How Do I Build My Itinerary Schedule?
Best practice for adding stops to your itinerary and understanding how they'll appear on the front end
Where do I build the itinerary steps?
This is done in the Itinerary Schedule tab — the heart of the itinerary, where you build out the actual stop-by-stop plan a visitor will follow.
Add each stop as a step, in the order a visitor would realistically follow them.
Link to existing content wherever you can. If a stop is a business, event, or experience that already exists in the DCMS, link to that entry rather than typing the details out again. This keeps information — such as opening hours or contact details — accurate and up to date automatically, and gives extra visibility to the Business Profile you're linking to.
Add custom points where nothing exists yet — for example a scenic viewpoint, a walking route, or a general recommendation that doesn't have its own entry in the DCMS.
Does the order of steps actually matter?
Yes — more than it might seem. Keep stops grouped geographically, not just logically. Every step you add plots as a point on the map that appears on the published Itinerary Listing, so a schedule that zig-zags across the destination will look — and feel — disjointed to a visitor, even if the theme and order made sense on paper.
Try to build your schedule the way you'd actually plan a route on the ground, not just the way the ideas occurred to you.
💡 Top Tip: Before you publish, look at your itinerary from the visitor's point of view — would this order actually make sense if you were walking or driving it? If stop three is on the opposite side of town from stops two and four, it's worth re-ordering.
Itineraries are designed for content that has a location — businesses, events, experiences, and custom points that can be plotted on a map. General articles or other non-location content aren't designed to sit within an itinerary schedule.
What if I don't want to recommend one specific place to stay?
Not every itinerary needs — or should — point to one hotel. Sometimes it's better to give the visitor options rather than a single answer.
In this case, rather than adding a specific accommodation stop to your schedule, add a heading within your body copy such as "Accommodation Recommendations", and use it to point visitors toward a range of suitable places to stay nearby. This keeps the itinerary itself focused on the experience, while still giving visitors what they need to plan the practical side of their trip.
What will visitors actually see once this is published?
Once your itinerary goes live, it automatically includes:
A map, plotting every point from your Itinerary Schedule in order — which is exactly why geographic grouping matters so much. The map is often the first thing a visitor's eye goes to, and a clean, sensible route reads as trustworthy before they've read a word of copy.
Social sharing icons for Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and email, so visitors can easily share the itinerary with someone they're planning a trip with.
Quick checklist before you publish
[ ] Steps added in a logical, geographically-grouped order
[ ] Existing Business Profiles, events, and experiences linked where they exist
[ ] Custom points added for anything without an existing entry
[ ] Accommodation addressed — either as a schedule stop or a body copy heading
[ ] Route checked from the visitor's point of view — does it make sense on the ground?