How to Use Google Maps to Plan a Trip in 9 Simple Steps

Before I discovered Google My Maps, my trip planning looked like a Google Doc full of attractions, with no idea whether they were five minutes apart or on opposite ends of the city.

I found this not to be the most efficient way to build an itinerary after my first time planning an international trip, when I discovered that Warwick Castle, which I’d wanted to visit, was two hours from London and not cheap to reach by train at the last minute (as much as $112 per person each way).

Google My Maps changed the way I plan entirely. Now, before I book a single thing, I build a custom map of every restaurant, museum, and hidden gem I want to visit—color-coded by category, organized into layers, and accessible right on my phone during the trip.

It’s one of the free tools I mention in my How to Plan an International Trip guide—a system I’ve refined across 35+ countries over the past decade.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have a map that helps you determine which neighborhood to stay in, spot what’s worth the detour, and build a realistic day-by-day itinerary.

Whether you’re heading abroad for the first time or you’re just tired of winging it and ending up with costly mistakes and disappointments, here’s exactly how to use Google Maps to plan a trip from scratch.

What is Google My Maps?

Before we dive into how to use Google Maps to plan a trip, let’s clear something up because this trips a lot of people up (pun intended).

Google Maps, the app on your phone that you use for directions, and Google My Maps are actually two different things.

Google Maps is for navigation.

Google My Maps is a separate, free tool that lets you build your own custom maps by adding pins, notes, layers, and color coding to create something unique and helpful to you.

You can access it at mymaps.google.com or through Google Maps on desktop by going to the Hamburger Menu in the top left corner > Saved > Maps > Create Map at the bottom.

A Google Maps Saved section showing the Maps tab with an Open My Maps link and a list of custom travel itineraries including 2 Days in Dublin, Comics Guesthouse, One Day in Paris Route, 2 Days in Vienna, 1 Day in Athens, 1 Day in Ljubljana, and One Day in Salzburg, with a Create Map button at the bottom of the screen.

You can also do it on the app by selecting You > Maps.

You’ll need a free Google account.

Once your map is set up, it syncs across all your devices automatically, so as long as you’re logged in, your map will appear on your desktop or phone no matter where you are.

Step 1: Create Your Custom Map

Now that you know what Google My Maps is, let’s build one.

Head to mymaps.google.com and click Create a New Map in the top left corner.

A Google My Maps dashboard displaying a collection of eight custom travel maps, including 2 Days in Dublin, Comics Guesthouse, One Day in Paris Route, 2 Days in Vienna, 1 Day in Ljubljana, One Day in Salzburg, 3 Days in Rome, and 2 Days in Athens, with a red Create a New Map button visible in the top left corner.

You’ll see an untitled map with an untitled layer (don’t worry about the layer just yet; we’ll get to that in Step 2).

First, click Untitled Map to give it a name.

I usually go with something simple like “Paris 2025” or “Greece Trip 2021” so it’s easy to find later. You can also add a description if you want, though I rarely bother with that.

A Google My Maps interface showing a newly created untitled map with a pop-up dialog box prompting the user to edit the map title and description, with a left-hand panel displaying options to add layers, share, and preview the map, set against a base map of North America.

That’s it, your map exists, and you can start building!

It’ll automatically save to your Google account and appear in your list of maps whenever you need it.

💡 Travel tip: If you’re planning a trip that covers multiple cities or countries, consider whether you want one master map or a separate map per city. I tend to make one map per city for ease of use and readability, especially if you ever want to print one.

Step 2: Create Your Layers

I honestly didn’t use to bother with layers, but as my trip planning has gotten more and more refined, I’ve found it’s good to help me separate categories such as attractions, restaurants, etc., instead of just dropping a bunch of random pins on a map.

This way, each layer can hold a different type of pin, and you can toggle them on and off independently.

If you only want to see restaurants on a given day, you can hide everything else with a single click.

When you first create your map, you’ll already have one default layer called “Untitled Layer.” Click on it to rename it, and then start adding more by clicking Add Layer on the left-hand side.

