You’ve made the commitment – you are going to do a USA road trip. But now the excitement of that decision is over, and you are staring at maps, guide books, blogs and wondering where you are going to go and what planning you need to do.

It can be quite overwhelming planning your first USA road trip. The USA is not just a huge country but it is packed full of interesting people, places and attractions. Hopefully, this guide can help you work out how to plan your ultimate USA road trip!

Step 1: Work out your approximate route

The first step is to work out which part of the country you want to see. You do not need to lock in the entire itinerary, but it is a good idea to decide on a region to explore, especially if you need to hire a car.

To do this, I recommend looking at Google maps. Type in the destinations that most appeal and get an idea of the time it will take to drive between them. It may not be the most accurate tool in the world, but it will give you an indication. I spent a lot of time working out a rough itinerary with google maps that I knew we could fit into our time frame without driving more than 4 hours a day. It was also a good way for me to see what cities we were passing near or through on our route so I could look them up and get a better idea of the best places to stop.

Another great source for route ideas can be sites like this. We found this a quick and easy way to work out some possible routes, time frames and attractions. I also loved this book about planning a USA road trip. It has a lot of different routes with attractions along the way. It was invaluable for us in working out some of our more unusual stops.

You also need to decide whether to do a one way trip (ie start and finish in different cities) or a more circular one, keeping in mind that it will probably be cheaper to start and finish in the same city.

Step 2: Sort our your car

Once you know your approximate route, you can sort out your car. Depending on your situation you might want to use your own, buy one or hire one.

Our hire car

If you use your own, book it in to get a service and checked out before you leave. Tell your mechanic that you are about to go on a long road trip. Here is a useful car checklist from Calculated Traveller of what you should check.

To hire a car, get searching. There are so many different sites where you can check for car hire deals and the prices can vary widely. I like to check out consolidators such as Expedia.

Step 3: Get travel insurance

As soon as you have paid any money for your road trip, this is the point to buy cancellation and medical insurance for travelling. You never know what might happen. On one trip to the USA, my previously healthy travelling companion had a sudden seizure and it would have been incredibly expensive without insurance. This is not something to be tight about.

You are going to want to ensure you have insurance that covers medical issues, liability and cancellation at a minimum. You also need to have some type of car insurance whether you are hiring or using your own. If your own insurance does not cover hire cars include some type of waiver or insurance with your car hire. Car hire in the USA does not automatically come with any insurance.

Read our article about finding the best travel insurance for your situation.

Step 4: Research attractions

Although some people are happier doing everything as they go, I do recommend researching attractions before you leave home. A road trip is usually full on and I know I was very tired by the evenings and I did not find researching as we went enjoyable. Thankfully, I had already worked out a lot of great attractions along our possible routes.

I think you would struggle to make the most of your road trip if you haven’t done some planning beforehand. For me, the best parts were when we went to the whacky attractions along the way. We just would not have got to these types of places without doing some research. The fabulous interstates have the downside that it easy to miss things if you don’t already know where to go.

No one should miss the birth of a cabbage patch kid

To do this, the book I mentioned above and google are your best friends. I googled search terms like “road trip attractions in Louisiana”. It was time consuming to find some of our more random stops. There seems to be lots of information about coastal states but not so much about the Deep South.

Step 5: Book your first stop

This is an optional step. You might be quite happy booking everything as you go. We personally found it comforting to know our first stop was all arranged especially as we had never driven in the USA before.  We actually ended up booking our first week as we knew we wanted to get to New Orleans for J’s birthday.

Our hotel in the French Quarter, New Orleans

I personally tended to stick with HotelsCombined, Booking.com and Super 8 booking sites (which would show all the chains owned by the Wyndham Group).

We booked hotels at least a night or two in advance. We liked to know where we were going that day as we were usually exhausted by the time we got there.

Step 6: Get a map

I wouldn’t bother with a paper map these days although I know many people love them. We bought the Tomtom app for my iPhone and a holder for the iPhone in the car. This worked beautifully. We considered using Google maps but I was worried about our data allowance and we didn’t always have reception. The Tomtom GPS app worked everywhere.

Step 7: Check out weather and other warnings as you go

While you are on your road trip, keep an eye out for any warnings that may affect your trip. For example, on our Deep South road trip, “icemaggadon” hit parts of our planned route and we had to make changes. There were severe weather warnings and people were told not to travel to affected parts at all. If we hadn’t been keeping track of the weather, we would not have known this, especially as our stop right beforehand had us in t shirts and shorts.

The kids loved road tripping too

That’s it! It is not hard to plan a USA road trip – well once you decide on your general route anyway. I do recommend keeping your arrangements flexible. We had a few different routes in mind and we changed our mind as we went. It was nice to know that we knew lots of options for wherever we went. You can also check out all the details of our Deep South road trip.

What are your USA road trip planning tips?

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