How To Make A Custom Travel Map With Google Maps For FREE {My Maps}

We have a vacation to NYC coming up, and I was overwhelmed with the amount of sightseeing, eating, and wall art I had pinned to Pinterest. I’m such a visual person, I thought to myself “I WISH I could just drop all of these locations and save them on a map!” Then I learned that you can do that with Google Maps!

*insert angels singing here*

With that being said, I have a tutorial that will change the way you vacation, too! (and YES, feel free to pin this to your vacation board!) It will be your saving grace if you’re going to a metropolitan area like San Diego, D.C., or NYC.

FOLLOW ALONG WITH US!

#1. Go to this link(on your desktop):

 https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/?hl=en 

and select “create a new map.”

Name your map (top left corner) and type in a location (tip: start with your hotel!)

Next, select “+Add to map”

After you add the location to your map, you can customize the little icon that represents the pin. I made the hotel bright red so I could easily spot it. I make my street art yellow, activities green, central park purple, and restaurants blue. You can also choose a custom icon for each pin. 

It’s also helpful to add a photo to your location (especially if you’re visiting street art and can’t remember which wall is where)

If you type in a business that has multiple locations (i.e. what we can’t live without😜–Starbucks), all of their locations in the area will show up and you can select the locations you know you’re going to visit. 

In the legend on the left I list my pins in order from North to South (except for the hotel). 

Note: when you select a location in the legend on the left, it highlights the dropped pin on the right. 

I love that you can also add notes to your location! For this restaurant I wanted to note that they have gluten free mac and cheese (YAS!) because I know I won’t remember while we are on the trip.

Accessing your map on Mobile

Open your Google Maps app and select the menu bar at the top left. Then go to “your places.”

Then navigate to “MAPS”

TADAAAA!!! Now you can see all of that hard work. If you tap “view map legend” at the bottom you can see the list of location in the order you put them in. 

When you tap a pin you can see the notes you added to the locations.

You can also see the photo you added if you need a memory booster. 

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