The stress and chaos of holiday travel happens every year it seems. And when you bundle that with the potential for winter storms to cancel or delay your plans, the panic continues to rise. So if you’re planning to catch a flight or spend several hours on the road, you can use Google Maps to help you navigate to help ease some of the stress of traveling.
While Google Maps can’t prevent a winter storm, there are a variety of ways it can help to make the journey easier, from quickly getting around the airport to using the Maps app offline. Check out some of the app’s best features for holiday travelers below.
For more travel advice, here’s the best time to shop for airline tickets.
1. Navigate through airports and train stations
Get around airports with Maps.
If you need to quickly find a store in a large mall or transit center, Google Maps has a Directory tab for all airports, malls and transit stations. This can help when you’re running around the airport trying to find a place to eat or grabbing a last-minute souvenir before catching your flight.
The tab will tell you a destination’s business hours and what floor it’s on. You can look through restaurants, stores, lounges and parking lots.
2. See how busy an attraction is
To see how busy a spot is, check out Google Maps’ Busyness tool. Already you could search for a location, like a business, to see a chart that shows how crowded it is in real time. But a feature called Area Busyness lets you see when entire map areas are clogged with people.
To use the feature, open the Google Maps app on your Android or iPhone (or your computer’s browser) and move around the map to find a general area, say, downtown, a riverwalk or a quaint nearby town. The busyness information will now automatically appear on the map, so you don’t need to specifically search for a place to see how crowded it is. Google Maps may say something like “Busy Area” and when you click for more details, it could say, for example, “As busy as it gets” or “Not too busy.”
However, you can also search the location you’re after and scroll down to see busy times versus non-busy times.
3. Input your itinerary into Google Maps
Google Maps can chart your holiday travels, but it can also quickly show you your flight, hotel, car rental and restaurant reservations, saving you the hassle of searching through your email for check-in times and confirmation numbers.
To see your upcoming reservations, all you have to do is search for “my reservations” in the Google Maps search box to see a list of what you’ve booked. Maps pulls this information from your emails in Gmail. You can also select an item to see more about the reservation, including date and location.
4. Make a restaurant reservation
Planning a dinner night out with a large group for the holidays can be a hassle, especially when you go at a busy hour. Google Maps can help you book a lunch or dinner reservation. Here’s how.
1. In Maps, tap the Restaurants button at the top of the map to see a list of places to eat.
2. Select a restaurant that looks good, and in the window that pops up, reserve a table or join a waitlist, if it gives you that option (not all do).
Remember you can use the busyness feature mentioned above to pick the least packed place. Also, note that some restaurants that are closed to dine-in may still allow delivery, curbside pickup or outdoor seating.
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