Road Trip Planner App Reviews

We decided to go on a road trip up the coasts of Northern California, Oregon, Washington to Victoria, BC and then back down the central parts of each state. I found Road Trip Planner and easily planned our entire trip with precise destinations, milage between destinations, alternate routes, points of interest, activity cost (lodging, food, etc) and even cost of fuel for the entire trip. In the notes, I added confirmations, contact names and phone numbers. An itinerary was automatically generated which we printed out and included all the notes, distance of each leg, turn by turn instructions, travel time, arrival and departure times. We generated a second itinerary in a PDF without the driving instructions or costs and sent it to friends and family. Since I downloaded the application 2 months ago, the developer has updated it probably 6 times. The only downside is that the iOS version is only a viewer, but I understand that is being worked on to become a complete application. The Road Trip Planner, OS X.9 (Mavericks) is great, so was the road trip.

Several issues - for example Arrival and Departure fields are mixed up. Keeps crashing. Not very intuitive GUI. Definitely not worth the money.

I bought this app a few months ago. First time I tried to use it, it crashed. I sent the error logs to the author. He said he could not re-create my crash. I had not opened the app since that time. Fast forward to several updates. I entered 3 way points and had it crash again. I sent the error log to the author. He asked me how I had the crash occur. I replied to him with the “pinned” places I entered. Apparently this was not good enough as his reply was "How did you assign the pins? By clicking the map? By entering an address? Some other means? Were there other pins on the map? Etc. etc. Hopefully some day someone will do as I ask and then I will be able to fix the bug”. Not impressed with the support. Author needs to be a little more diplomatic when customers are buying his product. And apparently I am “lucky” as he declared to me "Its now $15 while you bought it for $8 I see.” If I could rate this ZERO stars, I would.

And works with you to solve problems with your particular operating system.

I am traveling between New Mexico and Virginia with the occasional side trip so I do different routes. This has been a great tool for planning the trips. Like any tool, you have to learn how it works but it gives you all the information needed and is extremely easy to use. I had som preconcieved notions on how it would work and dropped a note on the Google Group page. I had an answer from the support team within an hour (don’t expect that all the time, I suppose) and found their way was much better than what I was trying to do. I print off the map and leave it with my wife so knows where I will be and when. I highly recommend this software.

Road Trip Planner 2.7 is worth every penny. If you travel by road for business then this is a great app which to have. It does what I couldn’t get Google maps to do and I’ve not seen a single smart phone do on its own, namely make a route with multiple stops and not just point A to point B. Moreover, it interfaces with NWS weather, tracks costs, attaches notes and pictures to locations, works with your contacts, and you can even download FREE apps for iPhone and iPad to which you can export. Is it everything you could want? For most, yes, but if you want to see improvements you can communicate directly with the author who is very helpful with support, and open and responsive to suggestions. And all this for a mere $15. You can barely eat lunch for $15 these days, and have nothing to show for it when you are done. There is scant in the way of this kind of software, and this is very well done. If you are taking a trip this is less than one wiper blade, and if you travel 3 weeks a month for work, it is indispensably priceless.

Well, let me start by saying that I have been using similar products for many years on my PCs to do my frequent trip planning before leaving home. I recently bought my first Mac, a MacBook Pro. Since Microsoft has stopped supporting their Streets and Trips software I thought I’d find a similar product for the Mac. I settled on RTP after a few hours of reading reviews and trying out demos. Now that I have spent several more hours using RTP I wish I could get my $15 back. This software is simply not ready for prime time. The implementation is very immature. Not very user friendly and not at all intuitive. I doubt I’ll ever use it again. I’m going back to my Surface Pro and my unsupported MS Streets and Trips. In my car, I use Navigon on my iPhone. Works great!

This app keeps getting better and better, as shown by the improvements to the Help menu and the capability to have more than 100 route pins in version 2.7.2. Don’t believe the negative reviews. Many are old, and in most cases the reviewer did not seem to know how to use this app. It does not have a steep learning curve like Photoshop, but it does require some time to learn all of the various features. Time well-spent… the rewards of this app are many. ——-- Below is my review from May 17, 2014 ------ This app is awesome. It’s hard to believe how much it has changed in the short amount of time since I first started using it two months ago back in March. The developer has really listened to his users’ suggestions posted on his forum, and he has worked hard to make this app a workhorse for the traveler. In fairness to the developer I hope the folks who reviewed an early version take the time to update their reviews based on the current version. So many new features and improved usability! — Pictures can be dragged to pins (both Route Pins and Point of Interest Pins). A photo of that clam shack you’re going to visit, or the train station in Barcelona so you’ll know it when you see it. — Activities can also have a picture. Running with the bulls. Cog Railway up Mt. Washington. Rockin’ in Ibiza. Your hotel. Your friend’s house. — And all of these pictures can be printed in the itinerary along with all the other information associated with each Route Pin, Point of Interest Pin, and Activity. The itinerary becomes a very complete blueprint of your trip with all the details included. Not only is the format of the itinerary attractive, but when you print it you can each Route Pin start a new page. — There may be many websites you want to reference during your journey. No longer is the app limited to just a single site per pin… each pin can now have an unlimited number of sites. This is a superb app, worth every penny. The more you use it, the more you’ll appreciate it. ——— Below is my review from May 4, 2014 ——— Wow… in a little over a month you would not believe how much functionality has been added to this app! Almost every request I’ve sent to the developer has been added. - increased work area layout with panels that can be easily hidden/displayed with a double-click - can now indicate non-car routes (plane, train, bus, etc.) with a straight line - in addition to route pins on the map there are also Point of Interest pins (these are not routed) - many new fields have been added to route activities such as URL, email, address, phone number, confirmation number, etc. - the formatting of the itinerary is much improved with boldface, italics, indents, bullets and underscores - template for TO DO and PACKING list has been added - performance enhancements I realize there are some 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star reviews for the earlier version (before v2.0). If those users stay current with this app I hope they re-write their reviews based on the current 2.0 version. This is without a doubt THE PREMIER route planning app! ——-- Below is my review from Mar 24, 2014 ------ I’m giving this app FIVE stars, because I am so impressed with the response of the developer. I have experience with other trip planning software so before I purchased the app I asked the developer a few questions via email and he answered very quickly. So I bought the app at the beginning of the weekend and spent the entire weekend booking hotels and flights and planning rail trips and activities for a 1-month trip to Europe. I used Road Trip Planner to record everything I need to know in a single itinerary. As I used the app I discovered features I felt were missing or could be improved so I jotted off emails to the developer. In each case he replied almost immediately. In fact, he started a Google Group for users to post suggestions and enhancements, and already it is quite an active group with a lot of participation by the developer. Users respond to other’s ideas and the developer will try to give priority to the most popular ideas. Also, the developer just announced on the company website that an iPhone companion app will be released next month. Great! So there’s a lot of activity and buzz.

