MapQuest Road Trip Planner: Planning Your Route

Is there any such thing as a MapQuest Road Trip Planner? Technically, no. But can you use MapQuest as a road trip planner? Sure. Here's how. Let's assume you're taking a road trip between, say, Redding, California and Joliet, Illinois:

1. Go to Mapquest.com and click the Directions tab.

2. MapQuest only lets you enter a starting and ending location at this point. But you're trying to plan a rambling road trip with many interesting stops! Don't worry. Just enter your starting and ending cities for now, and then click Get Directions. MapQuest will serve up a directions page, with something like this at the top:

3. Did you notice that Add Another Location button? That's key. Click it. MapQuest will dump you down to the bottom of the page:

4. Now, suppose you really wanted your road trip to include a stop in Idaho Falls. Here's your chance. Enter Idaho Falls ID in the Location box, and then click Add Location. The MapQuest Road Trip Planner will add Idaho Falls to the route. Problem is, it's added onto the end of the trip. Let's fix that.

5. Scroll down to the Idaho Falls box near the bottom of the page:

Way off to the right, you'll notice a Move Up button:

Click it. Idaho Falls is now the second stop (B) on your road trip.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for any other stops you would like to plan. Keep in mind that there is also a Move Down button to help you arrange your stops just the way you'd like them. Also, keep in mind that there is a huge map at the very bottom of the page. Refer to it often to get ideas about other cities you'd like to see.

7. Once you've finished adding cities, you'll end up with something like this:

Nice and neat. You can see the time and distance to each stop, as well as the overall time and distance for the trip.

And that's your walk through the so-called MapQuest Road Trip Planner. I hope it helps.

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