I love a good planning session. Even better when it’s planning travel-related things, searching for places to visit, figuring out where things are and finding those hidden gems. Whilst I’m very much still a paper planner kind of person, it’s also very useful to have all travel information within your phone. So here’s how I plan a trip using google maps.
Why I Plan Trips With Google Maps
I first discovered this nifty tool when I was planning for my solo trip to Barcelona. I was a little nervous to be there alone and wanted to have a bit of a plan for each day so I wasn’t just wandering back and forth to certain places and ultimately just wasting a lot of time.
I discovered that not only could you pin specific places on Google maps, but you could actually create your own personal map to keep everything easily accessible.
Helps You to Visualise & Plan Your Days
You can click on your map and see at a glance where everything is. It means you can find all the main attractions or restaurants and figure out what is close to where. If you’re visiting a big area it makes sense to do all the attractions in one section before moving onto another so why not make it easier by using a map? It can be super helpful for planning family days out.
Personalise Your Trip & Add Notes
When saving each place, you can categorise it and use a key, whether that’s through the symbols, the colours or both. Choose a specific colour for a specific thing, change the symbols, change the titles and even add in information on each pin.
I’ve mostly used the information section to add in important booking details, restaurant reservations etc. Things that I’ve booked and have a set time. Of course I also have these written down in a planner and have the information in my emails, but it just means if I’m on my map on my phone I can also double check the times in one place. You can even add directions from one place to another for if you need a bit of a guided walk.
Use on Various Devices
I’d take a guess that almost every traveller has a smart phone nowadays, right? With Google maps you can access it anywhere where you can sign in and have internet. To create these maps I use a desktop PC because I find it much easier to do, however, when I’m travelling it’s always being used on my phone.
Share with Others
Another bonus, similar to the above, is that with it being on Google you can also share it with others so a few can have access to it. Useful if you either want to share with a fellow traveller, share with family back home or even publish online for strangers to use. I’ve actually saved a few random maps that other people have created onto my account, which you can see in the photo further down.
Create All Kinds of Maps
The thing about Google My Maps is that it can be customised for all kinds of trips. You might be planning a specific route, hitting certain checkpoints along the way. You might just decide to mark off all the best food places in a certain area, or the top photography spots. There’s all kinds of ways to use these maps and with that in mind, it means if you search you’ll probably find some great maps that others have already created… Perfect for doing some research on a new area!
Read more: How to Use the Passion Planner Daily as a Travel Journal
How to Use Google My Maps to Plan a Trip
So, how do you plan a trip with Google Maps?
Well first up you need to go onto Google Maps and make sure you are logged in. Click the three little lines on the left box to bring up the menu and then go to ‘Your Places’. Next you need to click onto the ‘Maps’ tab, and then right at the bottom click ‘Create Map’. To access this from your phone, open the settings, click your places and then scroll across the top tabs to the maps one. Useful to note, it doesn’t seem like you can create them from mobile.
This then brings up the main map page, and where you’ll do all your trip planning.
Create Your Categories
These are the layers and you can only create 10 different ones per map. This has always been fine for me, but if you are planning a long multi-city or country trip then you might have to do a bit of thinking about the best way to organise things.
Once you have created a layer you can name it whatever you like, and start pinning. I do create all my layers first so I can have each category ready to go. Whatever you choose to name these will hugely depend on the kind of map you are wanting to create. For mine, I tend to stick similar to these:
- General – This is including hotels/airports and those kind of places.
- Food & Drink – For any restaurants or bars I want to visit.
- Places – The attractions, museums, things to see.
- Shopping – Any specific shops I want to check out.
Pretty basic, but covers what I need.
Another set-up could be categorising by day so you know exactly what you’re planning to find or do on each day that you’re there.
Once you’ve done that, you can then select a specific layer and when you search and pin, it will go straight to that category. No worries if you accidentally pin it in the wrong one though as you can easily drag and drop.
Find Your Places to Visit
Now for the fun bit – time to find all the things you want to see. I don’t have a system to this, I just search as things come to mind. Once I start pinning things I will then give them a colour/symbol and enter any important details into the information box.
I like to give each category it’s own colour, however you can further colour code within each category. For example, you might want to separate museums from parks, or restaurants from bakeries. You can actually use different shades of one colour to do this. If you look closely at mine, you’ll see two places are a darker green. These are ones where I’ve booked and paid for something.
Plan Your Trip by using the locations/information gathered
The thing about visiting cities is that there are a lot of things to see and do, and not all of them will be in the same area. Obviously. You don’t want to plan a day out only to discover that the things you had wanted to do are on opposite ends. Planning your trip via a map gives you a very easy visual to look at. You can get a good idea of which places are ideal to do on the same morning or afternoon. You know what to look out for when you’re in a specific area.
It also helps those of us that like organisation to not be so overwhelmed when trying to remember everything you want to do when travelling… Just me?
Have you ever used Google Maps this way? Tell us your tips in the comments!
