Top 3 RV Trip Planners [Pros and Cons]

Updated for 2024.

Our list of the top three RV trip planners reflects the newest trends in RV travel and showcases the RV trip planners that will help you plan a road trip and save time and money along the way.

We tested each planner in real-world conditions, so you don’t have to waste hours of research — and potentially hundreds of dollars — to determine which RV trip planner is right for you and your RV travel style.

Does your favorite make the list?

Do you need an RV trip planner?

An RV trip planner is a complex tool designed to help you get from one point to another.

We could argue that you won't need anything more than a good GPS to plan the perfect RV road trip, but if more efficient technology is available, why not use it?

RV trip planners are the one-stop shops for RV trip planning, and they replace most travel apps, external GPS devices, and other trip-planning tools.

From what we've found, even the best RV trip planners still have a long way to go before they replace our favorite RV travel apps. These platforms are powerful enough to be a solid foundation for your trip planning, and they'll complement your RV travel apps nicely.

Why you should consider an RV trip planner

RV trip planners help RVers travel safe distances, navigate around low-clearance, narrow, and unpaved roads, and can cut your trip-planning time in half.

An RV trip planner helps drivers visualize the time and distance to get from one stop to the next, locate points of interest, campgrounds, fuel stations, dump stations, free overnight camping, and more. If you're analytical, you'll like the features that help you track your spending, calculate gas mileage, and notify you when and where to stop for gas.

Since every trip planner has similar features, we've outlined what we love (and don't like) about the top three RV trip planners on the market today.

Need an RV for your next road trip? Find a rental RV and plan a road trip to remember.

RV Life Trip Wizard

RV Life Trip Wizard is part of RV Life Pro, a freemium platform and app that provides the camping community with relevant content and RV-friendly tools. RV Life Trip Wizard is associated with RV Life Campground Reviews and popular RV communities like Airstream Forums and Winnebago RV Forums.

RV Life Trip Wizard is a paid subscription and single login that gives users access to the free and premium tools on the RV Life platform.

Cost: $65 a year after a seven-day free trial.

Best for what type of travelers?

RV Life Trip Wizard is best for RV travelers who want to plan and track every aspect of their road trip. Although the RV trip planner can help every type of road-tripper, the platform is best for frequent RVers (weekend warriors) and full-timers.

The RV Life Trip Wizard pros and cons listed below are all based on the RV Life Pro price plan.

Pros

Planning

• Plan trips in the United States and Canada.
• Access RV Life Trip Wizard, Campground Reviews, RV Safe GPS, and the other RV Life features with one username and password on both the app and the online platform.
• Set your vehicle specifications preferences to map RV-friendly routes by drive time, distance, speed, length, height, weight, etc.
• Customize your routing and driving preferences to get fuel alerts and avoid toll roads, highways, low-clearance areas, unpaved roads, ferries, and tunnels.
• Find and filter campgrounds by brand, clubs, memberships, or other specifics like park location, rating, feature, etc.
• Add, save, and label custom locations using an address or a coordinate and see your Harvest Hosts, Cracker Barrel, and other favorite stops along your route.
• Book campgrounds online when the campground has an online reservation system.

Driving

• Use the RV Life app to access the RV Safe GPS with turn-by-turn routing. The RV Safe GPS turn-by-turn routing is one of the better GPS applications on the market. It provides RV-safe directions, which you can use through the RV Life app or send to select GPS devices.
• Navigate using Apple CarPlay.
• Enable low fuel alerts along your route. Customize your route to alert you when it's time to fuel up.
• Print or export your trip into a calendar, Excel spreadsheet, or compatible GPS and download content into the app for offline use.
• View your reservation details from your itinerary. You don't need to print your reservations or go to your email or campground reservation system to locate information about your campground.

Extras

• Track your expenses by logging costs for fuel, campground fees, meals, and even gas mileage for every trip.
• Keep records of your scheduled and completed RV maintenance in your RV Life Pro account.
• Log the cellular speed at your campground, easily upload campground photos, and rate your stay without leaving the app.
• Locate points of interest along your route during the planning process. Find casinos, RV-friendly stores, gyms, gas stations, pet stores, and more using the browser version of RV Life Trip Wizard.Switch seamlessly between RV Life Campground Reviews, RV Safe GPS, and the RV Life app.

Planning

• Steep learning curve: Be prepared to invest some time mastering all the features. RV Life does have some helpful video tutorials available.
• Web-only editing: You can view trips on the app, but you’ll need your laptop for edits.
• Two-booking system: Booking campgrounds RV Life website or app will direct you to the campground's reservation system.

