. It offers a solid Monthly Unlimited Plan for $30/month. The plan includes 50GB of premium data and offers mobile hotspot capability that relies on data from your overall allotment. For most customers, this is plenty of data to meet their needs.
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Red Pocket
Premium Monthly Plan (GSMA)
$30.00/mo
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Road trip apps: FAQ
How can I find cheap gas?
GasBuddy is the easiest way to find cheap gas, using crowdsourced real-time data to show you the lowest prices at stations near you or along your route. You can download it for free on both iOS and Android.
What's a good app to plan a road trip?
Roadtrippers is one of the best road trip planning apps available, letting you map out your route and discover stops like roadside attractions, national parks, and restaurants along the way. The free tier is more than enough for most trips, too.
What's the best travel app?
The best travel app depends on what you need, but Waze is a great all-around pick for road trips thanks to its real-time traffic alerts, accident reports, and automatic rerouting. For a more complete experience, pairing Waze with Roadtrippers for planning and GasBuddy for fuel savings covers just about everything.
How WhistleOut reviews apps
Our mobile experts scour the app stores, looking for the best new apps for Android and iPhone. Before recommending an app, we use the app for at least one full workday, testing its basic functionality and evaluating whether or not it delivers on its promises.
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Easy to use
Great apps simplify your phone. We selected the tools that don't require a complicated instructional manual. -
Affordability
The internet is filled with expensive price tags, but we're not buying what they're selling. We leaned into inexpensive, quality apps. Extra points if they're free! -
Hands-on testing
We played around with these before recommending them, ensuring they're worth your download.
From there, we weigh the app's pros and cons and then determine whether or not it's a worthwhile download for the wider population of cell phone users.
Max McCaskill
Sr. Staff Writer
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