Type a start and an end, add the towns between, and give each one its nights. The planner shows every drive in kilometres and hours, warns about the days that are too long, and opens the whole route in Google Maps. Your route is saved in this browser as you go, with no account.
How to plan a road trip route with stops
- 1.Set the start and the endType where you leave from and where the trip ends. Leave “Back to start” on for a loop, or turn it off for a one-way drive, a rental you drop in another city.
- 2.Add the towns on the wayEvery drive on the board has “Add a town here”. Search for a town, or click the map and the planner puts it where it makes the smallest detour.
- 3.Give each town its nightsOne night is a stop on the way. Two give you a whole day there without the car. The nights add up to the length of the trip, so there is no separate question about dates.
- 4.Read the drivesEach drive shows its kilometres and hours and a short bar. Green is a comfortable day; amber means the drive is longer than a day should be. Drag a town, or use its menu, to change the order.
- 5.Take the route with youOpen it in Google Maps for the turn-by-turn, copy it as text for whoever you travel with, or let Roadanza fill the days with places to see and eat.
Nights decide the route, drives follow
Most route planners start from the line on the map. A road trip is easier to plan from the other end: where you sleep. Eight nights in four towns is a different trip from eight nights in eight towns, even on the same road, and you will feel the difference by day three. So the board counts nights first. A round trip of eight nights is nine days, because the drive home is a day of its own, and the planner puts it at the bottom of the board where you can see it.
The bar under each drive measures it against 400 km, about five and a half hours at the 75 km/h a car really averages once you count fuel, coffee and the slow last kilometres into town. Green means there is room left in the day. Amber means the drive is over that line. Take Valencia to Teruel, Zaragoza and Bilbao and back: the first three drives are 146, 183 and 307 km, and the drive home from Bilbao is close to 600 km, which is the one that turns amber. Add Soria or Calatayud on that drive and it becomes two days of about 300 km.
Three to four hours behind the wheel is what most people enjoy on a touring day. Our guide on how to plan a road trip explains how to turn that into a daily limit and how many places fit into the rest of the day.
Open a multi-stop route in Google Maps
“Open in Google Maps” turns the board into directions with every town as a stop, in your order, ready for the phone on the dashboard. A Google Maps link carries a start, an end and nine stops between them: eleven places. A longer route comes as several links, “Valencia to Soria”, then “Soria to Bilbao”, each starting where the last one ended, so nothing is skipped and nothing is driven twice.
When every town came from the search, the link names them and pins each to Google’s own place. If you placed one by clicking the map, the link uses coordinates instead, so every stop lands on the exact spot. “Copy route” gives you the same trip as plain text, one line per town with its nights and the drive into it, for a message to whoever is coming along. Put the total distance into the fuel cost calculator to see what the driving will cost.
When to let Roadanza fill the days
The board is the skeleton: where you sleep and how far you drive. If you already know what to do in Teruel, it is all you need. If you would rather arrive with a plan, “Fill these days” asks three things the board does not know (your dates, your pace, what you love) and builds each day inside your route without moving a town or a night: what to see, where to eat, the stops on the drive, in an order that works for the day. It is the same planner that builds the road trip routes on this site, and every day stays yours to change.
Questions, answered
- Can you plan a road trip with multiple stops on Google Maps?
- Yes, up to ten destinations after the start, which covers a long weekend but rarely a two-week trip. Google Maps also has no idea where you sleep, so a 600 km day looks the same as a 150 km one. Lay the trip out here by nights, then open it in Google Maps: longer routes come as several links, each continuing from the last.
- What is the 3-3-3 rule for road trips?
- The usual version: drive no more than 300 miles (about 480 km) a day, arrive by 3 pm, and stay three nights where you stop. It comes from RV travel. The first two parts are a good default for any car; three nights everywhere is generous, so most people use it for the one or two places that matter most.
- How many nights should you spend in each stop?
- One night if the town is a place to sleep between two long drives, two if you want a full day there, three for a base you will take day trips from. A two-week loop usually ends up as two or three bases and a few single nights between them.
- Is my route saved?
- Yes, in this browser, as you build it, with no account. It is listed under My trips as a draft and opens where you left it. Copy the route or open it in Google Maps if you want it on another device.