I have more than 20 years of experience crafting world-class road trips all around the globe. Here's what you need to know before you set off on your next big drive.
One of our most frequent questions both online and in person at our Road Track Experiences is, 'How do you make a great road trip?' This month, I'm going to teach you how to do just that. There are no special talents required.
Just follow my well-worn advice here to ensure a great time on the road. For educational purposes, we'll use this upcoming April's Desert Run 600 Experience as Exhibit A.There is an art to crafting an expert-level road trip, and it's one in which I have earned a master's. You see, before I wrote for RT, before I hosted podcasts or made YouTube videos for a living, I made drive routes. Twenty-one years ago, Google launched Maps, followed by Earth, and while some people used those tools to get directions to a restaurant or a friend's house, I dove headfirst into using them to find obscure, beautiful driving roads for the New York Motor Club, a driving club I founded with my friend Larry that same year. Soon enough, people started talking about our drives, and videos of those drives evolved into my YouTube career. But I never stopped making road trips—production trips, fun vacation trips, international road trips, multidestination boating trips, and now, luxury road trips for our RT Experiences division . So, here's our process for putting together the kind of trip that our guests pay five figures to join.Anchor it Down Every good road trip should start with an anchor—a reason for the drive. . Here at Road Track, our anchors are whole regions that are known for good driving, but for you, it could be anything from visiting a relative in a distant city, visiting a national park , or seeing a concert or sporting event. You know, a reason for traveling to a place, and a destination that will make the culmination of your scenic route even more fruitful. With Experiences, our goal is to recreate the 'press launch' experience that we car-writers get lavished upon us when a new piece of exotic metal comes to market: curated roads, high-speed track time, superb dining, gorgeous photo stops, and luxurious accommodations. The American Southwest is a perfect place to do that, and it was extremely popular last year, but we need a new route with more curves and a new vibe. So we start in Las Vegas, with a night at Aria and a track day using Las Vegas Motor Speedway's superb outfield road course. There's our anchor.Nail in Your Supports Support stops are your secondary hard points: hotels, restaurants, and cultural points of interest along your route. Here, you've got a lot of flexibility, but it's important to know your audience: Is it just you? Is it the family? A group of 10 friends in their own cars? Or a professionally organized group with 20 or 30 cars, like our Experiences? The bigger the group, the more important it is to have things set up well in advance, particularly assigned, reserved parking at venues. At each hard point, ask yourself how the business might respond to a group of your proposed size showing up and what you might do in order to streamline that process for parking, checking in, ordering food, etc. For the Desert Run 600, we've chosen Aria in Vegas, Under Canvas Zion , and L’Auberge de Sedona, a modern, cliff-top resort with every conceivable amenity right in the heart of Sedona—this way we combine the quirky remote with the luxurious city vibes in one trip. Once you have your anchor points and support stops, make a multipoint route on Google Maps to create your road trip. Pro tip: Everything from here on out will be much easier on a computer than a phone. Find the Squiggles Google Maps will most always give you the shortest route between two points, by time. As it should! And the 'avoid highways' option box in settings is a very useful tool and a great baseline for making a fun drive. But there is no option for 'most fun,' so here's where you have to do some experimenting. Drag the blue line around to create alternate routes between your hard points. Some of those routes might look nice and twisted—stop when you get there. Once you find a route you like, right-click to add a couple of waypoints along the route to lock it in place.Then, zoom in tighter to find even more squiggles. Pan along your route and look for side roads that might be even more technical than the main roads. If you find options, drag the blue line there and add waypoints to lock it in, just like you did before. Google limits you to 10 waypoints, so depending on the intricacy of your route, you may need to make separate routes for each day of your trip, as I do. Tarmac Check Here's where it can get tedious: Assuming you, like me, are a snob for quality tarmac, it's now time to check your road surfaces using street view. Fear not, you don't have to virtually cruise the entire route, and you probably don't need to scan the freeway bits. But your unknowns? Your new roads? Your squiggles? Click along the route every few miles and punch in on street view to ensure the road is a) in fact, paved and b) of a quality befitting an off-highway detour. This step is crucial because, although not enabled by