How to Plan a Hiking Road Trip

I consider myself a planning master. Ok, so I'm not like certified or anything (can you get certified in planning?) but I'm pretty darn good at it. I chop it up to my obsession-based personality. Brent would reason that I'm just "passionate about everything I do". Either way, when I get another "brilliant" idea, I don't stop until it's complete. Planning is half the fun!

While my friends would joke that I "have a spread sheet for that", I hide the fact that I probably do. While planners typically think of planning as easy, those who don't have the planner gene, seem amazed by our charts, graphs, spreadsheets, and data. Wait, other planners have these things, too, right?

So you want to plan a road trip...

One thing I've noticed is when a planner tries to teach a non-planner how to plan, the non-planner always has that same familiar look of confusion (and fear). That's why I decided to break it down for ya. Here's the detailed, calculated, data-infused way that this planner plans.

Step One:

Find the big picture location you want to go to.

If you know you want to go on a road trip filled with hiking adventures in different states, the first step is to pick your main attraction (or few main attractions).

Take our Arizona road trip for example- we'll start calling this ART for short. We knew we wanted to explore several spots in Arizona but didn't want to miss any opportunities along the way. We were intrigued by photos of Colorado and Arkansas, too (we see you, Ozarks).

Step Two:

Look at a map.

Clear the table and roll out your giant, dusty paper map (just kidding we use our phones but that would be pretty gangster). Get an idea of the furthest point you'll be traveling and push in your red tack (also pretty gangster if you actually have one). Our furthest traveling point was Tucson, Arizona on our ART.

Step Three:

Bring in the big guns- Pinterest.

Pinterest is a staple in the planning community. It is an entire social media platform based on planning and organizing after all (check out ours here). Every hike ever hiked can be found on Pinterest. Just search, "Hikes in (destination)" for more options than your boots can handle.

For our ART we found several in Tucson but the one we picked was closed due to a forest fire when we got there.

Step Four:

All the data.

Gather ALL the information you can about the hike you choose. We're talking location, parking, permits needed, gear needed, weather, difficulty level and average hike time. It's also helpful to read about other people's experiences on the hike. You're going to need all the data you can get so you can decide if you have the experience, time, money, and gear needed to complete it.

For our first hike on our ART we decided on Camelback Mountain in Phoenix and wrote down all the important information on our phone notepad so it would be readily accessible when it was time to go. When we finally got there I was able to tell Brent exactly where to park and even had photos for reference. I was also able to prep our packs with the exact amount of water we needed based on what other hikers recommended. The only thing we weren't prepared for was heat exhaustion (read about that scary adventure here).

Step Five:

Find hikes nearby.

Head back to Pinterest to find other hikes in the area or even the state.

We knew we wanted to travel across the entire state of Arizona so we broadened our search to "Best hikes in Arizona" to pick our favorites. Once we knew we had a few good options, we added their locations into Maps to find the order that best made sense. We ended up stopping in Tucson, Phoenix, Sedona, Flagstaff and ended at the rim of the Grand Canyon (before heading over to Colorado to hike Rainbow Hot Springs in Pagosa)

Step Six:

Coordinates.

Pull up Google Maps and add your first destination along with your last and every other destination you end up choosing in between. Move the destinations back and forth until the order makes sense. If you're entering them in your phone app and find you run out of lines, use your desktop instead, it'll let you enter more.

Step Seven:

Fuel up.

Not fuel for your RV, we'll get to that next. We're talking about fuel for your body. SLEEP! Especially on long, thrillingly dangerous hikes- sleep is your best friend (right up there with food).

There are plenty of apps to help you find where to park. RV Parky, iOverlander, Roadtrippers, The Dyrt, and several others are designed to help you find a place to catch some zzz's. Take your pick of any nearby spots and plug in their location. Don't forget to note the additional mileage and cost of your overnight stays (unless you plan on boondocking).

Step Eight:

Refine.

If you're anything like me, you'll start to notice your 7-day road trip quickly turns into a 30-day trek. Trust me, I completely understand how you just HAVE to hit that particular hike that's only 30 minutes out of the way but you need to make like Elsa and let it go. There will be plenty of time in your life to cross it off your bucket list and this trip is not that time.

Calculate your projected travel time and add in the predicted hiking times from step four. Keep in mind if you're RVing, add in about 15 minutes to every hour of predicted travel along with a few other things people don't tell you about RV road trips. Don't forget to save time to eat and sleep (guilty!). Eliminate the destinations that don't fit in your budget. I'm talking your money budget, time budget, gas budget and even your leg endurance budget,

Step Nine:

Paper.

My mother always told me money doesn't grow on trees (debatable) so it's important to actually stick to your budget after you make it. How will you have enough money for all your future endeavors if you don't? Gas will likely be your biggest cost with any road trip.

Once you've entered all your stops in Google Maps copy the total mileage into a gas calculating app like this one to figure out your gas budget (write that down). Gather all the permit costs and write that down, too. If you're going on a several thousand mile trip you might as well throw in the cost of an oil change... write that down. Figure out the cost of food (also accounting for quick emergency stops), gear, emergency money, and any other costs you can think of (and can't think of) and write them down.

Now add it up! Simple, right?

Step Ten:

Relax.

Step ten is the hardest of all (ugh). What makes it so hard? The unexpected is totally going to happen- you can plan on that. You know, those things that can't possibly be planned, like when you travel to what you anticipate to be your favorite hike and the park rangers tell you it's closed. Or when you're behind schedule (you can expect to always be behind schedule) and you can't find your BLM campsite in the dark. Or when your boondocking site looks more like a casino parking lot (hello, lights).

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/440bc7_5ced0f9fdf76471b8c29a6de60c5a293/480p/mp4/file.mp4

(See this abandoned shopping strip in the dessert)

There's always going to be things you can't plan for. That's what makes an adventure an adventure! Relax and have fun. So what if you missed a hike or couldn't find that last waterfall, it just means there's a lot of world left to explore. Keep your plans with you for your entire trip but don't be scared to be a little spontaneous, too. Sometimes it's those unplanned moments that bring the best memories (like this abandoned shopping strip we found near New Mexico).

Got tips on road trip planning? Leave them in the comments below for those non-planner planners!