Creating Routes:

As well as featuring over a million ready-made routes, OS Maps offers you the option to create your own route, across all different map styles, anywhere in the world.

1. To start planning your own route, first choose the location for your route by either panning across the map, or searching for a specific location in the search bar. It is also worth considering which map type is most suitable for the route you want to create. Our standard map layer shows all roads & main footpaths and a basic view of land use; where as our Topographic maps give a lot more detail, showing all public rights of way, as well as features, places of interest and detail on the surrounding terrain.

2. Once you have chosen your location, use the ‘Create Route’ icon on the top right menu bar. You can also access this under the ‘Routes’ section within the main menu.

3. Before you start plotting, you can select the activity type for your route, which will adjust calculations for time taken & some of the suggested rights of way to follow.

4. When you’re ready to start plotting, just click on the map to choose your start location. Continue clicking along your chosen route path to extend your route.

5. You can make route plotting quicker & easier using the snap to path feature (available to premium subscribers), which will automatically ‘snap’ to the most direct path between two points, following existing roads, trails, footpaths & other public rights of way. To start using snap to path select the ‘Snap’ magnet icon on the route plotting toolbar. If you want to follow a specific path you can turn snap to path on/off simply by clicking the magnet icon.

6. The route plotting toolbar also has a number of other tools which can help your route planning. You can remove waypoints, reverse the route direction, undo the last section plotted and change the route style (colour, thickness & transparency of the route line) to help see it more clearly on the map.

7. As you plot your route, you will notice the time, distance & elevation profile on the route information panel change. This can help you plan a route for a specific distance, time and to keep an eye on how challenging your route might be with ascent & descent.

8. When you’ve finished plotting your route, you can use the route information panel to give your route a name, add a description, set a difficulty rating & choose the visibility (whether it’s private & only visible to you, can be seen by others with a direct link or made public & visible by all other OS Maps users).

9. Once you’ve added the route information, select ‘Save’ to save the route to your account. Once saved, your route will be visible across all devices linked to your account. You can access your route again by heading to the Main Menu > Routes > My Routes. From here you can modify your route, export a GPX to load onto another device, see a 3D Fly-through and share it with friends, family or OS Maps users.

For more help & support on using OS Maps, head to our FAQ pages where you’ll find the answers to common questions.