A Google My Maps interface showing a Europe Trip map with an Edit layer name dialog box open, prompting the user to rename the default untitled layer, with the left-hand panel displaying options to add layers, share, and preview the map, set against a base map of North America.

Here are the layers I typically create:

Must-See Attractions — museums, landmarks, historical sites
Restaurants & Cafes — places I’ve researched and want to try
Accommodation — hotels or hostels I’m considering or have already booked
Day Trips — anything outside the city that requires a bit more travel time
Hidden Gems — the stuff that doesn’t make every “Top 10” list but caught my eye during research

You don’t have to use all of these, only the ones that work for your travel style.

If food is a big part of your trips, you might even split restaurants into Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

If you’re a budget traveler (guilty), you might want separate layers for paid and free attractions in case you start to run low on cash.

The key is setting this up before you start dropping pins, so everything lands in the right place from the start rather than becoming a chaotic mess you have to reorganize later.

Step 3: Research Attractions, Restaurants & Points of Interest

Before you start dropping pins, it helps to do a research pass first so you’re not just adding whatever pops up in Google Maps search results and calling it a day.

My process hasn’t changed much since I first started planning trips at 16, honestly.

I start with a Google Doc and jot down everything that catches my eye before I commit anything to the map.

That way, I’m not constantly jumping back and forth between research and plotting, and I can see the full picture before deciding what actually makes the cut.

Portugal itinerary outline on google docs featuring a photo of the Tower of Belém in Lisbon, Portugal, with overlaid text, including visiting hours, €6 ticket price, and a note that afternoons are busiest. — Tower of Belem Attraction Google Doc Sample

You do not have to put all the info I have shown above.

You can keep it to the photo (it helps me if I’m not super familiar with the attractions), the name, and a quick note for now.

There’s no need to be exhaustive; you just need enough to remember why you want to go there, so that when you’re looking at it three weeks later, you’re not going, “Wait, what was this again?”

Once you’ve decided to keep the point of interest, then you can expand with how long to spend, tips, hours, etc.

Some of my go-to research sources:

Travel blogs — you’re already on one, so you know the drill. Blogs tend to give you honest, experience-based recommendations rather than just the obvious tourist checklist
Google — a simple “best things to do in [city]” or “day trips from [city]” search goes a long way
Pinterest — great for visual inspiration and often leads you to detailed blog posts
YouTube — travel vlogs are underrated for getting a feel for a destination before you go

Step 4: Plot Your Points of Interest

In Google My Maps, make sure you have the correct layer selected on the left-hand side before you start adding pins. This is the step most people skip, and then wonder why everything ended up in the same layer.

You’ll know you’re in the right layer when a thin blue line highlights the selected layer.

A close-up of a Google My Maps left-hand panel showing two named layers, Attractions and Restaurants, each with an Import option and a yellow tooltip prompting the user to add places by drawing or importing data, with the Restaurants layer highlighted as currently selected and a Base map section visible below.

To add a pin, use the search bar at the top of the map to find a location. When it pops up, click it. It’ll then take you to that location on the map.

Make sure you’ve selected the correct location, as multiple locations will likely appear (you can see the Pantheon populating one in Rome and another in Paris). You can add the city or country name to narrow the results.

A Google My Maps interface showing a Europe Trip map with the search bar displaying autocomplete suggestions for "pantheon," including the Pantheon in Rome and the Panthéon in Paris, with an Attractions and Restaurants layer visible in the left-hand panel and a base map of North America in the background.

Once you’ve ensured it’s the right location, click Add to Map, and it’ll drop a pin and automatically pull in basic details such as the address, phone number, and website.

A Google My Maps info panel for the Pantheon in Rome, Italy, displaying its address at Piazza della Rotonda, a 4.8-star rating, contact details, and an Add to map button, with the surrounding street map showing nearby landmarks including Piazza Navona and Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi.

You can also click the pin icon in the toolbar and manually place a pin anywhere on the map for spots that might not have a Google listing, like a specific viewpoint or a quiet street your favorite travel blogger mentioned.

