myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner FAQ

Our Road Trip Planner is free. Please consider supporting the website by purchasing a National Park or National Forest Pass. And of course, tell your family and friends about us!

A free account allows you to create, edit, and save unlimited trips. You can add custom places of interest, share trips, and more.

Once you have signed up, create your trip by choosing your starting location and your destination or create your trip from one of our scenic drives.

Next add stops by searching or clicking on the map and selecting a destination or Find Nearby Places of Interest from the menu.

Look over the directions, if necessary make changes, then print or export to your GPS.

There is also a video overview available.

No, the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner works right in your browser. We recommend using the latest version of the browser of your choice for best results.

After entering your starting and finishing points on the first screen, you will be able to add as many stops as you would like by either clicking on the map, searching for destinations, or clicking “Add Destination” below your Road Trip Plan.

The easiest way to enter an address is to use the Add a Destination below your last Road Trip Stop (its also under the Add menu), or you can type the address in free-form in the search bar.

Directions can be found above the Road Trip Plan, or by clicking on the Map, or by selecting Directions from the Map menu. You can get Printable Directions by clicking the Print button in the lower left corner of the screen or by selecting File in the top left corner of the map and then Print.

Yes, we fully support Electric Vehicles. For complete information, see our Electric Vehicles section of our documentation.

Each operation that you do is stored immediately and there is no need to save individual actions.

In the Directions section, you can click on “Find Nearby Campgrounds”, or you can click on the map and select “Find Nearby Campgrounds”.

To change the To Do List to Campgrounds, check the checkbox in the Trip Properties.

To change the chosen route, simply click on the road you’d like to take on the map and select Add Waypoint. For best results with waypoints, avoid adding them at intersections or in the opposite flow of traffic. You can also change the road preferences under the Trip Properties.

No, your trip can be planned in as many sittings as you’d like. Simply sign in, open your road trip, and you can continue planning where you left off.

The default is 8 hours of driving per day. Sometimes it will be different than this if you have an overnight stay at a stop or if the next destination is deemed close enough for a little extra driving. Please keep in mind that the driving time is an estimate and does not take into consideration traffic, weather, and other delays.

You can change the hours per day in the Trip Properties both for the default of the entire route or specific days of the trip.

The fuel costs are calculated based on an average miles per gallon and the estimated cost per gallon in the United States.

You can change the default under Trip Properties.

To schedule a stop, click on the Edit button to edit the Destination Properties. Under the Schedule tab, you can configure how many hours or nights you’d like to stop for.

When you schedule a non-overnight stop, you can check the checkbox to not substract the time from your driving time. Please make sure that you are well rested for your driving portion so that you arrive safely at your next destination.

To optimize your route, choose the Optimize Stops from the Map menu above the map. This will optimize your route for distance from your first stop to your last stop.

To change the order of your stops, go the Road Trip Plan and there you can either click on the stop and drag it to the place you want it to be, or you can click the Up and Down arrows on the right side of the stop until it is in the place you want it to be.

Yes, you may add travel that does not include driving by clicking the “Add Destination” menu item from the “Add” menu and selecting the “Non-Driving” tab. Here, select whether it is a flight or not, then enter the origin and destination airport codes or addresses, and approximate travel time. When you update your directions, myscenicdrives.com will generate the directions to your origin, and then from your destination.

You can change the map style in the Trip Properties under the Directions Tab.

You can change the name of a trip in the Trip Properties.

The easiest way to share your trips is via the Trip Sharing under the File menu which quickly shares the trip via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and other Social Networks. You can manage permissions in the Trip Properties.

Double check that the recipient’s e-mail address is entered in correctly and have the recipient check their spam settings. E-mail shares are sent with the trips@myscenicdrives.com e-mail address so they may need to add that address to their address book.

Activities are similar to your regular stops, except they are not scheduled and directions are not provided to them. Each stop can have any number of activities associated with it. For more information, see the documentation.

Activities without location information cannot become full-fledged stops at this time. To make it a stop, add a new stop and remove the original activity or e-mail us.

Activities are not yet available for our Mobile environment.

You can do this via the Import Tool under the File menu.

While we do not support Excel directly, you can save your document in a CSV file and import it. To do this in Excel, select File, Save As, and for the Save as Type, choose CSV (Comma Separated File). Once saved, you can import it into our Road Trip Planner via the Import Tool under the File menu.

