9 Helpful Apps for Your Road Trip
When you’re planning a road trip, a few good apps can make the difference between a smooth adventure and a stressful ride. After years of cross-country drives, national park trips, and even a 21-day Alaska road trip, we’ve tested dozens of apps and narrowed down the ones we actually use. These are the road trip apps that save us money, keep us entertained, and make the journey more fun.
Check out our other road trip entertainment & essentials guides:
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Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase through them—at no extra cost to you. We only share places, products, and apps we truly love.
1. Hoopla or Libby by OverDrive
Great for: Listening to audiobooks
One of the best ways to pass the time on the road is with a great audiobook. With Hoopla or Libby, you can borrow digital audiobooks straight from your local library—for free. Hoopla even allows you to download them in advance, so you’re not relying on spotty service in remote areas.
We’ve listened to entire book series on Hoopla (including every Harry Potter audiobook while taking our 3.5-month roadtrip through Utah & Colorado in 2021). Audiobooks are our favorite way to pass the time on the road and give us something fun to look forward to each day.
🔗 Pair this with our list of 20 Best Audiobooks for Road Trips for specific book recommendations.
2. Apple Maps
Great for: Navigation
Apple Maps is still the gold standard for navigation in our eyes. (We’re both iPhone users, which partly the reason why.) We use it for everything from directions to finding gas stations to mapping our rest areas and food on the road.
If we’re planning our route, we rely more on Google maps (the desktop version so we can plan our stops most effectively).
3. Waze
Great for: Alternate routes to avoid traffic jams and delays
When you’re driving through cities or high-traffic areas, Waze helps you avoid unnecessary traffic. The app relies on real-time driver updates to flag traffic jams, construction zones, or speed traps. It’s saved us hours when trying to get through places like Denver or Dallas at rush hour.
Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze can work together. Use Google Maps for big-picture planning, Apple Maps on the road (if you’re an iPhone user), and Waze for last-minute rerouting.
4. GasBuddy
Great for: Finding the cheapest gas along your route
Road trips = lots of fuel stops. GasBuddy is one of the most practical apps because it shows you real-time prices at nearby gas stations. On long trips, especially when crossing state lines, prices can fluctuate a lot. You can save a decent amount just by checking GasBuddy before pulling over.
For budget-minded travelers, it’s one of the best road trip hacks. Pair it with our Best Food for Road Trips guide to plan your fuel + snack stops at the same time. (If you can plan gas + bathroom breaks + food stops all at the same time, you’ve hit the road trip trifecta!)
4. Recreation.gov
Great for: Finding campsites, permits, and national park reservations
If your road trip takes you through national parks, national forests, or public lands, Recreation.gov is the app you’ll want on your phone. It’s the official booking platform for federal campgrounds and timed-entry systems, and it’s where you’ll reserve the big-ticket experiences like Half Dome permits, campground sites, scenic drive lotteries, and national park timed-entry passes.
The app is especially helpful when you’re planning a flexible road trip and want to search for available campsites along your route. You can filter by location, dates, amenities, vehicle size, and more. It also makes checking last-minute cancellations quick and easy (we’ve snagged some great spots this way).
5. Spotify
Great for: Road trip playlists you can listen to anywhere
Every road trip needs a soundtrack and Spotify is our go-to app for music. There are pre-made curated playlists for every mood, plus the ability to create your own playlists and download them offline. Whether you want throwbacks, sing-along anthems, or relaxing background tunes, it’s all there.
🎶 Want inspo? We keep a shared playlist for road trips so both of us can add songs along the way. Check out our picks for the Best Road Trip Songs of All Time.
6. Marriott Bonvoy (or HotelTonight)
Great for: Finding places to stay along your route
Sometimes you don’t know how far you’ll make it in a day, and that’s where hotel apps shine. We use the Marriott Bonvoy app because we’re loyal to the brand, but HotelTonight is also great if you’re looking for last-minute deals at a variety of chains.
We’ve used Bonvoy to snag same-day bookings when a snowstorm interrupted our trip from Dallas to Montana. Without the app, we would’ve been scrambling. If you like spontaneity on the road, keep at least one hotel app handy.
7. TripAdvisor (plus BringFido for dog owners)
Great for: Reviews on restaurants, activities, and dog-friendly stops
TripAdvisor is a reliable app for reviews of restaurants, attractions, and hotels. We use it to check things like dog-friendly patios or off-the-beaten-path activities along our route. It’s one of our favorite apps for planning things to do along our road trips.
