Apps We Use for Full-Time Travel & RV Life
After 50,000 miles traveled through the US, Canada and Mexico, we have some thoughts on the best adventure and road trip apps to optimize your journey. This is every app we use for travel, plus other resources and tools that have been super valuable. Recommended for short & long term travel in North America.
Google Maps
Captain Obvious here! Maybe it goes without saying, but I’m going to list out all the google maps tools we use because this is our most powerful road trip app.
Navigation – The primary purpose of the app is helping you get from one point to another efficiently. All of our navigation is done with Google Maps.
Note: Some people swear by Waze. I find that usually those people don’t know that google owns Waze ; )
Offline Maps – Unless you’re doing extensive backcountry exploring, you don’t need a separate GPS device. The best way to harness your phone’s built-in GPS in places where you’re unsure about having cell service is to download offline google maps. This feature is available if you tap your profile photo in the upper right corner in-app.
Trip Planning – The photo way up above shows how we use the Google Maps app to keep track of points of interest we hear or read about. So many times we’ve been visiting a new place, look at the map and realize: Surprise! We already have a few hikes pinned nearby.
I started pinning locations on my map 6 months before we hit the road. Any time I see a cool freecamping spot posted in a facebook group, or we find a great hike on AllTrails or we meet someone on the road who tells us their favorite destinations, it immediately goes in Google Maps. This is our map legend:
- Teal markers are freecamping/bookdocking spots
- Yellow stars are points of interest/hikes we want to check out
- Green flags are usually good restaurants in towns and cities
- Blue travel markers are paid campgrounds
- Hearts are our friends & fam so we always know how close we are
Scouting Spots – Mostly this comes in handy when looking for parking with the trailer (if we’re stopping for lunch, for example) or trying to find an awesome campsite. Poring over satellite view has yielded some of our best camping spots.
Browsing for Hikes and Points of Interest – I’ll just be poking around at our current location on GMaps and find some point of interest left by a fellow reviewer. My favorite example of this is the 12 Giant Steps Hike in Banff which is one of our favorite hikes ever and it was virtually empty because it wasn’t a top hit on AllTrails.
Finding Cheap Gas – Some travelers use a separate app like Gas Buddy but I’m all about simplicity. Google Maps shows prices if you search for “gas” in app.
Restaurant Reviews – There was a time when I used the Yelp and Trip Advisor apps but at this point Google Maps does a better job in most, if not all, of North America.
A Literal Atlas
The original road trip map app. That’s right, we have a big ol’ paper-based North American Road Atlas. We actually have the Rand McNally Road Atlas & National Parks version which is pretty sweet. The atlas is great for several reasons:
- Sometimes we don’t have cell service and still want to plan our next moves
- It’s great for visualizing a larger trip partially because you don’t lose fidelity as you zoom out but also, it is simply bigger than a phone screen.
- The information is uber specialized: campgrounds, public lands, roads. We’ve found state parks, camping areas and even an entire National Park while simply perusing the atlas. (Yup, we didn’t know about Indian Dunes NP)
- *BONUS* – Use a highlighter to mark all the roads you’ve driven. Next time you can take a different route and see completely different sights.
Freecamping & Boondocking Apps
Like a lot of full-timers and #vanlifers, we’re primarily freecamping and boondocking. There are many great apps for finding vetted and reviewed freecamping locations. We’ve used all of these resources but it’s worth noting that if I could only choose one road trip app, iOverlander is the most substantial.
- iOverlander – mostly geared towards freecamping, super useful toggle features like waterfill, dump, user alerts, plus safe street parking for my vanlife friends
- Campendium – more geared towards paid camping and great for finding public campgrounds (but also includes lots of freecamping)
- The Dyrt – this is the prettiest app with a huge mix of freecamping, public and private campgrounds but I find it clunky because they really push you to pay to upgrade to pro
- FreeRoam – geared more towards 4×4 overlanders so vet carefully
- freecampsites.net – the original freecamping website (not an app)
If you’ll be freecamping, dispersed camping, boondocking, etc, on your road trip, I highly recommend getting a GPS enabled app with public land filters. Basically, any app that shows your location with an overlay of which federal agency manages the land. If you know what kind of public land you’re on (or if you’re on public land at all) you get a better idea of what the rules are.
- Public Lands – this is the app we use and it’s pretty basic but gets the job done.
