Best Bakeries to Visit on a Road Trip

Turn your next road trip into a treat crawl. How to plan a route around the best bakeries and dessert shops.

A road trip is already great. A road trip with intentional bakery stops is elite. Instead of just pulling off at whatever chain is at the exit, you plan your route around the places worth stopping for. Your passengers will love you.

Plan your stops in advance

Before you leave, look up bakeries and dessert shops along your route. Not right on the highway, but within a 5-10 minute detour. A quick search for 'best bakery in [town name]' for each stop along the way usually surfaces at least one good option. Plot them on your maps app as stops.

One rule: nothing from a chain

The whole point is to find the local spots. The places that have been there for 40 years, the ones with a hand-painted sign and a case full of things you can't get anywhere else. Every small town has at least one bakery that the locals swear by. Your job is to find it.

Share the finds

Road trip bakery stops are communal. Everyone in the car should try something different and share. This way you cover more ground and can compare notes. Take photos of everything before anyone eats. These are the photos you'll look back on months later and actually smile at.

Build a road trip treat map

Log every stop in Treatly as you go. By the end of the trip, your map view will trace your entire route through dessert pins. It's the best kind of road trip souvenir, a map of everywhere you stopped and everything you tasted, rated and ready for the next time you drive that route.