If you think Google maps is good only for locating your immediate whereabouts and locating a part of the world you never knew about, you’re wrong.
Google maps is your best friend for planning your travels – more specifically, plan travel routes.
If you’re looking for a Google map trip planner to plan a road trip on Google Maps, this post will guide you step by step on how to plan a trip in Google Maps easily.
Many do not know about this feature on Google Maps where you can:
- Create an itinerary in Google Maps
- Create a map with bookmarked pins
- Add descriptions to your bookmarks
- Plan your routes with accurate distance and duration
- Share the map with your friends to let them contribute
- Print your map
After I learned how to create my own maps on Google Maps in 3 simple steps and pin bookmarks, I never stopped using it in all my other travel planning, especially for my Jeju family trip, when I went cafe-hopping in Bali, and even during our complicated South-East Hokkaido road trip.
It has plenty of features that makes your map everything you ever need when you visit a foreign city. So I thought I would share with you this really useful feature on Google Maps so you can benefit too!
With the ‘Share‘ feature, I was also able to rope in my New Zealand road trip buddies while doing my travel planning on Google Maps to input their bookmarks and contribute to planning a road trip on Google Maps, with multiple stops.
Damn, you can even print your map.
Road trip New Zealand map
This step-by-step guide will show you just how simple it is to make your very own Google Maps itinerary.
As always, I find the best way to source for the cheapest flights is by checking on Google Flights & Skyscanner.
As for accommodation, I found Booking & HotelsCombined to provide the most comprehensive, unbiased comparison of different hotel sites.
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At A Glance
- How to plan a road trip on Google Maps
- Step 1
- Step 2
- Step 3
- Feature 1: Add descriptions for each landmark you’ve bookmarked.
- Feature 2: View the list of pins and descriptions in an organized spreadsheet.
- Feature 3: Colour code your pins according to different categories.
- Feature 4: Find directions from Point A to B.
- Feature 5: Delete a pin.
- Feature 6: Create different layers for when you want to create different maps and want to show/ hide certain groups of destinations.
- Feature 7: Share your map with your trip friends so they can view your itinerary and contribute too!
- Feature 8: Print your map for ease of convenience when you’re on the go.
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How to plan a road trip on Google Maps
Do you already have a destination in mind? GREAT. Read on then.
If not, head to my Destinations tab and you can be inspired from there.
Follow the 3 steps (only 3!) and you’ll be on your way to planning your own Google travel maps.
Step 1
Go to Google Maps.
Step 2
To create an itinerary, click ‘Menu’ on the top left button > click ‘Your Places’ > click ‘Maps’ on the 4th tab > click ‘Create Map’.
Step 3
Search your destination on the search bar > click ‘Add to map’ on the bottom left of the pop up on the map, and the destination goes to an Untitled layer on the left side.
While planning your travel map, there are several additional features to make your map more informative.
Feature 1: Add descriptions for each landmark you’ve bookmarked.
It will appear under the title of your pin.
How: Click on the pin that you have bookmarked > Click 'Edit' at the bottom of the pop up.
Add description for bookmarked pins
Feature 2: View the list of pins and descriptions in an organized spreadsheet.
You can choose to copy this into your own spreadsheet and print it out for easy reference when you are on the go.
How: At the top of your layer on the left panel, click on the 3 grey dots on the side > Click 'Open data table'.
View landmarks and descriptions at one glance on Google Map.
Feature 3: Colour code your pins according to different categories.
You can categorize your pins by colour e.g. Food, Parks, Viewpoint, Shopping, etc. This makes your map look less cluttered and helps you plan the rest (food) stops in between attractions!
How: Click on the pin that you have bookmarked > Click 'Style' at the bottom of the pop up.
colour code your pins on Google Map
Feature 4: Find directions from Point A to B.
How: Click on the pin that you have bookmarked > Click the 4th icon, 'Directions to here' at the bottom of the pop up. Input your start/ end point.
Find directions on Google Map
Feature 5: Delete a pin.
How: Click on the pin that you have bookmarked > Click the 5th icon, 'Delete feature' at the bottom of the pop up.
Feature 6: Create different layers for when you want to create different maps and want to show/ hide certain groups of destinations.
This is useful if you want to have a separate itinerary daily and have your map looking more organized.
How: Click 'Add layer' on the left panel, under your map title.
How: Click 'Share' on the left panel, under your map title.
Feature 8: Print your map for ease of convenience when you’re on the go.
How: Beside your map title on the left panel, click on the 3 grey dots on the side > click 'Print map'.
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You can use Google Maps to plan your trip with multiple stops along the way.
You can make use of this Google itinerary map maker to see at a glance how far each attraction is from the next by creating map with pins. This can help you plan which attraction should be done together in a day and which others should be done on another day.
Before you leave, don’t forget to get equipped with an Unlimited Data eSIM to make your navigating lives better!
P.S. Don’t forget to pack these travel essentials too! They truly are a life-saver when it comes to packing everything into a luggage.
Isn’t this Google Maps trip planner method such a deal?! With this virtual Google travel map, you can access your Google Maps itinerary anytime, anywhere!
In my next post, I share how you can export your Google maps to your PHONE and use it OFFLINE. I was blown away when I found out of this feature. Never again do I have to input these bookmarks manually on any phone apps.
