MapQuest Is Making a Comeback: "We Want to Be a Part of the Conversation"

If you are of a certain age, chances are there was a time when you needed to navigate to someplace new using a physical map. But sometime in 1996, a new bit of technology was unveiled, and it allowed you to search for turn-by-turn directions to your destination. 

Then, you'd need to get to a printer to print your instructions so you could get where you were going (those who didn't have a printer were forced to write them out by hand, but that's a story for another day). Over the years, newer technologies took over, and MapQuest eventually became as antiquated as the fold-up maps and road atlases we used to rely on.

However, what's old is new again thanks to MapQuest's growing popularity on social media. And the company seems poised to make a major comeback, delighting millennials, Gen Xers, and Boomers alike.

Now, the company is racing to roll out a revised app so that people can once again get MapQuest's famous turn-by-turn directions, but this time in the palm of their hand. Whether or not it lives up to some of the more popular apps remains to be seen, but for now it seems like most people are happy to see MapQuest back on the road again.

MapQuest Never Truly Stopped Operations

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While many people keep calling the company's return a comeback, MapQuest's story may be channeling LL Cool J's famous "comeback" anthem. MapQuest never truly stopped operating, but instead it didn't transition quickly enough to real-time navigation like Google Maps and other apps. 

But that seems to be a thing of the past for the navigation company, which reached the number one spot on Apple's App Store as of the morning of Sept. 1, 2026, according to The Guardian . 

The App Has Been Downloaded Hundreds of Thousands of Times 

MapQuest's app has received hundreds of thousands of downloads since Thursday. The reason for the sudden increase is MapQuest's refusal to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America after the president signed an executive order renaming the lake. 

"We took the same approach we did with the Gulf of Mexico: be part of the conversation, and give people an app that keeps the names they're familiar with," Doug Berger, general manager of MapQuest, said in an Aug. 31 statement on Business Wire . 

People Spend a Lot of Time Interacting With the Company on Social Media

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MapQuest seems to have another thing going for it at the moment, and that includes whoever is running the company's social media team. The account is interacting with both followers and non-followers on a regular basis, both joining in on conversations and starting new discussions on its own. 

Plus, the account is also responding to questions about its app, helping people navigate the settings in the same way it once ruled the roads, gaining a whole new generation of fans in the process. 

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