How To Use MapQuest Route Planner — And Some Newer Alternatives

If you drive a lot — for example if you have a delivery route or make a lot of sales calls — you’ve probably run up against the limits of Google Maps route planner and similar tools like Waze or Apple Maps. They’re great at finding the shortest route from A to B, but if you need to find the most efficient way around multiple stops to reduce your travel time and fuel consumption, they can’t help. MapQuest Route Planner can be a great option, especially if you’re only making around 20 stops a day. But  how do you get the most out of it? 

In this article we’ll show you how to use MapQuest Route Planner to create an efficient multi-stop route. 

But we’ll be honest: Mapquest is looking tired and outdated. Its glory days are definitely over, and there are much more powerful route planners available, especially if you’re a business that needs routes for multiple drivers, or if you need delivery management features. We’ll review some of those at the end of the tutorial. 

After the tutorial, we’ll also look at some alternative options for when you need something more powerful.

💡 If you need route planning for your business, check out Routific — the full version with route optimization and accurate ETAs is free to try.

Getting started with MapQuest Route Planner

MapQuest.com has been around for a long time! Its iOS and Android mobile apps are still among the most popular navigation apps, up there with Waze, Google Maps and Apple Maps. The basic mapping app has great features for ordinary drivers and road trippers, like real-time traffic updates and a quick way to find gas stations, grocery stores, and other points of interest. And unlike Google, it doesn’t clutter the map with lots of irrelevant information.  

Mapquest Route Planner is a version of the product geared specifically to multi-stop route planning. It does a decent job even though it’s outdated — and it’s free, which makes it attractive to charities, startups, and anyone with a small budget. 

But small businesses should know that Mapquest Route Planner comes with some severe limitations:

• You can only plan a route for one driver at a time.
• There is a maximum of 26 addresses per route.
• There are no professional features like delivery time windows, customer notifications or scheduled driver breaks.
• The route planner is ad-funded, which can make the workspace very cluttered.
• MapQuest hasn’t really kept up with a lot of advances in route planning algorithms, so you probably won’t get the most optimal route. 
• The interface feels a bit old and out of date.

If you can live with those limitations — go ahead and work through our tutorial. If not, check out our reviews of other free route planners.

How to plan a multi-stop route with MapQuest Route Planner

1. Add addresses

The first step in using the route planner is — no surprise — adding your addresses. There are three ways to do this:

1. Type in addresses manually, line by line. 
2. Copy/paste your addresses from a list you’ve already created somewhere else, like a spreadsheet. 
3. Upload an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file. 

Whatever method you choose, MapQuest will check your addresses against its own database to find the exact map location for each stop. 

If you’re typing in addresses line by line, you’ll see a list of suggestions pop up as you type, just like in Google Maps. 

If you’re copy/pasting or uploading a file, things can get tricky. There are a lot of Main Streets in the world, and you might get a route that sends you to the wrong one. To avoid this, make sure you're giving good address information. Use full addresses, including city, zip/postal code and province/state. The more information you can give, the more quickly MapQuest can find the right locations for your route plan. 

If you’re going to be using MapQuest Route Planner often, it’s a good idea to download their Excel or CSV template file so it’s easier to get all the information right the first time.

2. Choose your route options and create your route

MapQuest Route Planner lets you choose how to plan your route. You can:

• Let MapQuest re-order your stops — you must do this if you want to get the most efficient route. In our tests with 20 addresses in Vancouver, Canada, the total driving time reduced from over 4 hours to 1hr 48 minutes, just by checking this option!
• Choose whether to optimize your route for the shortest driving time, or the shortest distance. A lot of the time there’s not much difference — but if there are major roadworks going on, for example, it might be quicker to take an alternative route, even if the actual distance is longer. The fastest route is not always the shortest!
• Specify whether this is a one-way route or a round trip.

If you click on “More route settings” you get a bunch of additional options:

• You can change units between miles and kilometers. 
• You can tell MapQuest to avoid routes that might be more expensive or difficult. Some examples of why you might want to use these options are:some text
  • To avoid extra charges for toll roads or ferries.
  • If your vehicles are too slow or heavy for a highway.
  • If you want to avoid paperwork or delays associated with crossing international borders. 
  • Some roads might be closed because of ice or mud in certain seasons.

And that’s it! You have your route. This is one of the quickest ways to see how route optimization works in practice — although Mapquest’s route optimization is not as good as others.

3. Share your route

MapQuest Route Planner will show you step-by-step driving directions on your computer, but that’s not much help for actual driving! You can print the route out, but you (or your delivery drivers) will probably want the route on an iPhone or Android device to help out while driving.

The “Share” button in the route directions offers two options:

• Send the route to a mobile number. This doesn’t always work, and a lot of the time we just get an error message saying “Please enter a valid mobile number”. Luckily there’s another option:
• Send a link to your route. Mapquest supplies a short URL link which you can easily copy and paste, then send via email or your favorite messaging app.

Unfortunately, this is where the options run out. In our testing, the URL opened the MapQuest Route Planner web page in a mobile browser, not in MapQuest’s own mobile app. That means there is no GPS navigation, no voice navigation, and no turn-by-turn directions shown on the map — just a list of written directions. 

It’s still possible to make this work, with some added effort. The driver could take the optimized list of addresses, then recreate the route in another navigation app like Waze, Google Maps or Apple Maps to get directions. Or, more experienced drivers might be happy to work off printed directions. 

But this is all more effort than it’s worth. Yes, MapQuest Route Planner is free — but when you factor in all the extra time needed to make it work, the real cost might be higher than a paid app. If you’re not convinced, most route optimization and route planning apps nowadays offer a free trial version. You can try Routific for free for 7 days. 

The bottom line: If you’re planning a once-off recreational road trip, MapQuest does a great job. But if you need to plan a delivery route, or any multi-stop route within an urban area, there are much better route planner apps available.

MapQuest and RoadWarrior

If you try MapQuest Route Planner for yourself, you may notice a popup advertising the RoadWarrior app. RoadWarrior was an independent route planning app, originally for single drivers only, that expanded to include a “for teams” offering. MapQuest’s parent company acquired RoadWarrior in December 2021. When we wrote this in 2024 the two apps still operated completely independently, so it will be interesting to see what happens next.

Mapquest vs Google Maps

Both Mapquest and Google Maps provide adequate route planning tools for everyday users and startups or small businesses. They are both user-friendly and offer some of the basic functionality to help you get from Point A to B. But in both cases, their multi-stop route planning functionality is limited. Here are some of the main differences between the two platforms.

Alternatives to MapQuest

Mapquest Route Planner is good enough for basic route planning needs, and it has the advantage of being free. 

But if you need a route planner for your business, you can do better. Finding the most optimal route is not just about convenience, it’s about the profitability of your entire business. The more efficient your routes are, the less you will spend on fuel, vehicle maintenance and driver wages. 

• Free route planners with unlimited stops
• Best route planner apps for Android
• Best route planner apps for iPhone
• Top apps for planning multiple routes

💡Or you could just try Routific’s route planning software for free.