Is there a way to trigger a form modal from within another form?

I have a data form of locations.

in my booking form clients can select a location from that data form using a dropdown look up field.

If the locations is not present in the list, I want to allow a modal of the location form to pop up, have them fill it out with the new value, and then return to the booking form where they can select the entry from the location for they just created.

I tried this with a form embed and snippet to preserve the original entry but it doesn't seem to work.

is this a crazy idea? it feels close but having trouble creating a button or link in my form to take me temporarily to the location form.