Introducing Byway Maps

Product Designer Kurt Henderson was (one of the many) brains behind Byway Maps: the latest product launch that gives users the tools to design their own slow travel itinerary. We sat down with Kurt to pick his brains on how Byway Maps came to be.

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Q: What is Byway Maps?

Byway Maps is our new journey planner designed to help people craft a custom itinerary, straight onto a map. It’s packed with all of our expert overland travel insights, with places, accommodation and scenic train lines, allowing users to pin their own places – and discover new ones. Byway Maps then works out the best way to string these places together, and presents a bookable itinerary. Users can add their own constraints like duration, passengers and dates, ensuring that what is presented is not only enjoyable, but also works with their availability. 

Q: Why did you build Byway Maps?

We built Byway Maps to create a way for people to design their own itineraries from scratch. The visual element of the map has been hugely important to spark imagination, and showcase where people can get to without stepping onto a plane. We wanted to make sure there was enough freedom for people to select their own places, but we also wanted to combine it with our expert knowledge to be able to suggest how best to link these places together. This meant prioritising scenic routes by land and sea, and injecting in beautiful stops along the way, breaking the journey and introducing people to new places they might never have heard of. 

Q: How do you use Byway Maps?

Once you’ve launched Maps, you’ll be able to select your starting point for your journey. Then, how many days you have to play with. Specify your dates, or leave it open and flexible. From there, Byway Maps will display only the places that are available within your timeframe, and you’ll be able to select any places you’d particularly like to visit. You’ll be presented with a selection of itineraries with different routes and stop-offs. Once you’ve decided on which itinerary you like, you’ll be able to edit it further – for example by changing the hotel selection or adding or removing nights in each place, before booking.

Q: What excites you most about launching Byway Maps?

I’m really excited about how we've optimised Byway Maps to cater to all types of travellers—where you're starting from, where you're going, how long you'll be travelling, and even what you might be doing on your trip. We've built this feature for both mobile and desktop, incorporating expertly guided routes to enhance your experience. The result might be a honeymoon, a solo adventure or a mini-break with friends: all totally different types of holidays, all designed with Byway Maps.

Q: What challenges did you face when building it?

During the ideation stages of Byway Maps, we had so much feedback from our amazing testers. Working out how to integrate this feedback into the product was both exciting, but often challenging. It’s very much been shaped by our earliest testers who were able to put it through its paces and the outcome is something that has been the result of so many different people, including our incredible tech team and product team. 

We held numerous workshops, brainstorming sessions, and iterations—sketching ideas, testing different technologies, and refining our approach. It was a collaborative process to ensure that all routes were seamlessly connected and that the final product delivered the best experience for our users.

Q: What inspired you during the design process?

I spent a lot of time looking at maps! There’s something really exciting about seeing the world laid out, and that feeling of possibility that we wanted to capture with Byway Maps. I took inspiration from classic Interrail maps and knew that seeing train lines was going to be really important to show how each place connects up to other places.