I like to “collect” places to visit. Road Trip Planner allows me to input these places and see where they fall out in proximity to one another, which allows me to optimize travel time. It would be wonderful if RTP could plan my route for me, but apparently this is a limitation of Apple Maps and not RTP. The developer is VERY responsive - any issue or question and he responds very quickly. He is also very open to implementing suggestions in future updates. This is an absolutely great travel app, especially when used in conjunction with the RTP viewer on the iPad. I would heartily recommend this app.

With the demise of Microslop ST, I began looking for an app to replace it. Just about everything I looked at was missing one or more features I like; then I found Road Trip Planner. I stopped looking. RTP plans better routes and offers more of the kind of locations I’m looking for when I travel. It’s faster drawing routes and allows better selection of viewable information. If you are looking to move to a Mac or replace MS S&T, give this app a try.

I’m new to travel planning so I don’t profess to be an expert, but I used RTP to plan our three week Summer road trip and I’m, overall, happy with the results. Easy to plan and route our trip as well as share the results with those traveling with us. I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but overall I’m a happy customer.

After trying the many online version of trip planners for a long motorcycle trip, I knuckled under and paid the $15 for this app - pretty pricey for mapping, but I was eager to get something robust. I agree that the interface is far from intuitive, but with a little effort I was able to get done what I wanted to get done, with one big problem…stability. The app crashes randomly and also behaves differently when it’s about to crash. I learned to save frequently to avoid losing data, but it is a big pain. So many other good features that I intend to use. But stability is a huge challenge. Mac Powerbook OS 10.9.5.

I agonized over what tool to use, then several of my buddies told me about Road Trip Planner. Man, it works great, and leverages a good number of OS X features (export route to Maps?! Yes!). Im about to drive from Newark, DE to Los Angeles, CA, and I finally have a tool that will get things right for me. POI feature was a little wierd, but I reached out to the developer and BAM he is already tweaking it to appease! Not many times in your life you get the opportunity to drive cross country - ALL the way from East to West coast. If you are serious about your trip, get this tool, you wont be sorry.

Just because something costs more doesn’t mean it is more valuable… Road Trip Planner did not provide the simplicity, ease of use nor the functionality that I was looking for. I am disappointed. I should have stuck with the Google Map product...

I don’t know what caused it, but after I inputted all the details of a very complicated 2-week family vacation with multiple legs of travel with various hotels and airlines and activities, I thought I was good to go - but printed out my intinerary for a hard copy as insurance. Boy, am I ever glad I did that! When I traveled with my smart phone app and changed several time zones - all the times of my flights and activities changed to inaccurate values. ONly because of my printout did I avert disaster. This app was powerful and allowed me put in alot of detail - something I like. The itinerary feature should provide something more impressive when printing….

I’ve just got an hour or so into this, but I can’t believe that it’s all that I’ve hunted for so long. I can plan on the desktop, send pins to my iPad and be on the road with Apple maps turn-by-turn. Actually I’ll usually pass the turn-by-turns off to Navigon on the iPad since I like it’s maps better though the input of addresses is lousy. I’m looking forward to exploring this, but I’m a very happy camper for now!

I have used mapping applications for a number of years. Delorme products and Microsoft Streets and Trips and AutoRoute. When I switched to Mac’s I had to install Parallels just to run Streets and Trips and AutoRoute. Then I found RTP. Its Pins separating Route and POI Pins is a great feature. The ability to switch between driving and walking from one pin to another allows you to truly plan a trip and get accurate times and distances. The Map or Satellite is also a big help and the ability to use the viewer on iPhone and iPad is great. I will be looking forward to the next additions to this program.

Worked literally for 2 minutes, then crashed every time I put in an address to begin routing. Please address/fix issue….

The apps looks like it has potential, but it doesn’t. If ou buy it, you will want to make it work after throwing away your cash on this dog.

This is the closet I have gotten to Microsoft Streets & Trips functionality. What I use it and used S&T for is to map places I might visit during a trip to plan our days in a general area. So not so much the road trip target use case. Being able to get estimated travel times between pins is nice. And being able to add pins based on Apple Maps search backend is awesome! S&T never had this! The key feature I’d like to see added is to show multiple pins at once with small pin labels. With S&T, I would show a bunch of pins at once to review an area, make decisions, and take a screen shot to bring up later during a trip to review what’s around an area we are currently in.