Once a pin is added, click on it to rename it if it’s one you manually created.

A Google My Maps interface showing a Europe Trip map with a new pin labelled Point 3 being added near the Pantheon in Rome, with a pop-up dialog box prompting the user to name and save the location, and the left-hand panel displaying the Attractions layer listing the Pantheon and Point 3, alongside an empty Restaurants layer.

Step 5: Create Your Map Legend (Colors & Icons)

Now that your pins are on the map, let’s make it readable at a glance, because a sea of identical blue pins is hard to process on a small phone.

Google My Maps lets you customize the color and icon of each pin, which is more useful than it sounds.

When you’re standing on a street corner trying to figure out what’s nearby, being able to instantly distinguish a restaurant pin from a museum pin without tapping on each point of interest saves a surprising amount of time!

To change a pin’s color or icon, click on the pin and then click the paint bucket icon in the small toolbar that appears.

From there, you can choose a color and swap the default pin shape for a more descriptive icon, such as cameras, spoon and knive, beds, stars, a martini glass, and more.

A Google My Maps info panel for the Pantheon in Rome, Italy, showing its 4.8-star rating and address at Piazza della Rotonda, with a colour and icon customisation palette open alongside the map, displaying the Pantheon pin styled as a salmon-coloured circle with a white star icon.

I’d suggest customizing by layer rather than by individual pin so your map stays consistent.

Here’s a sample color and icon system:

🔵 Blue Stars — Must-See Attractions
🔴 Red Spoon & Knive — Restaurants & Cafes
🟢 Green $ — Free Attractions (great for budget travelers)
🟡 Yellow Bed — Accommodation
🟣 Purple Martini — Bars
⚫ Gray ? — Places I’m on the fence about but may visit if I have extra time

You don’t have to follow this exactly, as the best system is whatever makes sense to you.

The goal is that when you open your map mid-trip, you can immediately see what type of place you’re looking at without having to click into it.

💡 Travel tip: Use the star icon for anything that’s an absolute non-negotiable. I think of these as my “if I do nothing else, I’m doing this” pins. It helps when time gets tight, and you have to make quick decisions about what to prioritize.

Step 6: Identify Clusters & Spot Anything Far Out of the Way

This is where the magic of learning how to use Google Maps to plan a trip really saves you time and money!

Once your pins are plotted and color-coded, zoom out and actually look at your map.

You’ll almost certainly notice a few things right away: a cluster of pins in one neighborhood, a handful scattered across the city, and probably one or two pins sitting conspicuously far from everything else.

A Google My Maps screenshot of Paris, France, featuring colour-coded pins marking top tourist attractions and restaurants across the city, including the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Musée d'Orsay, Palais Garnier, and the Panthéon, with the Palace of Versailles marked to the southwest and the River Seine winding through the city centre. — The Palace was the only site outside Paris on my list, but I thought Versailles was worth it

That outlier? That’s your Warwick Castle moment (the castle I mentioned early on), the place that looked great on paper until you realized how far it actually is and how much it’d cost to get there.

I’ve pulled plenty of pins at this stage simply because the travel time wasn’t worth it for something I was only mildly interested in.

On the flip side, you might spot a neighborhood with a high density of pins you didn’t even realize until this moment. That’s useful information for Step 7!

A few questions to ask yourself at this stage:

Is anything so far from everything else that it would eat up half a day just in transit?
Are there clusters that could logically be grouped into a single day?
Are there any outliers that are a must-do regardless of distance, and if so, do they deserve their own day?

Be ruthless here. Cutting a pin now is a lot less painful than paying for a train ticket and spending three hours in transit for something you were only lukewarm about.

I’ve been fooled one too many times by guides that list things to do, only to find it’s on the very edge of the city and practically an hour or more from everything else.

Step 7: Plan Your Accommodation Around the Highest Pin Density

Here’s a tip that will save you both time and money: don’t pick your accommodation first and then figure out your itinerary around it. Do it the other way around.

