One of the things I love the most about Google Maps for Android is the large number of functions it offers for plan a trip to help you find not only the best route but also the best time to travel or areas to avoid when parking your car.
Then we will review nine features of Google Maps that will help you plan your routes for your next vacation, weekend or work trip.
Configure your driving and public transport options
The first thing we need to do to plan our trips is to customize the driving options. When we calculate a route, we have to click on the ‘Options’ option. there we can avoid tollshighways and/or ferries.
If we move in public transport these options are found in the “All Media” and “Best Path” filters. There you can choose your preferred means of transport and if you want fewer transfers, less walking, etc…
Add stops before you go
If you’re going on a long trip or need to run an errand in different places, you can add stops before you start driving. To do this, when calculating a route, go to Add shutdown menu. You can add and organize the order of your stops. Moreover, you can also add stops directly by exploring the site files on the map with the ‘Add stop’ option.
Download the course
It is highly recommended always download the route if we go to a place that we do not know, because this way we make sure that the application will continue to work normally even if we are in areas not covered during the journey. If we do not download the route, it is possible that without a data connection it does not know how to recalculate the route in case we get lost.
Check traffic
When we go to calculate the route to a destination, Google Maps shows us the travel time with a color. If it is green, there is no traffic, orange is heavy traffic, and red is delays. By displaying the indications, we can see a graph with the traffic forecast for the next few hours. So you can find out if it’s worth delaying your trip for a few hours.
Set departure or arrival time
If you are going to take a trip for another day, the best is and you want to know right now the duration of this trip, the best is to go to Menu > Set departure or arrival time. You can choose the day and time of your departure or your arrival. With the arrival time, you can know what time you have to leave to arrive on time at your destination.
For trips of public transport we also found this option in your search filters. There you can choose the time of departure, arrival or take the last transport that leaves for the day, although it is strongly recommended to always check the official public transport websites.
Find out if it will cost you to park
If you’re going to take a trip to a city you don’t know and want to avoid driving half an hour to park, on Google Maps you can see the **difficulty parking*. The route map may display notices with the typical difficulty of parking at your destination.
crowded areas
Google Maps does not tell you which areas are the easiest to park but it does tell us which are the busiest areas, painting the areas yellow next to an indicator. In this way we can know which are the areas with the most movement and perhaps with the most traffic and the most difficult to park.
Define your routes
If you make or are going to make a lot of journeys and do not always want to calculate the route, you can to display your favorite routes to access them directly from the tab ‘ir’ from Google Maps. The problem is that this feature does not allow to define routes with stops.
Add your routes to the home screen
Another cool feature, which lets you save routes with stops, is the ability to add the route to the home screen. When we calculate a route and we have already selected its route and its stops, we can go to Menu > Add Route to Home Screen. A shortcut will be added to the home screen with the path.
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