Google Maps - Three Tricks For Travelers

Google Maps is one of the best resources online for anyone that wants to travel, and some great tips are to be offered on how to use them, but I am going to limit myself to just the top ten suggestions I would offer to new users to get them started on using the maps.

1. Find Your Destination

Google Maps is invaluable for finding locations. Rather you are trying to find a place your friend recommended you visit while on vacation or you want to double check the location of your appointment.

Step One... open the map site at maps.google.com and type the address of your destination into the entry field at the top of the window. When you hit "Search Maps" you will get a screen displaying the map with small balloon-billets that match lettered balloon-billets in a menu to the left. Select the one you want and you will get a pop-up on the map that displays a link to reviews (and how many there are, if there are any), the address of the business, a street view picture (if available), and additional information such as links for getting driving directions, saving the location to your "my maps", and searching nearby.

Click "search nearby" and you get a search box. Type in something you want to find nearby - say "espresso" - and your location balloon turns purple with a large green arrow indicating where you are, with additional red balloon-billets marking each of the nearby espresso locations, and small red dots marking espresso locations further away from where you searched from.

2. Get Directions

Okay, you have found your desired location, now... how do you get from where you are to where you want to go?

I had a problem several years back where my friends and I stayed at the Nob Hill Hotel in San Francisco and walked the wrong way to get to Fisherman's Warf, so let's use that as an example.

Type "nob hill hotel, san francisco, CA" into the search bar and you will get a map showing possible locations. The one we want is "A" - Nob Hill Hotel at 835 Hyde St, San Francisco, CA 94109-5927

So, copy that address and then type in your chosen destination. Let's go to the Ghirardelli chocolate Factory in Ghirardelli Square. Type "Ghirardelli chocolate, san francisco, CA" into the search bar. Our desired location is again balloon-billet "A" - Full-screen Ghirardelli Chocolate located at Ste A1 900 N Point St, San Francisco, CA 94109-1180.

Click "get directions" in the Ghirardelli Chocolate pop-up window, make sure that the "to here" selection is selected, and type the Nob Hill Hotel's address. [835 Hyde St, San Francisco, CA]. You get a new map, balloon-billets indicate each location, Nob Hill Hotel is "A" and Ghirardelli Chocolate is "B" with a line indicating the route on the map.

To the left is turn by turn driving directions. What if you don't want to drive? That's been thought of. Examine the entry area at the top of the left panel and you will see a drop down menu. You can select "by car" "walking" and "public transport". You can also add additional stops so that you can plan out your entire afternoon's activities in advance and know how long it will take (on average) to get from one location to the next. There are several suggested routes to chose from, click each one to see the suggested travel route. (Note that the route will change based on the transportation and route selection.)

Two things to pay attention to is the cost and time shown on the directions. In our example there are several options for the city bus that costs $2, and one for the cable car which costs $5. There are also times, which tell you what time you need to be going to catch the selected public transportation. Departure and arrival times are found in the step by step directions section for the transportation type.

3. Printing

Okay, you now know how to get where you want to go, and how to select the route, now... printing your map.

There is a link above the map on the right that lets you print it. Click on that. For our example map in step 2, this will produce a new window that tells you where you start and where you end up at. It also has the date and time you selected for this activity, cost of transportation, and an estimate of how long it takes to make the journey.

To the left is an area you can add additional notes. Maybe a note to remember to take sunscreen or a bottle of water? Notes on what to wear if you plan to go out to dinner?

Next we have small maps of the route and information on the directions to get where you want to go. All you need to do is hit the print and select printer options if you want to adjust printing levels or anything and print your map out.