How to Measure Distance on Google Maps, Save Locations & More
If you’re going on a trip, like to stay organized, and have a Google account, then you will want to know how to save locations, enable dark mode, view your timeline, and more with Google Maps. For your next trip, you will be able to save locations and much more. Why not utilize this free app?
Every time I go on a trip, I make sure to map out each stop. I think it's because of this preparation, I feel more comfortable travelling by myself, as a female traveller. If I know where I'm going, and I know what I should see along the way, then I can also make sure not to miss anything of interest. This is why I also make sure to read the travel book before I go on a trip. It's not like I travel all the time. There are limitations, like work and money and time, that play a factor into if and when I all go on a trip.
It's also fun to stay organized within Google Maps, so that I can look up destinations where I've been before. This might be to recommend a location to others, or when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic. Sometimes this is sad though, as in the case of covid when a lot of places had to close down for good.
Recently, because I've been doing some research for my next trip, I've felt nostalgic about other trips. I've looked up my lists I'm saved locations only to find that some hostels or restaurants have closed down over the past couple years. All I know is that Snobs in Birmingham England better not close down. I've got some fond memories of that place, and I'm looking forward to dancing the night away there once again soon.
The first time that I read through a travel book, I make highlights all of the things that I'm interested in visiting. Because I know that it's not possible to visit every single place I'd like to know, I read through it a second time, taking great care to figure out which locations have the most places that I'm interested in seeing, or restaurants that I'm interested in meeting at. At this point, I can start painting those saved locations within Google Maps. Luckily, I can filter Google Map pins to show only a single set of save locations, AKA a list. Typically I'll make a list for each of my travels. For example, I have one for Thailand, one for the United Kingdom, one for Indonesia, and so on. It's really cool, because if I ever want to visit a place again, all I have to do is look it up in Google Maps, in one of my saved lists. I recently found out how to edit, or delete locations in bulk. This is done by going to google.com/saved.
When I went to Japan a couple years ago, I made sure (as usual) to save all of the locations that I'd like to visit. One of the locations was for a cooking class. Everything was in Japanese, even Google because the street names are going to be in Japanese, of course. That didn't stop me. All I needed to know was my location, and the location of my destination, and I can navigate from there, by taking one step at a time to make those two dots closer together. I'm glad technology has progressed as much as this; not only so that I can get to my cooking class, but to enable weary, solo female travellers, such as myself, to be more confident when walking down the street. I still kind of don't know where I'm going, or sort of have a lost look about my face. but I know exactly where I want to end up.
I haven't really used the measuring distance feature in Google maps all that much. I don't need to know exact distances for my trips, fortunately. Something that I do check in Google Maps, is making sure that two locations are not too far away from each other. For example, whenever I need to take a taxi, or whenever I think I need to take a taxi. I don't like paying for something as “luxurious” as a taxi, when I could take a bus, or better yet walk so that I can see the city a little bit more.
Measuring the area is probably something that I’ll never need. Or maybe it's something that I think I'll never need now, but at least I know the future exists, in case I know of anyone that needs to measure the area of a park, or stadium. I know that more recently, maps have been added to Google Maps of malls and each of their levels within the mall. I think this is fascinating, but I have my doubts because stores open and close all the time. Unless these maps are crowd-sourced I'm not sure how they could ever keep up. When I was in Thailand, there were themed malls. I remember one of the themes was travel, called Terminal 21, and each part of the mall was a ”gate”, like you were in an airport. There are parts of another mall that were more market-like and had stalls instead of the stores with walls that are very typical in the United States. So, I wonder how these would look in a Google Map. I’m not really interested in Having a map of them all, probably because I don't even like shopping in the first place. It might be all of the people, or the inherent chaos.
When I do go to the mall, it’s to explore and enjoy the different culture, because it's probably going to be in a different country. In my opinion, it's a very social thing - going to malls, that I reserved for travelling because typically I am an introverted person who likes to stay at home and save her money for her brief spurts of extrovertism while travelling. Anything that I need, I can probably just find online and have it delivered. Unless there's something themed mall in the United States that I don't know about yet..
I'm looking forward to seeing what other features Google Maps may add. Until then, I know that I'll continue using saved locations and lists for my trips.
“Work hard. Travel harder.”
Do you use Google Maps?
