Top 20 Google Maps Tips & Tricks: All the best features you should know!

Hi everyone, Kevin here.

Today we are going to look at the best Google Maps, tips and tricks.

To jump around this video, feel free to use the time stamps down below.

All right let's check these out.

At #1, you can zoom in and out just by using one finger.

Typically to zoom in and out, you need two fingers, and you can either pinch or expand,

but you can also just double tap with one finger and then slide your finger up or down

to zoom in and out.

At #2.

You can have Google Maps remember your parking location.

I always seem to forget where I park my car, but now I'll always know where my car is.

Unless of course I park in Oklahoma City.

Within Google Maps, simply tap on the blue dot that indicates where you currently are,

and then you can save your parking location.

On the map, you'll now see a pin that shows you where your car is.

Once you return, you can click on that pin and you can clear it out.

If you would rather have Google Maps remember automatically where your car is, click on

your profile picture.

Then go to settings, navigation and here you can toggle it on so Google Maps remembers

your parking location.

At #3, you can see where you've been using location history.

Now to be fair, this one is a little bit creepy, but also really cool.

To be able to use this, you have to make sure to turn on location tracking.

Click on the hamburger menu and then select your timeline.

Here I see a map of the world with red dots indicating all of the different places I've

been.

Let's say I want to revisit my trip to Orlando, FL.

Here I'll click on the dot in Orlando.

And here I can see that I flew to Orlando through Dallas and down below I see day by

day that I was on this trip so I can click through and see every single thing that I

did.

If I move to the 9th, here I can see that I went on a trip to the Kennedy Space Center.

And what's really neat is it also overlays your photos on your map data.

So here I can see a photo of myself in front of the NASA sign and here if I go down I could

also see the Space Shuttle Atlantis.

It's pretty much like an automated diary of your life.

At #4, you can time travel using something called Street View history.

To access Street View, you click on the little yellow person icon in the bottom right-hand

corner and then all of the different roads will highlight in blue indicating where Street

View is available.

And it's truly mind boggling how many different roads Google has covered.

Here when I zoom out, you start to get a sense for the massive scope of their coverage.

And it's not just roads that they've covered.

They've even covered some waterways as well.

To use Street View, I simply select the person icon in the bottom right, and then I can drag

it onto one of the blue streets and this will show me the most current picture of this location.

In the top left-hand corner, I can see the date of the photo, but if I click on that,

I can also go back in time and access past photos.

So here you see that in this current photo there are some large condo buildings at this

intersection.

But now if I go back in time just a few years ago, these were all parking lots.

It really shows you the massive construction growth going on in the City of Seattle right

now.

At #5, you can interact with Google Maps simply by using your voice.

The easiest way to do that is to simply click on the microphone icon when you're navigating,

but an even easier way to do that is to click on your profile picture.

Then click on settings.

Then click on navigation and set it so you simply say OK Google and then you can ask

your question.

So here I am navigating, and I can say OK Google show me all gas stations along my route.

Here now I see all of the gas stations and the associated price.

If I don't care about price, I could also say OK Google, route me to the nearest gas

station and there it is.

At #6, and this is a quick one, you can change your vehicle icon.

Simply tap on the arrow icon and then you can choose a different vehicle.

At #7, you can create custom labels to make it easier to get back to the places that you

care about.

I always use my phone to navigate to my dentist, but I never remember what the address is,

so here I can simply type in the address and then I can add a label for this, and here

I'll type in Dentist.

Now in the future when I'm navigating, all I need to do is type in dentist and Google

Maps will know exactly where that is.

At #8, you can also save a location.

I'm currently pulling together a plan for a business trip at the Kevin Cookie Company

and I've always wanted to visit Hershey's Chocolate World in Pennsylvania.

This will be a great opportunity to try to get some of their trade secrets... inspiration

for the Kevin Cookie Company.

Here I'll click on save.

Now I can go up to the hamburger menu, click on your places, and when I click into this

list, here I see my saved item.

I can even share this list with others so we can collaborate on pulling together the

plan for this trip.

