Finding a Good, Free Online Trip Planner

Yes, I have our whole summer trip entered into a Google Drive spreadsheet, but it occurs to me that there may be a tool out there that can help with road trip planning. Instead of using multiple tools to plan my trips, maybe there's one that can do it all...something with a map that also provides a place to store attraction and budget information. Even in the digital age, it is possible to end up somewhere GPS can't find you. So, maybe it's not a bad idea to have the trip plotted and printed beforehand, just in case. And, you know, it would be really nice to find a free trip planner that also stored attraction information for each of our destinations.

I need a trip planner that:

• Plots multiple stops with driving directions from each location to the next
• Stores local attraction information, including links and cost
• Prints a clean, readable version of the entire trip
• Saves the plan for future reference and updating because I doubt I'll be able to input everything in one sitting
• Is free (if possible).

Now that I'm thinking more about it, it would be nice to have a tool that tracks travel time, too. That way, we'll know if we leave the house at 8:00 A.M., we'll arrive at our first location by noon, or whatever the case may be.

Here's a review of some free trip planners that I sampled that you may find useful in planning your family road trip.

My Scenic Drives

While not the most attractive interface, My Scenic Drives allows you to plan and create sharable road trips. Add multiple stops to your trip, each with its own associated activities and accommodations. An activity can be a place of interest, non-driving transportation, or your own custom-labeled event. You can add details such as cost and how long you plan to do the activity. You can even import information from a vCard.

Set up details about your trip in the Settings section, including your vehicle type, trip start date and preferences for distance, time and driving speed. If you're looking for accommodations or activities within a certain mileage of a destination, use the Distance Circle feature in the Map menu. My Scenic Drives also comes with other mapping tools, including reverse routes, optimization choices (for distance, time or stops), and views of the Continental U.S., Canada or your full road trip. Add a weather or panoramic picture layer to see what's going on at or near your destinations.

When you're finished plotting your stops, destinations and activities, you can not only save and print your road trip, but share it via email, Facebook or Twitter, and export it to GPS or iCalendar.

When you get past the interface and take the time to learn all of the features available on My Scenic Drives, it has everything on my wish list and more. I really like this tool and plan to use it in the future.

Planapple

Planapple has just about everything you need for vacation planning. Start by naming your trip, entering the first destination and setting the trip date range. You will have to create an account, but can login with Facebook, Twitter or Google+. This tool includes an optional addon button you can drag to your browser's bookmarks bar to add websites to your trip.

To add items to your trip, you must first add them to your Notebook. You can do so through the browser button, by searching the business name or by entering its website URL. Once all of your stops, destinations and attractions are entered into your notebook, you're ready to setup your itinerary.

What's really great about Planapple? Well, it can be collaborative. If you are planning trips with friends and family, they can log in and add to the trip "binder." I wish I could get my husband to collaborate on the trip planning, but--alas--I am the designated family road trip planner, so I'm on my own.

Not only can you print your full itinerary, but you can send the trip link to your smartphone via SMS. You'll need the mobile app to access this functionality. if you don't want to install it, just access the Planapple website through your device's Web browser. 

Other cool features:

• It integrates with TripIt so you can import existing itineraries.
• It integrates with Google Calendar and iCalendar to export your itinerary.
• It includes a discussion forum for your tripmates to share ideas and discuss trip-related topics.
• It includes customizable notebook categories to allow you to organize resources however you want.

There are two downsides to Planapple:

• The "Please donate" nag popups every five actions or so. Perhaps after my trip this year, I'll donate to this project because it really is a great tool!
• It doesn't print or provide driving directions, so you'll still need one of the other trip planners or map/driving direction tools (see below) to print those.

RoadTrippers

RoadTrippers is an attractive site. It's not just a trip planner, but a destination information and travel guide site. Getting started with your road trip plan is as easy as entering the start and end points and clicking "Go." Use the lookup when you don't know the exact address of your destination. There are some issues with the way it plans your trips, however.

First, the only preferences you can define for your trip is whether or not you want to use highways. We like to avoid tolls for our destination-to-destination travels because traveling with an R.V. means ridiculously high tolls.

