Fans of the Europcar South Africa Facebook page will be able to submit their own routes of favourite sights, road side cafes, places to stay or even specific activity routes, such as ‘The Coffee Lover’s Guide to Cape Town or the ‘Girl’s Night Out in Sandton’ as well as other hidden gems that make road trips in South Africa so memorable. In addition to submitting their own routes, fans can also browse themed routes from other travellers as well as well-known travel bloggers.

In connection to the launch of this new app, Europcar has hidden prizes at mystery locations across the application’s map. Europcar is giving away prizes to the value of R100 000 and includes stays in top locations. All Facebook fans need to do is unlock one of the mystery locations as part of their route within the application’s map.

“The journey is as important as the destination and with this new application we are hoping to get more South Africans to share their travel experiences with each other and highlight some of the best road tripping routes our beautiful country has to offer. In so doing, more people will be encouraged to travel and re-discover the joy of road tripping,” says Europcar chief executive Dawn Nathan-Jones. “Fans of our Facebook page can better plan their trips and once the journey has been completed, share their experience with their friends and family. The fans can theme their trips around 4x4 trails, cycling routes or even their favourite restaurants.”

The Road Tripper application is free and allows fans to plan or remember a route from within Facebook, setting various stops along the way and adding images to each stop. Images can be taken from existing Facebook albums or even images from Google’s Street view. Combining the best of Google Maps, Foursquare and Facebook, Europcar have created something truly fun and unique to the traveller interested in the best that South Africa has to offer.

“We have also partnered with well known bloggers including Andrew Brauteseth who writes ‘Guy with Camera’. He will be sharing his favourite road trips throughout the year to highlight the best routes South Africa has to offer and sharing the many hidden gems along the way,” says Nathan-Jones.

Plan, share and travel ones road trip by visiting the Europcar page on Facebook.