Driving

• Android Auto: Android users have no app compatibility yet.
• GPS: Turn-by-turn navigation works best with RV Safe GPS or specific third-party devices. Importing to other navigation apps can be finicky.
• Offline map juggling: To use Google Maps, you must download your route from your computer and then upload it to Google Maps for mobile access.
• Export: The offline maps feature doesn't allow you to download and use your personalized road trips; it only downloads preloaded regional maps.

Extras

• Solo planning: Collaboration features are limited to sharing your trip as a visitor.
• No hidden gems: The app skips quirky roadside attractions and major points of interest.
• No deals and discounts: RV Life Pro doesn't have member deals and discounts from partner brands.

Adventure Genie

Adventure Genie is an AI-powered trip planner that generates personalized travel itineraries for RVers and road-trippers. The more you use Adventure Genie, the more the algorithm recognizes your booking habits, which means the more you use Adventure Genie, the more targeted and accurate your itineraries become.

Cost: Introductory rate of $49.99 per year.

Best for what type of travelers?

Adventure Genie is the best RV trip planner for travelers who want a personalized road trip without spending a lot of time doing the actual planning. Adventure Genie uses AI to gather your travel preferences and generates a customized RV road-trip itinerary. Since Adventure Genie is only web-based, its simplified features make it perfect for every type of RVer, from renters and newbies to weekend warriors or full timers.

Pros

Planning

• Plan trips across the United States and Canada.
• Access Adventure Genie on your computer, phone, or tablet from an internet browser.
• Generate an itinerary quickly, even if you know little about RVing or planning a road trip. Adventure Genie’s AI components can help you create a trip within a few clicks.
• Set your RV preferences to have Adventure Genie use your vehicle's height, weight, and length to generate RV-friendly routes within the trip planner.
• Customize your routing and driving preferences to avoid toll roads, highways, tolls, ferries, and tunnels.
• Find and filter campgrounds using GenieMatch, Adventure Genie’s campground finder. GenieMatch recommends campgrounds that align with your wants and needs before showing you places that don’t. The higher the GenieMatch score, the better the chances that the campground matches your preferred amenities and activities.
• Add and save an address or a coordinate and see your Harvest Hosts, HipCamp, and other custom stays on your map.
• Book campgrounds online with Spot2Nite or when the campground has an online reservation system.
• Share your planned trip itinerary with friends and family or on a social platform like Facebook.

Driving

• Download and print or export your trip to use with a third-party GPS navigation system.
• Locate truck stops along your route during the planning process.

Extras

• Find things to do with GenieWishes, and see your wishes by trip or stop. GenieWishes uses your interests to find things to do and see along your drive.
• Simplify your itinerary using GenieJourney. GenieJourney lets you type in where you want to go and what things you want to see along the way. It uses your input and creates an itinerary based on your preferences.
• Get travel inspiration using GenieTrips. Genie Trips are customizable guides that use popular road trip routes and a suggested itinerary to help you get started on your planning.

Cons

Planning

• Find and filter points of interest: To find points of interest, like national parks, educational stops, and activities like golfing or boating, you have to add a location and then search for these points of interest within the individual stop. These stops do not automatically generate on the general trip overview.
• Web-only editing: You will need your computer, laptop, or internet browser on your phone or tablet to use Adventure Genie.
• Find campgrounds: Adventure Genie actively uploads campgrounds and refines the AI listing results, but not all of the campground data is available or up to date.
• Trip collaboration: Even though you can share a planned trip with others, you can't collaborate with other Adventure Genie users to plan a trip together.
• Customized waypoints: You can't edit a location's name using GPS coordinates or an address that doesn't pre-populate in Adventure Genie.

Driving

• No GPS integration: Adventure Genie isn't an RV GPS or navigation system. Even though the routes in the trip planner are designed to be RV-friendly, Adventure Genie does not have or integrate a turn-by-turn navigation system. You can only print or download your trip route. You can't navigate within the program, but you can export your route to some GPS devices.

Extras

• View: Adventure Genie doesn't save your reservation details in the trip planner. You can manually enter your reservation details into the notes section and print your itinerary to use on the road.
• Trip collaboration: Even though you can share a planned trip with others, you can't collaborate with other Adventure Genie users to plan a trip together.
• No hidden gems: Although you can use Genie Wishes and Genie Stops to automatically generate places to stop based on your interests, these stops aren't integrated into the trip planner unless you manually add them using an address or a location that pre-populates in the trip planner.
• No expense tracking: Adventure Genie doesn't have a spot to track and calculate costs for fuel, campground fees, meals, and even gas mileage. You can manually keep track of your expenses in a separate program or app.
• No deals and discounts: Adventure Genie doesn't have member deals and discounts from partner brands.

