Do you like having an itinerary or bucket list when you travel or do you just enjoy flying by the seat of your pants? Google Lists can accommodate you regardless of your travel personality. If you want to completely plan out every stop on your trip, you can easily create a list for that and even a customized map route. If you want to remain spontaneous, but ensure that you have some quality options available in case you need them, a list will come in handy for that as well.
Related: Help Small Businesses By Suggesting Edits and Adding Photos on Maps
The List feature on Google Maps lets you collaborate with others so that you can each edit and add places you’re interested in seeing. This has been such a time-saver when I plan trips with my husband and with friends that live in other states. I usually start my lists with some hidden gems I’ve found by scouring Atlas Obscura and then invite others to round out the itinerary by adding their own points of interest.
Do you want to find pet-friendly or kid-friendly locations in your town? Maybe you want to find some good hikes? How about great dessert spots or live music venues? You can search for public lists that other Google Local Guides have created and use their recommendations or create your own lists to share with your local community.
We all have a unique perspective to share based on our interests and experience – why not help others discover some worthwhile spots by creating some public lists? Lists are also a great way to support small businesses that might not otherwise get much exposure. Here are a few lists I’ve created for my local area and for the US as a whole.
- International Bucket List
- Healthy Food in the Triad
- Epic US Road Trip for Outdoor Lovers
- Best Bubble Tea in the Triad
- The Best Small Business in Kernersville
- Best Triad Fitness Spots
- The Best Triad Area Hikes
- Pet Friendly Businesses in the Triad
Are you ready to start making your own lists? Watch the quick video overview below where I give you a step by step guide on how to create and share your own lists.
If you don’t have time to watch the full video, just follow the easy steps below:
How To Create a Google List
- Search for the first location you want to add, then once you click into the location, select the “save” icon. Google will prompt you to “create a list”.
- Name your list and add any optional notes that are helpful.
- Continue adding locations until you complete your list.
- You can keep the list private, make it fully public for all of Google to view, or choose to share it only with friends.
- If you choose to share your list, you can make it editable so that friends/family can easily collaborate on the list or itinerary, which makes travel so much easier when your map is already pre-populated with points of interest!
- If you make the list public, you can add hashtags to the list description so that others in your community can easily find and follow your list. Share those hidden gem #brunch spots and #petfriendly patios that have #livemusic!
If you have a constantly expanding bucket list like I do, Google Lists is a great tool to stay organized and make sure you don’t lose track of anything. Any time I come across a unique or interesting location or business, instead of writing it down somewhere that I might forget about, I just add it to one of my categorized lists. Easy peasy!
You never know when you might be taking an unexpected trip, so it’s nice to always have options ready on your map. On a recent trip to New River Gorge National Park (the newest national park by the way), we ended up in a miserable traffic jam for over 2 hours and ended up turning around to come home since we didn’t want to be in the car all day.
We didn’t want the whole drive to be for nothing, and thankfully it wasn’t because I had previously saved some local points of interest on the map. I’d honestly forgotten that I ever tagged them, but I was glad we had ready-made back up plans so we were able to keep exploring without driving around aimlessly in an unfamiliar location. Another great perk about lists – these saved locations also work offline, so when you’re off the beaten path with no signal, you can still get to the locations that you have saved.
What do you think? Have you used Google Lists before? If not, do you think you will use this feature in the future?
Reminder – if you love the outdoors, check out my Triad Trails IG page here – I share the best hikes within 3 hours of me here in NC!
Thanks for reading,
Emily
The Planking Traveler 