If you are a Local Guide that enjoys leading Meetups, whether they’re Photo Walks or Burger Crawls, this trick will help keep your group together and on the route you have predetermined.
The first step is to create a Great List of all the places on your route. Check out the post I wrote after Connect Live 2018 to get my tips for “Making Great Lists on Google Maps!!”
Once you have your List you can create “walking directions” for the order in which you would like to visit your stops.
- Search your starting point in Maps (works on mobile and desktop).
- Select how you propose to travel between stops. I’ve selected “Walking” directions in the examples.
- Use the “Reverse starting point and destination” button (to the right of “Your location”) to put your starting point in the first position.
- Add additional stops in the order you would like to visit them.
- If you decide to change the order of stops, click and drag to do just that.
Once you’re happy with your route, you can share a link with your attendees using the “Send directions to your phone” option. Now attendees will be able to navigate themselves should they become separated from the group! Used along with Location Sharing, there is no reason that anyone should worry about getting left behind!
If you are planning to make your List “public” for anyone to use, consider including the link to your directions in the “Description” section of your List! Anything that you can add to your List that gives it more value will make it a better List!
Added bonus, Maps has now calculated the distance and elevation changes of your route. Attendees will be able to better prepare for the walk with appropriate shoes, clothing and water.
Maybe a feature request would be to be able to generate these directions from within a selected List. Maybe an On/Off toggle for Location Sharing as well. Allowing anyone using the linked directions to see my real time location if I have it toggled On at my end (use during Meetup).
For anyone thinking about applying for Connect Live 2019, I hope that this post will help you with the requirement of putting together a new List. Good luck everyone! Hope to see you in my hometown of San Jose, California this November!
