I’m travelling very intensively on my own since 2009. Back then it was neither easy nor cheap to get an internet connection in a foreign country. So I was very often struggling with finding the places I wanted to visit, not even mentioning finding reviews while being on the go. However, in the last few years the travelling experience has improved a lot. You can get internet access almost everywhere you go and in case you can’t then you can download free offline maps on your phone so you never get lost. Additionally you can check the reviews of specific places and profit from input from other travellers. And all of this you can do by just downloading one app – the Google Maps.
But Google Maps is not only an app. It’s not just maps and algorithms that are calculating your rout. It became so useful because of the community behind it – the Local Guides. When I started using it I was really impressed how it can make a travellers life easier. You have all the important information at one place. Not only all the sights, hotels and restaurants marked on it and the routs that the app is showing you, but most importantly all the reviews. I can’t imagine anything more useful to a traveller than insights into other travellers experiences and tips from local people.
And this is still not all of it! Local Guides make sure that you don’t even need a travel guide anymore. You want to sightsee a city but you have no clue where to start? Look for a map with all the important tourist attractions and a sightseeing itinerary. You’re crazy about food so during your city break you want to try all the best restaurants in town? Look for a map made by another food freak and you won’t have to do any further research.
After using Google Maps and Local Guides inputs for a while I realized that I saved an impressive collection of place in my account - pink heart for restaurants, yellow star for hotels and bus stops and green flag for sights. My maps were full of them. This was the moment when I started to create thematic maps and shared them with my blog readers. My aim is to make their travels easier based on my experience. So now when they are reading an article on my blog, they can immediately save also a map on which I marked all the places mentioned in the text. Thanks to that they have everything they need to start exploring a new part of the world without spending too much time on researching and marking important places on the map. Could preparing for a travel be any easier?