Picture this: you’re determined to go to a new city to explore it and video record some of its tourist attractions, as you wish to establish a travel vlog to become famous on YouTube. What’s the first method that pops into the mind to explore that city? Considering that we live in 2023, a physical map would be obsolete, and asking pedestrians for guidance is too untrendy.
The only logical answer is that you’ll go ahead and open the Google Maps app on your smartphone to learn something about the new city. Even when you arrive in that city, you will still be in need of Google Maps to get directions to certain places.
In other words, the famous Google Maps navigation app has changed the way we explore the world in amazing ways. Let’s get into more detail:
Global Mapping
With Google Maps, you can see detailed and comprehensive maps of the whole world, which makes it a lot easier to explore unfamiliar places, either locally or globally. With this app, you have the possibility to view satellite imagery, zoom in to street level, and even get a sense of the topography and geography of any location you want.
Local business info
If you want to find a restaurant, a hotel, a gym, a theater, and much more, you need to know that you can find extensive information about each of those places on Google Maps. You can find info such as the opening hours, contact details, view photos, and even read reviews of others on those specific businesses. In other words, you can always use Google Maps to find relevant and reliable information about numerous venues.
Real-time navigation
Once you get in your car, you are free to take advantage of the real-time navigation feature in Google Maps and forget about those physical maps for good. Therefore, you can benefit from real-time directions, as well as alternate route suggestions, which will make it a lot easier to navigate through cities and get rid of congestion.
Street View
Let’s also not forget about the wonderful Street View function of Google Maps, which allows you to explore the streets and neighborhoods with panoramic imagery of 360 degrees. If you want to preview a location before visiting it, this feature can be especially useful in such situations. We almost can’t imagine trip planning nowadays without using Google Maps Street View function.
Integration with other services
Google Maps also offers integration with other services, such as Google Reviews and Google Search. In this way, it’s pretty hard not to get reliable and important information about a specific place, location, or business.
Offline Maps
From time to time, it is still possible, even nowadays, that you can’t get internet connectivity. In that case, you have to take advantage of the Offline Maps function of Google Maps, one that allows you to download maps that might interest you for further analysis, even if you lack internet connectivity.
While the vast majority of netizens are happy that we have Google Maps to learn about the places surrounding us much easier than ever, others are more skeptical, claiming that the navigation app is making us way too comfortable. As the philosopher Friedrich Nietzche said, comfort is humanity’s greatest enemy, and it’s easy to understand why he thought so. Technology is making us unwilling to explore the world in the good old-fashioned way, losing interest in interacting with others in the real world. Is that good, or is it bad? Feel free to tell us what you think in the comment section!
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
