How to Display Customer Trip Route on WP Maps

Among the popular navigational tools, Google Maps is effective for navigating your users to your business location. The tool is also efficient for showing the best route and direction to the nearest location. Sounds great!!

However, you may find it “tricky” to custom route a trip on Google Maps. For example, an upcoming road trip. Here are some of the typical problems that you could encounter with the Google Maps tool:

• While Google Maps can be used to suggest alternative routes, you cannot modify a Google Map route to include a new road that you may want.
• If a customized route increases your travel time, Google Maps changes or “reroutes” the trip such that you can arrive earlier.
• Google Maps does not factor in scenarios where you may want to take a more familiar route or make a stop at multiple places that are out of the main route.

How do you overcome these limitations in the Google Maps tool? By using another product namely Google My Maps. First, let us discuss the capabilities of this mapping tool.

About the Google My Maps tool

The Google My Maps tool is effective at creating and sharing a custom route or map. If you have a Google account, you can access this tool at google.com/mymaps.

To create a custom route in Google My Maps, you need to perform the following 2-step process:

1. Create a new map.
2. Add a custom route.

With the Google My Maps tool, you can perform the following actions:

• Plan and create a complete road trip with multiple stops along the way.
• Plan trips with multiple destinations – along with routes mapped out between destinations.
• Add new stops or destinations to the existing route map.
• Add up to a maximum of 10 layers to your custom map, which helps in creating multiple custom routes during a single trip.
• Select multiple transportation modes including driving, cycling, and walking.
• Add custom route elements in the form of markers, lines, and shapes.

A more efficient way to plan custom routes is by using the WP Maps Pro plugin from Flipper Code. Here is how you can use this Google Maps plugin for WordPress to create and display a customer trip route.

Displaying a customer trip route on Google Maps

Among the most user-friendly Google Maps plugin for WP sites, the WP Maps Pro plugin enables you to display rich and interactive maps anywhere on your WordPress site. You can configure and display multiple locations on Google Maps within a few minutes by using this plugin.

For a customer (or custom) trip route, the WP Maps Pro plugin provides the “Customer Itinerary” add-on extension, which allows your customers to:

• Add a custom trip route using its frontend tool.
• Display the custom trip route to the same customers.

Here is how you can configure the “Customer Itinerary” extension to display the custom trip route:

1. Download and install the WP Maps Pro plugin on your WordPress site.

2. After activation, open the WP Maps Pro plugin and add the map that will display your custom trip route.

   Once you have activated this add-on extension, you can now view the following post types generated by this extension:

   • Trip Locations

   • My Trip

3. From the “Trip Locations” type, click “Add New Location” to create a location to be added to your custom trip. Here are the details you need to enter:

   • Location name (for example, “New York”)
   • Description of the location

   • Address details by using the Google Maps Pro meta box

4. Once you have added the location to be included in the map, click “Read More” in the information window. You can now view the following options:

   • Create New Trip

   • Add to Existing Trip

5. To add the new location to a new trip, click the “Create New Trip” button. In this case, enter the trip name, then click “Create Trip.” If you have enabled the checkbox, the current location is added to the new trip.

   Alternatively, to add a new location to an existing trip, click the “Add to Existing Trip” button. In this case, select the trip name from the provided drop-down list, then click “Add to trip”.

6. Next, open the “Customer Itinerary on Google Maps” menu option available in the WP Maps Pro plugin. Here, use the “Select Map” drop-down to select your map, then configure the remaining map settings. Once you are done with the changes, click the “Save Setting” button.

7. Next, copy-paste the “[user_trips_list]” shortcode on your webpage where you want to show the custom trip route. This will display an online form on your webpage.

8. Click the “Create New Trip” button, then enter the name of your new trip. Finally, create the trip.

9. Edit the newly created trip to add the locations to your trip. Using the “Update Trip” online form, select the locations before updating the trip.

   The added locations are now displayed for the specific trip name.

10. Click “View” to view the added location routes on Google Map.

Conclusion

For custom routes and directions, a WordPress plugin like WP Maps Pro is the best choice apart from the Google My Maps tool. With a few user-friendly steps, you can now display custom routes for upcoming trips on Google Maps. This helps customers plan their next trips and customize them according to their preferences.

As an experienced WordPress development company, Flipper Code has developed a host of map-related plugins that enables its customers to add Google Maps, Bing Maps, and OpenStreetMap to their websites. Here is a list of our most popular WordPress plugins serving a wide range of functionalities.

Are you looking for technical assistance in website and plugin development? We can partner with you. Just drop us a message with all your details.