Once you’ve done Steps 1 through 6, you’ll have a color-coded map showing you exactly where most of your points of interest are clustered. That cluster is where you want to stay.

A Google My Maps screenshot of central London, England, featuring colour-coded pins marking top tourist attractions and restaurants across the city, including Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, Tate Modern, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, The Shard, Borough Market, the British Museum, and the National Gallery, with the River Thames winding through the centre. — I typically stay in Soho as it’s where most of the sites in London are

Staying centrally located to the things you actually want to do means less time and money spent on transit, more time spent actually enjoying the trip, and a lot less exhaustion just getting to your bed.

I prioritize location over almost everything else when booking accommodation, even on a budget. A slightly pricier hotel in the right neighborhood almost always works out cheaper than a bargain option that’s far from everything when you add in transportation time and costs.

If you can’t find anything within your budget, do what I did in Salzburg, Austria: get a hotel near a bus (or any public transportation) stop so you can breeze into town.

Once you’ve identified your ideal area, open your favorite booking platform and search within that neighborhood specifically rather than the city as a whole.

I like to use Google Hotels for a broad comparison first, as it pulls results from multiple platforms in one place, and I can zoom into the neighborhood and select Update list when map moves to then only populate those options.

A Google Hotels map of central Rome, Italy, displaying pink pins with nightly accommodation prices ranging from $82 to $1,286 scattered across the city centre, with key landmarks including the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Fontana di Trevi, and Campo de' Fiori visible, and an Update list when map moves toggle at the top of the screen.

A few things to keep in mind when booking:

Read reviews – A hotel can be centrally located near your pins, but still not be a good pick if it happens to be next to something like a nightclub that’s going to create noise all night (this happened to me in Antalya, Turkey, and it drove me nuts)
Check what’s nearby — A good grocery store or metro stop within walking distance can make a real difference, especially on a budget trip or a longer one. I loved popping into shops around the corner from my accommodations when I was on my 4.5-month trek through Europe
Use Street View to preview locations — Drop into Street View to get a feel for what the area actually looks like, as there’s nothing like arriving at your hostel only to realize the “charming side street” in the photos is actually a grudgey alley. To do so, in Google Maps, just drag the little yellow figure icon onto any street to drop into Street View. It’ll also help you spot things you may not want to be near, such as strip clubs (this happened twice on my Austria trip, didn’t bother me, but may bother others)

💡 Travel tip: Before you book your accommodation, add it to your map on the Accommodation layer. It gives you an instant visual of how far your potential home base is from everything you want to do, and the map may reveal if you need to rethink your booking entirely

Step 8: Estimate Distances & Travel Times for Itinerary Planning

Now that you know where you’re staying and where you want to go, it’s time to figure out how to string it all together into a realistic daily itinerary because one of the biggest trip-planning mistakes I’ve made is massively underestimating how long it takes to get from place to place.

Google My Maps has a built-in directions feature that lets you map a route between multiple pins.

To use it, click the arrow icon in the toolbar to open the directions panel, then add your stops in order. You can switch between driving, walking, and cycling to get a realistic sense of your travel time depending on how you’re getting around.

A Google My Maps interface showing a Europe Trip map with a blue walking route plotted between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon in Rome, with a Transportation mode pop-up open displaying driving, cycling, and walking options, and the left-hand panel listing Attractions, Restaurants, and Directions layers in the historic city centre.

However, as most of the time I walk, I don’t tend to use this feature much unless I’m plotting out a specific route, such as my self-guided Sherlock-inspired walk of London.

What I will do, though, is start planning my itinerary by cluster.

For instance, I found out that the National Library in Vienna is right next door to the Hofburg Palace and the Sisi museum, so I put those on the same days.

The only time I wouldn’t is if I have a specific tour date for one attraction and that date falls on a day when the other isn’t open. I’d then have to return to that same area. However, I try to avoid that at all costs.

