Roadtrippers

Roadtrippers is a web based software application, mobile app, and content provider that helps travelers plan road trips.^[1][2][3][4] The software lets users discover independently owned points of interest in the United States and Canada.^[5][6] Once a trip is saved, it can be synced to the Roadtrippers iPhone app, for turn-by-turn navigation, and further local discovery while on the road.^[5]

Roadtrippers

Company type	Private company
Industry	Consumer Web
Founded	Cincinnati, Ohio, United States (July 2011 (2011-07))
Headquarters	Cincinnati, Ohio , United States
Area served	United States Canada United Kingdom Israel
Key people	Tatiana Parent James Fisher, CEO John Lauck Joshua Smibert Tim Balzer Todd "Clyde" Mowbray Brandon Hite
Products	iPhone app
Number of employees	33
Website	roadtrippers.com

Since 2011, the team at Roadtrippers have worked on securing investments and growing the business.^[6][7] The company was founded by James Fisher and Tatiana Parent. The headquarters are in Cincinnati, Ohio.^[1][8]

History

Origins (2011-2012)

Roadtrippers co-founder James Fisher grew up traveling. His family ran a safari company in Africa.^[1] His fellow co-founder, Tatiana Parent, shares his passion for travel, having traveled the USA extensively herself.

Fisher and Parent brainstormed the idea of Roadtrippers in 2010. They were frustrated with the lack of useful travel resources. Particularly for finding independent places to visit, and syncing travel advice with navigation.^[1][9] This frustration led them to create Roadtrippers.^{[1][9][10][11]}

Fisher and Parent moved from Great Britain in 2011 to focus on their company.^[8] In July 2011, The Brandery, a Cincinnati-based startup accelerator, accepted Roadtrippers into its program.^[12] The Brandery's aim is to helps new businesses with securing funding, gaining mentors, and networking with business professionals.^[7][13]

In June 2012, the company launched a public beta version of its application. The application allowed use of the unpolished software in order to gain feedback for the website's full release.^[7]

Expansion

Roadtrippers official website launched in July 2012.^[7] Roadtrippers has since grown to a team of 25 full-time employees including John Lauck, appointed VP of Engineering in 2012.^[7][14] The company has a team of developers and designers as well as a network of travel content creators.^[8] The Roadtrippers team expanded the company outside of the United States to Canada, the United Kingdom, and Israel.

On November 2012, after working with app developer Forest Giant, Roadtrippers released a companion iPhone app.^[3] The app was launched on Gizmodo app of the day on Nov 19th, 2012.^[4] In December 2012, Roadtrippers reached 1 million monthly users.^[15] In November 2014, Roadtrippers released version 3.0 of its iOS app. The new version does not require the user to create an account to use the app.^[16] It does include weather forecasting and icons for users to select what they are interested in (e.g., diners, hiking, discover locations nearby.^[17][18]

Roadtrippers was recognized on TIME's 50 Best Websites of 2014.^[19]

In 2018, Roadtrippers was acquired by Thor Industries/Tourist Holdings Inc.^[20] In February 2019, Roadtrippers Plus was added as a paid feature service. Initial discounted offering was $10 for a year subscription to existing Roadtrippers App users for limited time. Free version was downgraded from 60 waypoints per trip down to 6, severely limiting the usefulness of the free version. Shortly after the initial offering, the price for a year subscription jumped to the current rate of $30/year.

Funding

Through 2012, the company secured $500,000 in venture funding from CincyTech, Vine St. Ventures, Ludlow Ventures and a number of angel investors.^[10] In August 2013, the company received a $2.5 million investment from Drive Capital for expansion.^[21]

Features

The Roadtrippers application lets travelers plan trips, calculate time and gas expense, and choose from over 5 million independent locations in the United States to visit.^[22][23][24] The application used to heavily rely on Google Maps API, but has since moved to MapBox. Users can plan their routes and select interests from categories and sub-categories within 10–30 miles of the main route.^[25] The areas of interest are then displayed on the map, and the mileage and gas costs are recalculated.^[9][23] The application road trip planner calculates approximate trip mileage, travel time, and fuel cost.^{[2][5][10][22][23][26][27]} Trip itineraries built on the Roadtrippers web platform sync with the iPhone app and Android app.^[28]

The Roadtrippers proprietary search accesses a database of over 5 million points of interest. Users can also discover locations by selecting categories of interest. Categories include accommodations, food and drink, history, nature, culture, shopping, sports and more.^[5] Users can also rate, review, and read what other users have to say about points of interest.^[9] Users with a free Roadtrippers account have the option to "save" locations that they are interested to a public profile.^[23][24]

Roadtrippers "guides" are curated lists of locations (e.g., "Diners to Die For," "Wine Country," "Geektown" and "Mad Science").^[5][29]

The Roadtrippers team began building features to enable hotel booking via the application in September 2012^[10][28] In September 2015, Roadtrippers incorporated hotel meta search to display prices from multiple hotel booking providers on specific accommodations.

