One of my favourite new features in iOS 18 is in the Maps app, and that’s the ability to create your own custom routes, whether for driving or walking. I’m going to do it for walking, and I’m going to plan a route around the town of St Ives. I want to know ahead of time how long that route is going to be, how long it might take to walk, and what the elevation levels are going to be like. So, I’m going to start at the train station. I’m going to tap and hold and drop a pin here. Once I drop that pin, I’m going to press the more button to get some more options, and then from here, there’s the new setting to create a custom route.

At this point, all I need to do is zoom out on the map slightly and decide where I want to go on the walk, maybe a couple of waypoints or markers on the way, maybe a tourist destination I want to visit, or just a shop. I’m going to head down towards the actual seafront itself, so I’m going to drop another marker here, simply pressing on the map where I want the marker to go. As soon as I do that, you’ll notice that Maps has drawn a line between the two points, and at the bottom, it shows me the distance and the length of that line so far. I can then zoom out and move around again, perhaps go down to the seafront in St Ives, and if I tap and hold here, it will extend that line further still.

I can repeat this process as many times as I like to plot out my perfect walking route. Let’s just put a couple more pins in the map. I’ll move forward a little bit here for you, and now you can see my route is starting to take shape — a nice loop around the town, going along the harbour, and then coming back up the main hill again. Of course, I could actually reverse this route if I wanted to; maybe I want to end at the train station instead. It’s as simple as tapping this button here. You can see the elevation changes and potentially the length as well, depending on the hills you’re walking up and down.

For this particular walk, I want to end back at the train station where I started, so I’m going to press the close loop button. Maps will figure out the best way to get you back to your starting destination, perhaps the car park or where you’ve left your friends, and then you’ve got your route planned out ready to go. You can start walking your route from here, and it will give you turn-by-turn directions on your phone or your watch, or you can save your route to come back to it another time. Maybe it’s a particularly nice walk. I’m going to save mine and just call it St Ives walk.

I really, really like this feature. It lets me know ahead of time how long the walk is going to be, it gives me an idea of other places that I could explore, perhaps I can extend the route or do an out-and-back walk instead of a full circuit, and it lets me know roughly ahead of time what to expect on that journey. The fact that you can then save walks and build a collection of your favourite places to go and explore makes it even better in my opinion. This is just one of many new things on iOS 18. If you want to see what else your iPhone can do now, please do check out my channel down below.