Catching these beautiful cherry blossoms in Sapporo, Hokkaido
Got your attractions locked in? Great! Now, it’s time to be fully prepared for your next travel with these posts:
I love making Google maps for my trips! I find it so much easier to plan when I know exactly where things are and what they are (and aren’t) close to. I never thought about colour coding though – will definitely be doing that in the future to distinguish my cafes and restaurants from my sightseeing pins!
Well that’s just me being too organized (sometimes for my own good). 😛 Others do find it a hassle to do so!
This is so helpful! I didn’t know you could do this. I’ll definitely be making a map itinerary for my next trip!
In my next series I will be sharing how you can export this map to your phone and use it offline. Subscribe to the blog so you won’t miss the post when it’s out! 🙂
This is so useful. Thanks a lot.
In my next series I will be sharing how you can export this map to your phone and use it offline. Subscribe to the blog so you won’t miss the post when it’s out! 🙂 Definitely a very useful tool.
I never knew you could do anything like this, really useful and something we will be doing in the future! Great tip!
Yes I’ve never stopped going back to this tool when I plan for my travels now. Extremely helpful to have a bird’s eye view of the attractions. In my next series I will be sharing how you can export this map to your phone and use it offline. Subscribe to the blog so you won’t miss the post when it’s out! 🙂
This is really cool and extremely helpful. Thanks for sharing!
In my next series I will be sharing how you can export this map to your phone and use it offline. Definitely useful when we’re always on the go and navigating around. Subscribe to the blog so you won’t miss the post when it’s out! 🙂
What a cool idea. When I have more time I’m going to check this out.
It’s a huge time-saver when I plan my itinerary with this tool. In my next series I will be sharing how you can export this map to your phone and use it offline. Very useful for navigating around. Subscribe to the blog so you won’t miss the post when it’s out! 🙂
This is great, I didn’t know you could do this! Will have to give a try in the future!
Hi Tom! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
You really have to use it! Huge time-saver. In my next series I will be sharing how you can export this map to your phone and use it offline. Very useful for navigating around when you’re in a foreign country. You can subscribe to the blog so you won’t miss the post when it’s out! 🙂
This is such a useful article! I have been using maps for my walking tours and street art discoveries.
Glad to be of help!
Great how-to! These are exactly the steps I do when I plan our itinerary. I also use Google maps! 🙂
That’s great! Glad to be of help 🙂
Thank you for sharing this step by step guide! This feature on google maps is seriously a life saver and more people need to know about it! Great post 🙂
Agreed! I hope that more people get to see these not-so-common features, too. Truly my life saver too 🙂
I will definitely start doing this with Mr Fluskey so he actually knows what I am talking about when we are away. It’s so funny that you used South Korea as an example. We just got back from S.Korea and found that google was terrible there. It wouldn’t let us see offline areas. Do you have a secret tat helps?
google maps got us through our trip to Europe. We would not have survived without it. Knowing this feature will be even more helpful to us on our next trips.
Indeed! Hope it helps! 🙂
So useful! I’ve been using Google maps to create itineraries for a while, but didn’t know about some of the features you mentioned! Thanks so much!
You’re welcome! 🙂
How did I not know about this? I’ve seen people has their own maps but didn’t realize they made them with google maps! How cool! I will definitely be using this for my next road trip!
I’m glad you find it useful! 🙂
It took me a while to realize it, too. And yes! Definitely a must-have for subsequent trips 🙂
Bookmarked! I was always curious about this. Thank you for posting about this.
Glad to be of help!
Oh wow!! This is life changing! I didn’t know. Thanks so much for this. Just tried it out for my Taiwan trip!
Hi Isabel, this is very handy!!! Thanks a lot for sharing it, I’m already using it for my next trip! <3
Thanks so much for letting me know – that’s very encouraging!
Thanks for the step by step! I’m having a problem though, when I go to Print, my map shows from northern British Columbia to southern California even though I only need from washington to mid oregon. Because it’s so zoomed out, it’s not particularly useful…Thoughts on how to get it to zoom in for the printing part?
Thanks
Oh thank you for this article! I was struggling with creating a map on google for some time, missing one piece of the puzzle which you have helped me find 🙂
Hello, do you have your NZ map available to click / explore? I can’t find it.
Very informative guide for planning a trip using google maps. However, I would like to point out that some of the images, (which I imagine are for informative purpose) have some errors and aren’t showing
MyMaps is great and thank you for the explanations. Unfortunately when creating this new mas, I don’t see all the pins I already have collected in the “normal” Maps in order to join them all… Is there any trick to do so without having MAPS open then clicking on one of my pin then searching the same in MyMaps to add the same pin ?
Fantastic article! I had the opportunity to visit Iceland the previous year and I’m currently sharing my experiences on my blog. Our exploration was mostly confined to the vicinity of Reykjavik, but I’m eager to revisit and unearth the beauty of the southern coast, it appears breathtaking. By the way, could you share the camera settings you used for capturing the Northern lights? I was able to snap a few pictures last year, but I’m striving for enhancement!
This was helpful, will try on a next trip, thanks for sharing.
This is really useful tip will definitely give a try for my next trip.
This is really useful tip will definetely try on my next trip. Thanks for sharing!!