In May 2015 Roadtrippers launched a watch app. The application is backed by Roadtrippers database of over 5 million points of interest. It ranks locations by user rating and displays the highest rated points of interest "nearby".^[30][31]

Adoption

According to Alexa, Roadtrippers is ranked at 28,884 in the USA. As of January 2013, the service has 160,000 users, making it one of the fastest growing US travel sites launched in 2012.^[32]

Challenges

While Roadtrippers offers over 50,000 attractions in the United States, reviews written in 2012 said it still had a ways to go, and needed more attractions in order to garner new and repeat users.^[24][33]

References

1. Anna Hider (July 20, 2012). "Roadtrippers.com". Her Cincinnati. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
2. "Roadtrippers". Thrillist. 18 June 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
3. Rob Lovitt (20 November 2012). "Customize your car trips with Roadtrippers app". NBCNews. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
4. Leslie Horn (November 19, 2012). "Roadtrippers: Plan Your Next Cross-Country Trek". Gizmodo. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
5. Leo, Jen (2013-03-03). "Web Buzz: Roadtrippers.com and app clear the way". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
6. Frederic Lardinois (June 11, 2012). "Roadtrippers Helps You Plan Your Summer Road Trip, Lands $250k Seed Round". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
7. "Roadtrippers – Powerful Route Planning". About Your Startup. June 29, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
8. Laura Baverman (June 12, 2012). "Roadtrippers goes live; famed writer Jamie Jensen advises". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
9. Zoe Fox (August 5, 2012). "Here's the Only App You'll Need for the Great American Road Trip". Mashable. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
10. Irina Papuc (July 13, 2012). "Plan Better Trips With Roadtrippers". Techli. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
11. "Curated route planning across America". New-Startups. July 19, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
12. Lardinois, Frederic (11 June 2012). "Roadtrippers Helps You Plan Your Summer Road Trip, Lands $250k Seed Round". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
13. "Brandery". The Brandery. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
14. "Roadtrippers: The Team". Roadtrippers. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
15. Howell Hirt, Amy (11 April 2014). "IT Winner: Roadtrippers". Cincinnati Business Courier. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
16. Leslie Horn (November 24, 2014). "You'll Want to Download Roadtrippers' Excellent New Trip-Planning App". Gizmodo. Retrieved November 25, 2014.
17. "It's Travel Season: These 3 Apps Make You a Power Traveler". tech.co. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
18. "You'll Want to Download Roadtrippers' Excellent New Trip-Planning App". Gizmodo. 24 November 2014. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
19. Aamoth, Doug; Newman, Jared (1 August 2014). "50 Best Websites of 2014". TIME. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
20. Watkins, Steve (20 February 2018). "Two for the road: Airstream parent buys Roadtrippers". Bizwomen. The Business Journals. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
21. Brownfield, Andy (7 August 2013). "Roadtrippers secures Kvamme investment, sets launch for new app". Cincinnati Business Courier. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
22. Melanie Pinola (June 12, 2012). "Roadtrippers Thoroughly Organizes Your Summer Road Trip Plans". Lifehacker. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
23. Joshua Pramis (August 9, 2012). "Tech Thursday: Road Trip Stopovers Made Easy". Travel + Leisure. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
24. Saikat Basu (June 27, 2012). "Plan an American Road Trip the Right Way with Roadtrippers". Guiding Tech. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
25. Richard Read (August 6, 2012). "RoadTrippers Puts Eager Drivers On The Road Less Traveled". The Car Connection. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
26. "Roadtrippers: Plan Your Trip & Find Attractions Along The Route". MakeUseOf. June 23, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
27. "ROAD TO JOY: A new way to plan a car trip". PureWow. August 9, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
28. "Plan your great American road trip". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
29. Secrets, Million Mile (7 July 2015). "Save Time Planning Your Next Road Trip With Roadtrippers". Million Mile Secrets. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
30. "OTR's Roadtrippers launches Apple Watch app". Cincinnati.com. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
31. "Download These 12 Apps Before Your Next Road Trip". Brit + Co. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
32. Tom Demeropolis (January 4, 2013). "Roadtrippers has 160,000 users". Business Courier. Retrieved January 17, 2013.
33. Donnie Clapp (September 4, 2012). "Travel Tech to Watch". MercuryCSC. Retrieved January 17, 2013.

External links

• Official website