I did the same with Ambergris Caye, Belize. Many snorkel tours, such as Hol Chan, depart from San Pedro, where my hostel for the first two nights was, so I front-loaded my tours.

I then placed everything that didn’t require departing from town in the latter half of the itinerary, when we were at a resort outside town.

Once you have a rough sense of travel times and durations, you can start grouping pins by day based on proximity, which is a much saner approach than building an itinerary from a list and hoping everything is conveniently located near each other.

Step 9: Share Your Google Map Itinerary

One of the best things about Google My Maps is that it’s easy to share!

If you’re traveling with companions, you can share your map directly with them so everyone can see the plan.

You can also make it collaborative by granting them editing access so they can add their own pins and suggestions.

To share, click the share icon in the left panel, toggle the map to “Anyone with this link can view,” and send it over.

To enable editing, you can add specific people via email and grant them editor access. They’ll need a Google account. Once in the share screen, click “Share on Drive,” then enter an email. You’ll see “Editor” next to their email, and make sure “Notify people” is checked. Then hit “Send.”

A Google My Maps Share Europe Trip dialog box displaying an Add people field, the Travel HerStory account listed as Owner under People with access, and a General access section set to Anyone with the link as Viewer, with Copy link and Done buttons at the bottom.

A Google My Maps Share Europe Trip dialog box showing a collaborator being added with Editor access permissions selected from a dropdown menu offering Viewer and Editor options, with a Notify people checkbox ticked, a message field, and Send and Cancel buttons visible.

I share my maps with my readers after I’ve tested them myself, and they form the core of every itinerary on this blog.

If you’ve spent time on this blog, you may have noticed I include a Google My Maps embed at the bottom of many of my destination guides, like my Dublin 2-day itinerary.

It’s one of the most useful things I can offer someone who’s planning the same trip, because they can open my map, see exactly where everything is, and save it to their own Google account with one click to use as a starting point for their own planning.

💡 Travel tip: Before you leave for your trip, make sure you’re logged into your Google account on your phone and that you’ve opened the map at least once to ensure it works.

Download Offline Maps Before You Go

Google Maps lets you download a map of any area to your phone so you can access it offline.

However, it won’t show your custom My Maps pins, but it will let you search for addresses and get walking directions even when you’re offline, which is a lifesaver in destinations with poor cell coverage or when you’re trying to avoid international data charges.

To download, open the Google Maps app, search for the city or region, scroll to the buttons and then to the right, and select Download offline map.

A Google Maps mobile app screenshot showing Rome, Italy, searched in dark mode with a red location pin marking the city centre, category filter buttons for Restaurants, Hotels, Gas, and Groceries at the top, and a bottom info panel displaying the city name with Directions, Save, and Add label buttons alongside photos of St Peter's Basilica at sunset.

A Google Maps mobile app screenshot showing the Rome location info panel in dark mode, featuring photos of St Peter's Basilica and the River Tiber, with location details including the Plus Code and options to Add a missing place and Measure distance, and a Download offline map button visible at the bottom of the screen.

Make sure to do this before you leave home, while you’re on wifi.

If you want a backup, I highly recommend Maps.me as one of my top apps for traveling. It lets you download up to 10 maps for free (after that, it’s paid), and you can use them for walking, driving, and public transport.

Google Maps FAQs

What is the difference between Google Maps and Google My Maps?

Google Maps is the navigation tool you use to get directions and look up places. Google My Maps is a separate, free tool that lets you build custom maps with your own pins, layers, notes, and color coding.

Is Google My Maps free to use?

Completely free. All you need is a Google account.

How many pins can you add to a Google My Map?

Google My Maps allows up to 2,000 pins per map and up to 10 layers. For most trips, you’ll never come close to hitting those limits.

Can I share my Google My Map with someone who doesn’t have a Google account?

Yes. If you set your map to “Anyone with this link can view,” anyone can open and view it without needing a Google account. They’ll just need a Google account if they want to save a copy or make edits.

Related Travel Planning Guides

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How to Use Google My Maps to Create an Itinerary in 9 Simple Steps