It started with a wrong turn outside Bergen

It was raining — the kind of Norwegian rain that makes you question every decision you've ever made. We were parked in a lay-by somewhere south of Bergen, a two-year-old asleep in the back, a phone screen full of browser tabs, and a route that had fallen apart three times since lunch.

The campsite we'd planned for was full. The backup was closed for the season. The "scenic road" Google suggested turned out to be a single-track gravel path with a 16% grade and no turning points for a 7-metre van.

We pulled over, made instant coffee on the gas stove, and said the thing we'd been thinking for weeks: "Why doesn't something better exist?"

Not another travel app

We didn't want an app with gamified badges and social feeds. We didn't want a platform that optimises for engagement. We wanted something closer to what already worked — scribbling on a paper map, asking a local at a petrol station, reading a dog-eared guidebook from 2009.

VanRoute AI is the tool we wished we'd had that evening. You tell it where you're going, who's coming, and what kind of trip you want. It gives you a day-by-day route with real stops, honest distances, legal notes on wild camping, and toll estimates that don't lie.

Built on the road

Most of this was built between nap times and border crossings. In ferry queues. At campsites with questionable Wi-Fi. On a folding table outside a van with dirty laundry hanging from the awning.

We tested routes by driving them. The packing list on our blog? That's what's actually in our van right now. The campsite recommendations? We've slept in every one of them — sometimes with a toddler kicking us in the ribs at 3am.

What we believe

• ·The best trips aren't optimised — they're felt.
• ·Slow roads beat fast ones, almost always.
• ·Good travel tools should feel like a calm friend, not a control panel.
• ·You shouldn't need an account to plan a road trip.
• ·The places you almost drove past are usually the ones you remember.

Still going

VanRoute AI is still in beta. We're a tiny team — mostly just us, the van, and a growing community of people who plan trips the way we do: with curiosity, a loose itinerary, and a willingness to take the long way round.

If you have feedback, a route suggestion, or a story about a wrong turn that led somewhere beautiful — we'd genuinely love to hear it. Hit the feedback button. We read every message.