If you’re traveling with a dog, BringFido is another must-download. We’ve used it to find pet-friendly hotels and restaurants and even discover great dog parks on long drives.
8. AllTrails
Great for: Finding hikes and walking trails near you
After hours in the car, stretching your legs on a trail is one of the best ways to reset. AllTrails is our favorite app for finding hikes near the road, from quick leg-stretchers to scenic overlooks.
Most recently, we used AllTrails to find a short fall foliage hike in the Ozarks (one of our favorite road trips from Dallas) that turned out to be one of our trip highlights, and it wasn’t even on our original itinerary. Downloading offline trail maps is also a lifesaver when cell service disappears.
9. Doctor On Demand
Great for: Quick medical care on the road
Doctor On Demand is one of those apps you hope you won’t need, but will be glad to have if you do. It connects you with a licensed doctor through a video visit, which is incredibly helpful when you’re traveling through small towns, national parks, or long stretches of highway without easy access to urgent care.
We’ve leaned on this app more than once while traveling, including during our Alaska road trip and an overnight pit stop in Denver when we needed quick medical advice without derailing our entire schedule. Instead of hunting down a clinic, sitting in a waiting room, or losing half a day, we were able to talk to a doctor within minutes (and sometimes while literally on the road) and keep our trip moving.
FAQ: Road Trip Apps
What is the best navigation app for road trips?
Apple Maps is our top pick for day-to-day navigation. It’s reliable, familiar, and great for iPhone users. Google Maps if our pick for planning our routes ahead of time. We use the desktop version for easier use.
Waze is the better choice for real-time conditions. If you’re headed through a big city or a busy interstate corridor, Waze will warn you about crashes, debris in the road, slowdowns, etc. We often switch between the two depending on where we are: Apple Maps for overall routing, Waze when we need traffic help or want the fastest possible ETA.
What app helps you find cheap gas on a road trip?
GasBuddy is the easiest and most accurate app for checking gas prices along your route. It shows nearby stations, price comparisons, and even trends so you can decide whether to fill up now or wait for the next town.
Over long drives, these little savings add up. On our Rockies and Southwest road trips, we routinely saved 40–60 cents per gallon just by checking GasBuddy before pulling off. If your trip crosses multiple states—with very different fuel taxes—this app can easily save you $20–$50 per trip.
What’s the best app for road trip playlists?
Spotify is our go-to for every drive. It has endless ready-made playlists, and you can also create shared playlists for your trip (we do this for every long route). The real benefit, though, is the ability to download playlists offline, which is essential because music will cut out the second you lose service in the mountains or desert.
If you need ideas, start with our Road Trip Playlist: Top Songs to Sing Along To. It’s full of feel-good favorites that keep your energy up on long stretches of highway.
How do I find hiking trails on a road trip?
AllTrails is the easiest way to discover hikes, viewpoints, and leg-stretching walks anywhere in the country. You can filter by distance, difficulty, dog-friendliness, or trail type, which makes it perfect for road trips where you just want something quick and scenic.
We use AllTrails constantly to break up long driving days. That quiet waterfall we stumbled on in Oregon? AllTrails. The short canyon overlook we found outside Moab? AllTrails. The app also lets you download offline maps—super helpful in national parks and mountain passes where service disappears.
What’s the best app for dog-friendly travel?
If you’re bringing your dog on a road trip, BringFido is the most reliable app for finding pet-friendly hotels, restaurants, trails, and parks. You can sort by pet policies, fees, and amenities, which helps avoid surprises at check-in.
We’ve used BringFido to find dog-friendly patios in New England, last-minute hotels near Yellowstone, and even local groomers and dog parks on longer trips. It’s one of the easiest ways to make sure your pup has a great time too.
Keep Planning Your Trip
🌎 Curious where we’ve been around the U.S. and Canada? Browse our Travel Seasons for real-life itineraries and practical tips from months spent living and working on the road.
🧳 Want to browse our packing list? Check out our complete Road Trip Packing List for the exact things we use and love on every trip!
📚 Ready to plan your next adventure? Explore our Free Resource Library for road trip itineraries, planning guides, and stories from the road.
🐻 In the mood for adventure? Read Alaska Diaries, a seven-part travelogue from the time we spent 21 days road tripping through Alaska on a mission to visit all eight of its national parks in one trip.
🏡 Wondering what it’s like to buy a fixer-upper just outside Yellowstone National Park? Follow along with Cabin Chronicles.
🦬 And if Yellowstone’s on your list, don’t miss our Yellowstone Travel Guide: your step-by-step companion to planning an unforgettable trip to Yellowstone National Park!
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