iPhone App Review: Sunday Drive takes you out for a spin

Growing up, many of us went on road trips with our families. We often had a destination in mind, but in some cases we'd just drive around to check out what's out there. Sunday Drive is an application designed to help you find fun road trips based on your current location. The app can be used at home to explore a new area on a Sunday afternoon or while traveling to check out interesting spots you might have not stumbled upon otherwise.

On the open road
Sunday Drive has a number of routes already saved into the app. Routes are almost exclusively user-generated and contain a description of what you'll find along your way, directions, and key places to stop. The route for the Blue Ridge Parkway, for instance, lists the 20-Minute Cliff, cabins you can stay at if you need to set up shop for the night, and a creek and lake that are worth stopping by along your journey. Each point of interest has a picture so you can see what you're getting yourself into, plus a brief description of what you'll find there. If you like what you see, then you can click the Go button at the top of the screen to get directions to the route in question from your current location.

Plan your vacation
Because Sunday Drive is location-based, it will automatically default to showing routes near your current location. If you're planning a vacation, however, you can easily navigate to your upcoming destination on a map within the app to check out routes in that area you might want to visit during your trip. Some locations also have videos in their descriptions, so you can get an even better look at what's in store when you arrive.

Share the adventure
Routes in Sunday Drive are all user-generated, meaning they are created by people just like you. The downside to that is that it can be difficult to find routes to visit in obscure locations where other app users have yet to visit. To help solve that issue, the application has a built-in route builder where you can create your own routes while you're out on the open road.

You can also build routes on your computer when you're safe at home. If Sunday Drive likes your creation, it'll give you $10, which will help cover gas for your next adventure.

Routes you travel can be shared directly from the app on Facebook and Twitter, so if you're on an awesome drive, you can let all your friends know about it so they can experience the adventure as well. Adding points of interest along routes helps you earn badges within the app that you can show off to your friends.

We give Sunday Drive 3 out of 5 stars. We love that the application gives lots of details and pictures for each drive; however, we wish that there were more destination options currently available, especially for less popular driving locations where we might need help finding places to check out.

Are any of you fans of road trips? Do you have a favorite application you use to plan your travels?

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