Going Places with Google Maps
Recently I needed to make a map of driving directions from my house to multiple destinations. I knew that an option on the popular online map sites probably existed, but I’d never looked. I checked MapQuest, but it didn’t seem to have anything close to what I was looking for. Beyond that, it seems that lately MapQuest has been a little on the lacking side when it comes to giving accurate directions. I ended up checking Google Maps and found that they had exactly what I neeeded…and a lot more.
When Google Maps first loads it presents you with a map of the whole country. This is very useful if you’re an explorer who’s looking to find new land for your native country. For the rest of us, it’s just that familiar old blob we call North America. By typing in your starting address followed by your city, you’ll get a nice zoomed in map of the neighborhood of your starting point. There will be a dialog balloon listing your starting address with the option to get directions to or from that address.
I needed to find multiple addresses and I didn’t know where many of the addresses were located in relation to one another. I chose to start with the first address on my list, using the “Get directions From Here” option. The site updated with turn by turn driving directions from my starting address to my destination and a nice set of “A” and “B” markers with a fancy purple line connecting them on the map itself.
So far so good, but I wasn’t sure how to add another address…until the obvious slapped me. Right beneath the driving directions there’s a link that reads “Add destination…” Clicking that opens a dialog box that allows you type in an address or, I later found out, the name of a location to which Google will give you a list of businesses with that or a similar name and their addresses. If the business name isn’t available or if you just want to label your map simply type your address in the following format: Business Name, Address
Google automatically maps the address and uses the business name as a title in the directions. This is a great feature, especially when you need to go to multiple places that you’ve never been to before; addresses on commercial buildings always seem hidden or obstructed, if present at all. As I added addresses the map and directions were updated instantly. For each address I got a new alphabetical marker designating the address’s position on the map and a purple line showing the route from one stop to the next. Unfortunately, the addresses I entered looked like a looping mass of purple, as the directions had us going 5 miles one way, turning around going 3 miles in the opposite direction and then turning around again and going 4 miles back in the direction we just came from.
I knew there had to be an easy way to overcome this obstacle; some way to unscramble the loop so that the trip made more sense. Instinctively I clicked on one of my alpha markers in the directions panel and pulled it to see if it would do anything and, to my amazement (it does not take much these days), the marker started to drag with my mouse movement. I grabbed the “D” marker and pulled it up under marker “A” and suddenly “D” became “B” and all the other makers were updated (”B” became “C”, etc), as well as the purple travel line. Since I can see the destinations on a map, I can readily adjust the markers in the most logical order until the whole trip is a single, non-overlapping, purple line.
I’m completely impressed with how intuitively designed and well thought out Google Maps is. It made something that could have been a complete pain relatively simple and easy to do. I like simple and easy!
Tags: addresses, driving directions, Google Maps, Internet, MapQuest, maps, trips