You can do this via the Export Tool under the File menu and following the instructions here. If you need help, send us an e-mail with your GPS model information and we’ll help you out as best as we can.

Because our GPS exports are industry standard files, they should work on a wide-variety of devices, however, each device uses the data differently. Look for devices which support multi-point routing and importing from GPX or KML files. If you need help, send us an e-mail with your GPS model information and we’ll help you out as best as we can.

No, we provide printable directions with both a list of turn-by-turn directions and turn-by-turn maps which can easily be used without a GPS device or as a complement to your GPS.

A waypoint is a destination which is used to indicate a route preference other than what the Road Trip Planner suggests. For best results, avoid placing waypoints at intersections and on the opposite flow of traffic.

Yes, the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner does work in all countries which have Google Directions, although it is optimized and includes more information in the United States and Canada. Should you have a suggestion to make your international use easier, please let us know.

We make every effort to ensure that our site is available and that your data is protected. We are not responsible for loss or inaccessible data and encourage you to backup your road trips by exporting them regularly.

We take your privacy seriously as you can read in our Privacy Policy. That said, your data privacy is as private as you make it. If you elect to share your data with specific individuals or anonymously, we will oblige.

If something looks weird or doesn’t work just right, reload your web browser. If the problem persists, send us an e-mail.

When the software does not want to take a particular route, it may be due to road closures caused by construction or weather. By adding more waypoints, you can sometimes get it to follow the desired route. If you believe there is something else happening, please e-mail us.

This can happen if the software is unable to find a route between the two points. Double check the position of the points to make sure they are correct. Sometimes a point may not be close enough to a known road (for example, it may be in the middle of a Lake or National Forest) or that the two points are separated by an ocean. This could also happen with some of our campgrounds which may require a hike to get to. If you believe it is a different issue, please e-mail us.

This can happen for a few reasons. First, if your trip is less than the configured hours-per-day setting in the Trip Properties, the Road Trip Planner will treat this as one day.

Another cause for this is that your trip may contain cross-ocean segments. For example, this could happen if you were doing a trip from the continental United States to Hawaii. In this case, we’d recommend that you have a Road Trip from your location to an Airport or Cruise and have a separate Road Trip for your Hawaii portion of the trip.

If you believe it is a different issue or need help with a work around, please e-mail us.

There are some helpful tips available in the Working with Days section of our documentation. If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail us.

Yes, at the bottom of the Day tab within the Trip Properties, there is a checkbox to disable the Days feature.

Yes, we calculating approximate fuel costs and support entering daily budgets and costs associated with stops. For information on how this works, please refer to the Managing a Budget section of our documentation.

You may delete your trips as you feel necessary, but we do not delete your road trip plans. We may delete aspects of your trip which can be regenerated, such as directions.

We do not limit the number of trips. That said, we do encourage you to delete trips which you no longer need.

Yes, the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner does work properly on IPad and most Android Tablets.

For best results on Android Tablets, make sure to use Full-Screen mode. If this is unavailable in your default browser, consider using Dolphin or an alternative browser available in your app store of choice.

In the unlikely event that you cannot scroll with one finger, try to scroll with your index and middle finger together.

If you are having any issues, please e-mail us.

We provide a mobile-friendly, full-screen touch-friendly interface to the myscenicdrives.com Road Trip Planner. From your IPhone or Android web browser, simply point your browser to myscenicdrives.com and select the Road Trip Planner. Once signed in, you can create new plans or edit your existing plans. For more information, please see our documentation..

If you need access on another device, please e-mail us.

Our API and widgets are presently in testing. If you would like to use our API, please e-mail us.

Please contact us before using myscenicdrives.com for commercial use.

Don’t panic — we saved your work for you. Simply open the saved copy.

Yes! Simply clicking on the Edit menu just above the map and select “Undo”. You can undo up to the last 5 operations. Want to change something back — just click on “Redo”.

Throughout most of our UI, you can just hover your mouse for a moment over the element and it will tell you a bit more about what it is and what it does. For a further description, take a look at our comprehensive documentation.

We love to hear your suggestions, especially enhancements that will make your road trip planning easier. Please send us your questions and comments and we’ll gladly help.