makemydrivefun.com

TLDR: Give makemydrivefun.com the places you are driving between and it will find unusual things to see along the way.

Most route planners are very good at answering one question: how do I get there quickly? I made Make My Drive Fun to ask a different one: what would make the road between here and there worth remembering?

The answer might be a giant teapot, a metal dinosaur, a tiny local museum, an odd piece of architecture, some outsider art, or a scenic place that gives everyone an excuse to get out of the car. These are not usually the things that determine the route, but they are often the things I remember about it.

why I made it #

I first made the site while planning a move. I already knew the beginning and end of the drive, but I wanted to know what strange things were hiding near the highway in between. A travel book was not very useful for this. Travel books are organized around destinations, and I needed something organized around a line.

I found a map of unusual places in Canada, then started assembling more places from Wikipedia, Google, and other sources. The first version of the site drew a route between two cities, compared that route with the catalog, and showed the oddities close enough to make a reasonable detour.

The site has been updated since then, but the basic idea is still the same. The drive is not empty space between two interesting places. The drive is an interesting place too.

what counts as fun #

The catalog is deliberately broad. It includes places like the World’s Largest Teapot in Chester, West Virginia; the metal dinosaur sculptures at Carl’s Critter Garden in Utah; Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the Seattle waterfront; the Cabazon Dinosaurs near Palm Springs; the World’s Largest Tire outside Detroit; and the half-size Leaning Tower of Niles near Chicago.

Some stops are silly, some are historic, and many are both. I like that the site puts a five-minute photograph beside a museum that could consume an afternoon. It is not trying to decide what is objectively important. It is trying to surface things that might make somebody in the car say, “wait, can we stop there?”

planning a drive #

To use the current planner, enter a start and destination and choose Find fun stops. A city and state are usually enough, but an address, neighborhood, park, or landmark can make the route more precise. This matters around a large city, where starting on the other side of town can put you on a completely different highway.

The site locates the route stops, draws the drive, and searches the attraction catalog near it. When the search finishes, the map, mileage, drive time, and a shortlist of possible stops appear together.

Each result shows its approximate distance from the plotted route. Opening one reveals a description, location, and links for directions or more information. The first list is curated to provide a useful variety rather than allowing one attraction-heavy town to take over the whole page. If you prefer the firehose, Show all finds opens the larger catalog view.

Distance is only a first filter. A place that looks one mile from the route can still require a slow interchange, parking, and an hour-long tour. A slightly farther overlook might be the easier stop. My favorite way to plan is to choose one place I would regret missing, one or two places that would be fun if the day is going well, and leave everything else for another drive. The goal is not to collect every pin.

The first-drive guide walks through this process with a Los Angeles-to-Palm Springs route, while the detour guide has more advice for balancing time, weirdness, and the enthusiasm of the people in the car.

routes are not always straight lines #

A road trip can be more than a start and a finish. It might have an overnight town, a park, a friend to visit, and one extremely specific roadside attraction that somebody has wanted to see for years. The planner now supports up to eight ordered route stops. You can add destinations, drag them into a new order, use the move buttons on a keyboard or phone, and remove the ones that no longer make sense.

The shortest order is not necessarily the best one. Reordering a stop might avoid a mountain road after dark or put a museum inside its opening hours. For a very long trip, I find it easier to divide the journey into day-sized or region-sized routes. Overnight towns make good boundaries, and each smaller search makes it clearer which detours belong to which day.

There is a longer example in the multi-stop road-trip note, which uses Austin, Marfa, and Santa Fe to show how one strange anchor can shape an entire trip.

sharing the route #

After a search, Copy route link puts the complete ordered route into the page address. You can send that link to the other people in the car, put it in a shared note, or add it to the calendar event for the trip.

The link remembers the route, not a frozen list of results. When somebody opens it, the site restores the start, finish, and intermediate stops, then searches again. That gives everyone the same plan while still allowing the catalog and route results to change over time.

This makes the link a good conversation starter. Instead of sending a giant itinerary and asking “thoughts?”, I can send one route and ask everybody to nominate a must-stop. The route-sharing note suggests keeping the rest of the plan just as small: one agreed stop, a maximum detour time, and a backup for bad weather or low energy.

leave a little room #

Make My Drive Fun can tell you what is near the route, but it cannot know what is right for this particular car on this particular day. Hours change, outdoor art moves, seasonal roads close, and an old description can outlive the place it describes. Check current access and admission before making a long detour, respect private property, and leave everyone in the car a veto.

I have started collecting more of these practical ideas in the site’s Road Notes. But the nicest way to understand the project is still to give it a drive you are already taking and see what turns up.

There is almost always something strange just off the highway. Try it at makemydrivefun.com.