Camping Apps
There are several apps and services we’ve found helpful when looking for paid campgrounds. These apps are great for planned road trips because you’ll be on a schedule with less room for, let’s say, detours. Plus freecamping isn’t as pervasive in the eastern US and anyway, sometimes you want to stay inside the National Park.
- Recreation.gov – any reservations for federal lands, including national parks and paid blm campgrounds, go through this app. Look out for last minute cancellations – we’ve scored a few!
- Harvest Hosts & Boondockers Welcome – both services require a yearly subscription fee but there’s a deal if you get both. Members have access to thousands of private property owners (farmers, wineries and driveways) where you can stay for free* for one night. Think of it as an overnight on the way to your next destination. *The asterisk is because with Harvest Host you’re kind of expected to purchase something for approx $20 which makes it less free.
- Hipcamp – Hipcamp is like airbnb for camping. Some spots are just land for RVs or tents and some have accommodations like glamping huts. Fair warning, we’ve never used Hipcamp because we prioritize freecamping but I look at the app everywhere we go and hope to use it this spring in the east.
More Road Trip Apps
- Recreation.gov – as stated above, use this app (or website) for reserving federal campsites but also national park entrance when reservations are required, plus hiking permits and lotteries.
- AllTrails App – this is THE app for finding nearby hikes and trails. The information is crowd-sourced with ratings and current conditions and you can filter for things like “waterfalls” or “dog-friendly.” With Pro you can download trail maps which has been super useful for us.
Road Trip Tools (that are Apps)
A Weather App – An obvious road trip necessity but find an app with these extra features. We use the standard Apple Weather App and here’s why:
- Hourly weather because you live outside now. And rain alerts.
- Sunrise and sunset times if you’re powered by the sun (solar panels)
- You can pin multiple weather locations at once to keep track of all your possible next steps. If a heat wave is coming your way, check out your other locations to see if where it’s cooler.
- Temperature map. This helps us decide where we should go next and also shows the gradient of temperature change between say, a mesa and the canyon below it.
A Compass App – It’s just a good idea to have a compass with you on a road trip. We use the standard apple Compass App to orient Ribbit south-facing while camped to get the best possible angle for our roof-mounted solar panels.
An Altitude App – This comes in handy when evaluating weather, where we’re at on a hike or possible altitude sickness. But mostly I just like to keep track of how high in the sky we are for fun. We use the My Altitude app.
Facebook does a few things really really well and the main one is groups. No matter what your niche interest, you can instantly find a community of thousands of people freely sharing useful information. This is also true for travel, vanlifing, RVing, camping and even driving in Mexico. Here are a few of the groups we love:
- Camping – for finding camping spots and discussing issues related to freecamping and boodocking we like RV Boondocking & Free Camping Life
- Vanlifing – for a community of women who are living in vans, vehicles and RVs I like Women’s Vanlife Collective
- RV Life – if you’re new to the RVing thing, RV Newbies is a judgement-free zone for any and all newbie questions
- RV Life – it’s incredibly helpful to find a group specific to your RV maker. We’ve gotten all kinds of information and advice on mods and repairs from the member of Nucamp Owners Group & Tab Camping Trailers – two groups related to Nucamp, the maker of our teardrop camper:
Instagram isn’t exactly a road trip app, but it’s a great tool for finding hikes and lesser-known attractions PLUS current status info like tracking the spring bloom.
We started by following a bunch of outdoorsy accounts like @nationalparkservice and @outsidemagazine. See our favorites at our 36 Best Travel Instagrams post.
We use our own instagram to document our travels and to keep friends and family up to date. It also helps us keep in touch with fellow travelers that we’ve met on the road. You can follow our adventures on instagram at @Ribbitandco
Documenting Your Road Trip
Did you even go on a road trip if you didn’t document it? These are the basic apps we use to capture and store memories from our adventure.
- Camera App – the app is obvious, but make sure to adjust the settings to increase resolution and limit compression. No one wants a grainy photo of the Grand Canyon in all her glory.
- Instagram – follow our adventures and read our travelog at @Ribbitandco
- One Second Everyday – this app collects one second of video from you every day. At the end of the week, month, trip, whatever, you can compile the footage and watch a fun highlight reel of your adventure.
- BeReal – we have this [newish] social media app to keep in touch with friends. But what’s fun about it is that they get to see behind the instagram to the real life version of full-time road tripping.