Epic Road Trip Planner Update (Spring 2026)

5/15/2026 by Tim Johns

When I started Epic Road Trip Planner, I envisioned a one-stop hub where couples, families, and small groups could plan their road trip in stress-free harmony.

I learned a couple of things:

That is something that a fair number of folks NEED -- but not necessarily something a lot of folks will pay for.

In other words: the market is small. Especially in terms of dollars.

I also learned that a lot more people seem to TAKE road trips than PLAN road trips, and a lot of those folks just want to know they're going to have a place to sleep tonight. That's a larger market -- but a more saturated one. There are a surprising number of established players in this space.

I also learned that I am pretty good at the wrong kind of marketing. I can create rather compelling, cost-effective ads that folks click through. And then don't purchase. Because: A. The PROBLEM is compelling, but the product is not. It's still not. B. See above comment about the market - folks just aren't willing to spend money on this. The problem is compelling, but most folks solve it on their own with a shared Google Doc, a group chat, and a little effort.

So if cost-effective high performing ads are the WRONG kind of marketing, what's the right kind?

Content marketing. Specifically, for something like Epic Road Trip Planner, YouTube videos and TikTok are the obvious platforms - there are some pretty amazing content creators out there with audiences who just follow them for pure entertainment. Roaming Reckless, Living the Van Life, etc. are doing quite well all on their own. I needed to be like them. OR partner with them -- but going back to the product problem (it's just not that good), that essentially means just paying them. Which I didn't want to do because the product just isn't that great.

Yet.

So I made a fundamental personal shift, and I'm refocusing my efforts here on building a compelling product AND leaning into content marketing. Specifically, that shift has led me to do these two crucial steps:

  1. I took a full-time job, and shifted Epic Road Trip Planner from a full-time gig to a complementary side project. There's a lot more to this than I can get into here, but the bottom line is that gives me a platform to experiment, learn, and grow, which is a lot easier to do when I don't also have to figure out how I'm going to pay my mortgage while burning through my retirement. So now my efforts here are mostly Saturday mornings.

  2. I'm setting up Patreon! Patreon will allow me to invest -- literally -- by providing funds that I can use (along with my paycheck from my day job, lol) to hire some experts to actually make this product better, instead of just trying to wear all those hats myself. I was already spread way too thin trying to do everything -- which meant I was doing most things badly or not at all. Patreon is also very much geared toward content creators, and is an excellent way for me to get my feet wet in that area. I'll learn the vocabulary, make some connections, and have a means to test out what folks are interested in.

Next up: figure out my Patreon tiers. Stay tuned!

-Tim (Patreon-curious)