default, Google will allow you to drag your lines onto dirt or gravel roads. The bigger your group, the more important this step becomes. If you're by yourself and in a car with some ground clearance, feel free to skip this step and ride the lightning. But you definitely don't want to lead a group of supercars down an accidental rally stage. Reality Check Here's where road-trip planning gets professional grade: We drive the entire route to make sure reality matches the internet and to finalize stops. Now, obviously, you're probably not going to practice run a road trip for yourself, so this section is reserved for those planning events on behalf of others. What you're looking for in a reality check is: Where are we going to have food and fuel stops with a big group? How are we going to enter and exit hotels and venues in an orderly fashion ? And, most crucially, how long are the distances between known bathroom stops . And, of course, double-checking the roads; I have more than once discovered dirt or otherwise terrible roads on my reality check that escaped my digital scan. Crucially, this is where you factor in the number of guests and start adding drive time for each car. Here's the formula: For every hour it takes you to drive by yourself, add two to five minutes per hour for each car in the group. Meaning if it takes you two hours to do a given leg of a trip on the scout, you'll want to plan for a group of 10 cars for that same drive to take 2:20 to 2:50.The reality-check phase also leads to surprise and delight for your guests. I'll find and note roadside attractions, photo stops, and things to do near the hotel before and after each drive day, such as a morning hike, a great local shop, or a next-level bakery or coffee shop. I have been much more successful at finding these stops when my wife, Hanna, joins me on a scout and applies her whimsy, which leads me to the next point. Choose the Right CompanyThe vast majority of my trip-creating route scouts on behalf of RT have been solo missions. And there's nothing wrong with that. To quote one of my favorite John Candy characters, 'I like me.' I make good company . . . for myself. But the drives have always been better with my wife or a good friend who understands the vibes of the trip. Are you hardcore, only stopping for bathroom breaks when the car needs gas? Are you a wanderer, taking any and every interesting side detour? Do you want to stop at every roadside taco stand? Does your partner or co-driver get motion sickness at the first hint of spirited driving? In fact, Hanna, my favorite road-trip companion, does get motion sickness, so believe it or not, when we scout together, she drives all the good bits! Point is, whoever you choose, if you want to have a good time, make sure you're on the same vibe. And of Course, the Right Car What's the right car for a road trip? The one you have, for one. Neither I nor anyone at RT will gatekeep the road trip based on a car. Make sure your car has a recent oil change, a reasonably fresh set of tires , and a full tank of washer fluid, and get out and see the world. But since you asked, we will make recommendations as to the ideal car for the task, should one share our automotive fetishes. Survey says, based on many years of experience, you can't go wrong with a 911, a Boxster/Cayman, or a Corvette as the ideal road-trip sports car. They are agile, fast, comfortable, and not only fuel efficient but also spatially efficient, and they deliver all-weather sure-footedness. On any given RT Experience event, at least 50 percent of the 20-odd cars are either a Porsche or a Corvette. Creative? No, but these cars are popular for a reason. But don't stop there: The GTs always deliver. Think late-model Astons, Shelby Mustangs, BMW M3/4s, the Camaro SS and ZL1, and the Mercedes SL. If you insist on a non-Cayman, mid-engine car, look no further than the Audi R8—a Huracán with much more room and a bigger trunk .This trip, I chose well. The Corvette E-Ray makes a phenomenal wintry road companion. With its classic and muscular V-8 soundtrack, electrified all-wheel-drive system, superb ride, and dual trunks, it checks every box for a week of living out of your fun car. Were it not for the front-end grip and steering weight, or the starship noises that come with deep throttle inputs, you'd never know it was a hybrid. And the way the E-Ray combines the wide body of the Z06 and the ZR1 with classy, color-matched panels, to me, looks the best of the breed. On the wide-open sweepers of the northern Arizona desert, the 655 hp makes dotted-line passing as nonchalant as pulling out of a parking space. It's also comfortable. At the end of my 1400-mile journey, my back didn't hurt, as GM has finally prioritized great seats in the Corvette. My road-trip-making process is, of course, not etched in stone. Take from it what you find useful, and make up the rest as you go. Or, of course, turn off your brain entirely and show up in Las Vegas in April and come for a drive with us on the Desert Run 600 , or Portland in June and come for Northwest Shift. We've done all the hard work for you, so you can sit back, follow the experts, and enjoy the ride.
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