Tomorrow night I fly to Japan! It will be my first visit and I have been planning it all with Google Maps Lists!
Traveling abroad is always better when you have Local Guide friends that live in the area or even Local Guide friends that can give you good suggestions. I have both! @YasumiKikuchi and @iyudhi have been helping me out with suggestions on many things but where to eat is the most important! 
While recording the recent episode of the Go Loco Podcast, @PaulPavlinovich , brought to my attention that Group Planning was now available on Maps Lists!
I started looking for more information on this feature and found a small number of good links. I will list them at the end of this post. Please check them out for more detail.
I think this is an enormously helpful feature for all kinds of things but especially when you’re planning a trip with other people. There are several ways to create a shared list, check the links at the end for more info.
Step 1 ~ Open “Your Places” from the slide out menu on Maps. Select the “Shared” tab. Note: this tab isn’t available on desktop, mobile only.
Step 2 ~ Give your new shared list a name.
Step 3 ~ Add a few places to your new list. Maximum number of places is 25 so leave a little room for your friends to add their ideas! Now SHARE the list and let people start adding those ideas and voting!!
@YasumiKikuchi , @iyudhi and I have this shared list for places to eat while in Tokyo! Yasumi lives in Sedai, Japan and knows Tokyo well. Ivan is a frequent visitor and lives in my area. We are all three lovers of Ramen!
As you can see in the “shared” tab screenshot, I have MANY fun plans for this feature!
I love the idea of everyone on a trip together having the same amount of input on where to go. When I go out with friends in San Jose, so much time can be wasted on just deciding where we all want to go.
This feature will allow all of that to be planned in the Maps app. Voted on fairly and decided. All before stepping out the door!
I’m super excited about this feature. I attended Google IO last May where they mentioned it in the Keynote but had not seen anything else on it since. With summer and more travel plans coming up, this is a feature more people should use!!!
Some links I found helpful in using this feature:
All together now: group planning on Google Maps by Sophia Lin, Senior Product Manager, Google Maps
Why Google Maps made it easier to make plans with your friends by AriMar (no tag)
I also enjoyed this video on the subject.
Thank you to @Twister411 and @Kwiksatik for playing with me on the feature! I hope we will have the chance to use the Disneyland List in November… 
!!