At #9 you can download offline maps.

This way, if let's say you don't have Internet, or maybe you want to save on bandwidth, you

can use offline maps.

Simply click on your profile picture, then click on offline maps.

You can now create your own map and here you can highlight the area that you want to make

available offline.

The larger the area, the more space the map will take and the smaller the area, the less

space the map will take.

Then simply click on download when you're ready to get your offline map.

At #10, you can also measure distance and area.

Here we are at Mount Saint Helens, the site of the deadliest US volcano.

Here I am at Johnston Ridge Observatory.

Here I can right click and then select measure distance.

Next, I will click into the crater, and it looks like the observatory is about 5 miles

away from the crator.

So if there were another eruption and you were at the observatory, with eruption moving

at 300 miles per hour, you would have about one minute to find your way to safety.

Good luck.

You can also calculate area.

Here we are at Michigan Stadium.

This is the largest US football stadium with over 110,000 seats.

Let's say I want to know how much grass seed do I need to buy to cover the entire field.

Here I'll go to the corner of the field and then once again select measure distance.

Then I can click in each corner of the field and once I connect all of the points, I can

now see the area.

And it looks like 6,300 square meters.

That's a lot of grass seed.

At #11, you can share your real time location with others.

Simply tap on your blue dot and then click on share location.

You can then define how long you want to share your location for, and then who you want to

share it with.

The other person will then be able to see your real time location on a map.

At #12, you can configure various route options like avoiding highways, ferries and also tolls.

To access this, click on your profile picture, then select settings, navigation and here

you have various route options that you can adjust.

At #13, Google Maps isn't just for the outside world.

You can also see inside certain select buildings.

Here I am at Bellevue Square mall.

And when I zoom in enough, I can see where each retailer is within the mall.

In the bottom right-hand corner, I could even switch between the different floors within

the building.

At #14, and this one is not entirely obvious on mobile.

You can add multiple stops.

Here for instance, I have two stops that are already entered.

I can click on the ellipsis, and I can now add another stop.

Once I add this stop, I can press and hold to reorder them.

At #15, Google Maps can ensure that you are always on time.

I want to visit the original Girardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Shop and they open right

at 11:00 AM and that's also right when I want to arrive.

Instead of departing right now, if I scroll all the way to the bottom, there's the option

to remind me.

I can have it remind me to depart at a certain time, or I could set it to arrive by a certain

time.

I'm going to select arrive by and then set it to 11:00 AM.

This will now give me a reminder that factors in traffic when I need to leave.

And at #16, I can modify my route simply by dragging and dropping.

Here for instance, I have my route already set up.

Here, I'll drag it over and this now modifies my route to go through that point that I selected.

I did if I want to undo this, I can simply double click on that point, and it'll go back

to the original version.

At #17, you can use Google Maps to help you navigate public transportation.

When you select a start point and an end point instead of leaving it set to the vehicle,

switch it to the public transit icon.

And this will show you what trains or buses or subways you need to take to get to your

destination.

This has saved me so many times in so many different cities.

At #18 you can view what traffic looks like at different parts of the day.

In the bottom left-hand corner, I'm going to change the layer to the traffic layer and

here I see traffic right now, but I can also change this so I can see traffic at any point

during the day.

So if I want to know what does traffic typically look like on say, Tuesday mornings, I can

see which routes get the most congested.

At #19, you can use Google Maps to very quickly evaluate pricing for different vacation destinations.

Simply select your start point and then select a destination and click on the flight icon.

You can now move your destination to different locations on the map and it'll update to show

what the pricing looks like.

So here I could look at a few different destinations and I don't know, maybe a vacation in Hawaii

looks really nice.

This brings us to #20, our very last tip of the day.

I've always wondered what is at Area 51?

Here I am over the base in Nevada.

Has Street View been able to penetrate the base.

Here I'll click on the Street View icon and pull it over the base.

And look at that, it shows a UFO.

I knew it.

We are not alone.

All right, let me know down below in the comments, are there any other tips that you would recommend?

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