Roadtrippers

The Roadtrippers trip planner is a freemium RV trip planner and app that helps travelers plan, share, and execute RV-friendly road trips. Roadtrippers uses one account, Roadpass, to simplify access and includes many features once found on OvernightRVparking.com, Campendium, and Togo RV.

Cost: $29.99 to $59.99 per year.

Best for what type of travelers?

Roadtrippers RV trip planner is best for travelers who prefer to use an app to plan and navigate their road trips. The map aesthetic and app are appealing and are easy to use en route. Although the RV trip planner can help every type of road-tripper, newbies, weekend warriors, and renters may appreciate the ease of the Roadtrippers trip planner.

The Roadtrippers trip planner pros and cons listed below are all based on the Roadtrippers Premium price plan.

Pros

Planning

• Plan trips in the United States and Canada.
• Access Roadtrippers and RV GPS Navigation using your Roadpass username and password on the app and browser. The most popular features of Overnightparking.com, Campendium, and Togo RV are now a part of Roadtrippers.
• Create your road trip itinerary in both the app and online. You don't have to be on the computer to design your dream itinerary.
• Set your vehicle specifications preferences to map RV-friendly routes by drive time, distance, speed, length, height, weight, etc.
• Customize your routing and driving preferences to avoid toll roads, highways, low-clearance areas, unpaved roads, ferries, and tunnels.
• Import trip guides using the take this trip feature. This feature creates a trip framework for you to customize using the guide's suggested itinerary.
• Find and filter campgrounds by brand, membership discounts, cell phone coverage, public lands, or other specifics like park location, rating, feature, etc.
• Add, save, and label familiar names or waypoints using a point of interest or other recognized postal address to see your Harvest Hosts, Cracker Barrel, and other favorite stops along your route.
• Book campgrounds online when the campground has an online reservation system.
• Collaborate and build an itinerary with other people, even if they are not members of Roadtrippers Plus. Collaborators must sign up for the free version of Roadtrippers to use this feature with you.

Driving

• Use the Roadtrippers app to access your road trip and navigate using Roadtrippers RV GPS Navigation, Google Maps, or Apple Maps.
• Navigate using Apple CarPlay.
• View your reservation details from your itinerary. You don't need to print your reservations or go to your email or campground reservation system to locate information about your campground.
• Locate points of interest using the app. The points of interest have tons of user reviews, recent pictures, and often information on oversized parking and access to public restrooms.

Extras

• Search for campgrounds within your budget.
• Track estimated fuel cost in your trip settings by adding the average miles per gallon of fuel your tow vehicle or motorhome consumes.
• Get deals and discounts from brands that partner with Roadtrippers.
• Find hidden gems and quirky roadside attractions along your route and see user-generated ratings and photos for the roadside attraction when the location has ratings.
• Use the Roadtrippers app to navigate to points of interest like national monuments and roadside attractions from your current location.

Cons

Planning

• Customized waypoints: You can't find and edit a location using GPS coordinates or an address that doesn't pre-populate in Roadtrippers Plus.
• Date constraints: It's challenging to add dates to the itinerary because the waypoint only gives you the option to add the starting date, not how many nights you want to stay in one location.

Driving

• Android Auto: Roadrippers doesn't work with Android Auto.
• GPS: Roadtrippers RV GPS isn't available in Canada.
• GPS routing: Roadtrippers RV GPS is in beta and doesn’t consider your RV size and weight when routing you, even when using RV-friendly routing.

Extras

• Unclear process: Although the take this trip feature will help you create the framework for your road trip, moving from the road trip guide to your trip is a bit clunky.
• Outdated road trip guides: The road trip guides may not be updated frequently.

Honorable mention —The Dyrt Pro

The Dyrt is a crowd-sourced campground review platform that allows users to upload and share campground reviews with other users. The Dyrt Pro is a premium interface that includes paid tools like the trip planner, gear discounts, Dyrt Alerts (campground cancellations), and campground discounts at some campgrounds.

Cost: $35.99 a year after a seven-day trial.

Best for what type of travelers?

The Dyrt Pro trip planner is best for U.S. travelers who want robust crowd-sourcing and prefer an app to plan and navigate their road trips. Currently, The Dyrt doesn’t cover Canadian campgrounds or have RV-friendly routing in Canada. Canadian travelers can access some of The Dyrt’s features but can’t use the RV trip planner or trip routing to its full extent.

Final thoughts

People who want to build RV-friendly road trips and have access to their RV tools all in one should consider adding an RV trip planner to their RV app and map toolbox.

Each road-trip planner has its positives and negatives, and depending on how you want to plan your trips may dictate which planner would be best for your RV lifestyle.

Related reads

• The best RVs for first-time renters and owners
• 10 tools for a successful RV road trip
• 6 steps for planning a successful road trip
• The beginner's guide for reserving the right RV campsite