Map attractions, lodging, restaurants and other activities with available buttons. Some activity categories allow furthering filtering. Set a distance from your travel route to see which attractions are close enough to justify detours. Click a map marker to learn more about the activity or attractions, and then choose whether you want to add it to your trip or bucket list for a future trip.

When you add it to your trip, RoadTrippers puts it in your destination list. You can drag-and-drop destiniations to reorganize the list and set dates for each. This is a feature I really didn't care much for. While it can be useful to enter activities into your itinerary, this tool makes you add your lodging site/campground back in after every activity, especially if you want an accurate fuel cost estimate and driving directions to your next destination. I like to keep my activities as a sidebar or sub-stop to the main lodging destinations, and reentering the campground over and over again was a pain. Plus, if you plan on taking public transportation or other means of getting to the activity, RoadTrippers has no way to account for that while still including the activity.

And, I just have to say that the auto-save feature on this site made me crazy as I was creating my road trip. I work fast. Auto-save was constantly canceling out my action while it saved my last.


Other cool features:

• You define your miles-per-gallon and RoadTrippers estimates the fuel cost for your trip.
• The printable itinerary is graphically appealing with activity photos.
• You can share your road trip through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, email, or by embedding it in a website or blog.
• It provides printable stop-by-stop driving directions.
• It offers mobile apps so that you can take your trip with you.
  

Furkot Road Trip Planner

Furkot Road Trip Planner offers a quick-start form wherein your enter the start and end destinations, although its type-ahead lookup in the wizard seems limited when searching business names. You can continue through the setup wizard or go straight to your map to work. The wizard lets you define your start and end dates, whether you're staying at hotels or campgrounds, and your modes of transportation.

When you get to your map, you'll find that the destination and activity search tool is more robust. What didn't work for me in the wizard, works inside the tool. Even better is that the destination information shows current weather. You can also specify how many days you'll be at a particular lodging or how many hours you plan to participate in an activity. Each destination also includes space to record reservation confirmation information and other notes.

When it comes to showing what's near you, Furkot has buttons for all the usual categories: museums, sports, and parks. You can filter in more closely by type, too. The tool offers scenic byways in case you're looking to take a ride or walk. You can also access its library of travel guides and access deals and discounts for the activities you're viewing. You can also add your own activities as stops in your trip. When you mark them as "pass through" stops, the tool automatically gets you back to your lodging. No reentry like you have to do for RoadTrippers.


Other cool features:

• In addition to a satellite view, you can see a topographical view of your map.
• Furkot does let you specify whether you want to avoid tolls or highways, and to set other trip preferences.
• Export your trip to various formats, including iCalendar, GPS and CSV (spreadsheets for Excel or Google Docs).
• Share your trip via email or publish it to the Furkot community.

Map/Driving Direction Websites
Never underestimate the value of mapping/driving direction websites for help planning your road trips. Here are a few that have features worth mentioning:

• MapQuest Route Planner - Enter multiple destination points for simple driving directions. Customize your route by selecting options for the quickest or shortest distance and avoiding things like tolls and ferries. One nice feature of MapQuest is that you can enter your vehicle information to estimate your fuel cost. 
• Google Maps - I've used Google Maps as part of my trip planning for a while now. It's so valuable when you're looking for attractions, lodging or other venues around your destination. It lets you save points of interest to your own sharable maps, as well. Google Maps has a ton of features (street view and search to name a couple) that make it a great planning tool, but not necessarily a great trip planner.
• Rand McNally - This map-maker has an online map application that will allow you to plot multiple stops. However, it doesn't appear to have the same business lookup functionality you'll get with MapQuest or Google Maps when you don't have an exact address for a business. Plot gasoline stations, restaurants, ATMs, and hotels for your route. You can print or email your route, but you can't save it.

Conclusion
The right road trip planner for you depends upon your personal preferences and needs. Personally, I like My Scenic Drive despite its minimal graphical appeal. Planapple is a close second. My Scenic Drives is a great organization and planning tool, but I wish it had some features available in the others, such as the browser add-on for bookmarking attractions and searchable travel guides. The other tools all have plusses and minuses, and I wouldn't count any of them out, except maybe RoadTrippers because I just don't like the way it creates the destination and activity list. I hope these reviews help you find one that's right for you.