Roadtrippers: Drive for Travel, Fueled By Love

By: Robert Leitch

Despite the fact that James Fisher has only lived in America for a few years, he and his wife Tatiana Parent are changing the way travelers appreciate all of the awesome experiences the American road has to offer.

James and Tatiana are the founders of Roadtrippers, an app that helps travelers navigate their road trips. But instead of just focusing on getting drivers from point A to point B, their focus is on the in-between. They want to encourage travelers to discover those hidden gems in small towns across America that most people only glance at in passing. The company was started out of their own passion for taking cross-country road trips.

“Tatiana and I met in Germany about six to seven years ago,” said James. “She’s American and I’m British, and when we’d go to visit her family in the United States, we would take these big road trips. We really discovered a passion for the road and all you can see when traveling by car.”

Here’s how it works: If you’re planning a road trip and want to break up the trip with local sightseeing, you put in your destination address and Roadtrippers will suggest different places to visit along the way. The end goal is immersing travelers in local cultures across the country and promoting local businesses.

RoadTrippers is a graduate of The Brandery accelerator and is currently a portfolio company for CincyTech, both of which are located in Cincinnati, Ohio.  That’s also where James and Tatiana now call home. Both The Brandery and CincyTech are partner organizations funded by Ohio Third Frontier.

“Our time at The Brandery was invaluable. They are what brought us to Cincinnati and Over-the-Rhine,” said James. “The Brandery is what led to our initial funding and the ability to create these tech jobs in southwestern Ohio.”

Their time spent with the Ohio Third Frontier-funded partners has allowed Roadtrippers to become the fastest growing travel site in the United States. The site had 25 million unique visitors in 2014 and has helped plan 5.8 million trips.

The goal for those millions of trips is to empower travelers across the country to slow down and appreciate all that our vast country has to offer.

“America really is a nation composed of 50 individual little countries,” said James. “There are so many differences between each state and so much to discover. We are hoping to open people’s eyes to this beauty and make their time on the road that much more enjoyable.”