Planning a cross-country trip, start to finish
How-to ยท by Troy
A cross-country trip is really three trips stacked together: getting there, the wheeling, and getting home. Plan it in that order and it stops being overwhelming.
1. Pick the anchor and the dates
Start with the one thing that's fixed: the destination and the window. Everything else hangs off those. "Moab, second week of September" is enough to start building.
2. Build the drive out as its own segment
Lay down your home-to-destination route and break it into day-sized legs. Drop waypoints for overnight stops so you're not hunting for a motel at 11 p.m. Let the per-rig fuel numbers tell you where the long gaps between stations are.
3. Set up the basecamp
At the destination, switch to a basecamp segment: one place to sleep, daily loops out and back. Put the rental or campsite on the plan, let buddies claim beds, and add each day's trailhead as a waypoint.
4. Plan the daily loops
For each wheeling day, build a loop from basecamp. Keep them honest about distance and time, and remember there's no fuel on most trails, so top off in town first.
5. Build the drive home
Copy the shape of the drive out, reversed, as its own segment. A "return leg" seeds the endpoints for you, so you're not rebuilding from scratch.
6. Share it and roll
Invite the crew so everyone has the same plan, export the routes to your nav app for offline use, and you're set. The next time you think about logistics is when you're pulling out of the driveway.
Plan your trip in WheelingTrips
Map the route, see fuel cost per rig, and share one plan with your whole crew. Free for solo trips.