The principle
A great road trip stop earns the time you lose — it gives you a better memory than another 20 minutes of highway. Our What's worth stopping for framing, applied to a route, is the whole skill: every stop should clear a bar, not just break up the drive.
What clears the bar
A stop that does one of three things: shows you something you can't see from the car (a viewpoint, a short walk, a tidal pool); feeds you something worth the detour (a farm stall, a market, a local lunch spot); or re-grounds you in the place (a small-town main street, a museum, a cliff path). Three categories, one question: is this better than another 20 minutes of N2?
How to plan them
Build stops into the route, not the day. Mark two or three before you drive, leave slack for one spontaneous one, and cap the total so you actually arrive somewhere. The worst road trip is the one with eight "quick stops" and a 9pm arrival — you saw everything and remember nothing.
The honest rule
If a stop isn't worth writing down, it isn't worth turning off for. A petrol-station town isn't a stop; a viewpoint with a sign is barely one. The stops worth making are the ones a local would send a friend to — and those are rarely on the highway's first exit.