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Last month a woman wrote to us with a pretty specific problem. She and three college friends were driving from Denver toward the coast in two cars, and she’d been “volunteering” to plan it. Her question was basically: how do I plan a road trip with friends without becoming the bad guy?
We liked that question a lot, and here’s more or less what we wrote back to her.
Start by asking everyone what they want out of the week, and ask it out loud, in the group chat, before anyone books anything. One friend might care about scenic roads. Another might want good food and a couple of late nights. If you don’t hear that early, you hear it on day three in a gas station parking lot.
Keep the driving days shorter than feels right. She had planned around eight hours a day. We told her to cut that, because long stretches behind the wheel make tired people snippy, and a slow morning now and then keeps everyone in a better mood.
Talk about money before you leave. Fuel, hotels, meals and activities add up fast, and money is one of the most common sources of tension on group trips. Pick a rough budget and one simple way to split costs. It’s awkward for about ten minutes, sure, but it’s much less awkward than arguing over a dinner bill in Utah.
She also didn’t need to do all of it alone, and we told her that pretty firmly. Give hotels to one friend and food stops to another. Keep the route if you like maps.
Both cars should get serviced first, with tires, brakes and fluids checked. Since they’d be in separate cars, they needed meeting points and a plan for reaching each other if one car got separated.
One last thing we mentioned: a road trip with friends rarely goes to plan, and her best story will probably come from a road nobody picked.
If you love cars and want the experience without the planning, we run Crown Rally, an invite-only exotic car rally with multi-day routes across the U.S. Every event supports charity through #rally4acause.
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