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How can I create a map to show a travel itinerary using free online tools?

What I am looking for is being able to draw each travel segment over a political map of the world such as Google Maps. So that I can connect cities with arcs showing flight paths when flying, highlight road travel following the route to be taken. Also adding paths for ferry and boat travel would be good.

Note that this is different from creating a travel map where locations are painted or marked (such as on Google My Maps) without any connection between them.

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    Great Circle Mapper is an option: gcmap.com
    – Johns-305
    Dec 11, 2016 at 17:08
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    Google My Maps also allow to add lines from one point to other, just click line tool, select one airport, extend the line as far as poss, towards destination airport, zoom out, extend more, then zoom in to precisely put it where you need. Lines follow arc of earth.
    – DavChana
    Dec 11, 2016 at 20:44
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    How about Photoshop?
    – user13044
    Dec 12, 2016 at 1:16
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    @Tom - Photoshop is really far from free or online.
    – Itai
    Dec 14, 2016 at 21:31
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    @Tom - No, we look for tools first to save time and, mostly importantly for me, so that the results look better than what I could do myself, at least in available time. I've built plenty of tools to do tasks for myself but it seems that this should be a solved problem since there are so many use-cases for this.
    – Itai
    Dec 15, 2016 at 2:43

3 Answers 3

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You could try uMap. This is a free tool, based on OpenStreetMap.

It lets you add markers on the map, or you can draw lines, or polygons. It has plenty of options for customisation, you can change the style or colours of lines, or the symbols used for markers, or the style of the background map.

It can import and export data in a variety of formats. You can share the map with others, or embed it in your own website.

Note that uMap will only draw straight lines between points. ie it won't automatically follow roads or flight paths etc, unless you click to add points along the way. Or you could create a GPS track in other software, then import it into uMap.

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One free tool that I know of to generate maps of air travel is Great Circle Mapper.

The initial UI is pretty simple but there are a lot of customization options. You can look at the many Featured Maps to get examples.

Offered since ferry travel was specifically noted as secondary.

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Travellerspoint's mapping tool does what you're looking for. It will allow you to map out many trips on a single map. Flights are shown with an arc. Train, car, bus routes will follow the roads. You can also drill down into each of the locations you stopped at to see some information for that location. This is from guide content written by the members.

After creating your map, you will get some stats about your travels and you will also be able to embed that map on other sites. It uses the mapbox-gl mapping engine with a choice of different tile sets.

Full disclosure: I run Travellerspoint. I also think it meets your needs perfectly so is a good answer for this question.

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