Taking spontaneous road trips can be fun, but sometimes you desire to be a little more than strategic and prepare your routes in advance. Having your custom routes already mapped out for you in Google Maps is handy: It removes the stress of missing an of import turn, and gives you the ability to share your travel plans with others.

You don't need to use your automobile's GPS or any additional software. Google Maps allows you to add unlike pins, shapes, and directions to your routes. Here'due south how to make custom routes in Google Maps.

How to Create Custom Routes in Google Maps

While Google Maps allows you to create your own custom route, information technology does come with a few limitations. For example, you can't start completely from scratch, pregnant you'll take to use the default landscape. Yous can then customize information technology by adding other elements, including new locations, routes, and shapes. You'll also have to utilise Google Maps on your desktop to create maps. To make your commencement custom map, follow the steps below.

  1. Open the Google Maps website in your desktop browser and sign in with your Google account.
  1. Open the Carte du jour from the top left corner of your screen.
  1. From the drop-downwards menu, select Your places.
  1. Under Your places, select Maps > Create Map.
  1. A new Google Maps window volition open with your custom map.
  1. Select Untitled Map in the upper-left corner of the screen to edit the new map'due south title and description. Select Save to ostend.

How to Customize Your Google Map

After yous cull a title for your new map, you can starting time customizing it by adding custom routes and elements to it, including layers, markers, shapes, and directions. To first customizing your map, make sure yous're in the map editor window and accept a new map open.

Map Layers

Your custom map is fabricated up of layers. The lesser layer is the Base map. Yous can always customize the await of your map by changing the Base map layer.

To choose a unlike look for your map, select Base map at the bottom of the carte. Then select your preferred look: Map, Satellite, or Terrain.

When y'all create a new custom map, you take an Untitled Layer added to information technology by default. You can either create an unabridged map using only one layer, or add more layers equally yous go. A multi-layered map allows you to separate different routes and destinations for later access. So you can have multiple road trips or walking paths planned all on top of the same custom map.

To add a new layer to your custom map, select Add layer on meridian of the menu.

Y'all tin remove layers from your custom map at any fourth dimension. To delete a layer, select the three vertical dots next to it to open the carte. Then select Delete this layer. In that location's also an option to Rename this layer and bear witness Stride-by-step directions in the same menu.

Markers

A map marker is a pivot that appears on your map marking a certain location or a landmark. Markers are useful when you need to share the exact location of a place with other users, or when you need to add comments or boosted notes for a location.

To add together a marker to your custom map, locate the address or a landmark that y'all desire to pivot. Then select Add marking from the toolbar located under the search bar. In the pop-up window, fill in the description of your map marker: proper name and description. There's also an option to Add together image or video to your marker to brand it more visible on the map. When y'all're finished, select Save to confirm.

You can always become dorsum and edit your mark afterwards you add it to your map. You lot can alter its proper name, clarification, fashion, too as show directions on your map.

Lines & Shapes

Some other element that you can add to your map is a line or a shape. If yous demand to underline a sure route or area on your map, y'all can go far more visible by drawing a line or a shape around it.

To add a line or a shape to your custom map, select Describe a line from the toolbar located under the search bar.

You can and so edit this shape afterward yous place information technology on your map. You tin can modify its name, clarification, style, add an image or a video to it. There'due south also an option to remove information technology from your map.

Directions

For many users, the main purpose of creating a custom map is to share it with other users in Google Maps. You can add directions from signal A to point B to show as a separate layer on your custom map.

To add directions to your custom map, select Add together directions from the toolbar located under the search bar.

You'll run into a new directions layer appear in the menu on the left side of your screen. Offset, select your transportation style: driving, cycling, or walking. Then, add your deviation point into the textbox A, and your destination betoken into the textbox B. You'll then see your directions appear on the map.

How to Share Your Custom Map

When you end making custom routes in Google Maps and calculation elements to your map, it's automatically saved to your Google Maps account in Your Places. To access your new map, follow the path Google Maps bill of fare > Your Places > Maps.

By default, you're the only one who can view this map until you share information technology with other people. To share your custom map, in Your Places bill of fare select See All Your Maps. This volition take you to the Google My Maps website. Yous'll see your custom map under Owned.

To requite access to your map to another person, select Share map. You'll see options to share your custom map via Facebook, Twitter, email, and embed information technology on your website. Select your preferred method to share your map with other users.

Save Your Custom Routes in Google Maps for Later Use

You can go on all of your routes, directions, and map markers all in one identify thanks to the custom maps characteristic in Google Maps. The side by side time you lot decide to go along a road trip with your friends or take a walk through the city, you can open your map and follow the path that you researched in accelerate.

If yous later want to run into the places that you visited and build your new route around them, you tin can view them in your location history in Google Maps.

Do yous salve your routes and locations in Google Maps? What Google Maps characteristic do you notice the most useful for creating your custom maps? Share your experience with creating custom routes in Google Maps in the comments section below.