travelmom4

I am planning a family trip to Rome, Venice and Florence in May. I am reading trip reports, etc. and am finding recommendations for restaurants, gelato shops, attractions, etc. Thus far, I have them compiled in a list which seems somewhat inefficient.

I am wondering if there is an app or system for putting recommended places onto a map for my mobile device so that when we are traveling I can look at the map and see if there are any nearby? For example, we might get hungry after touring the Uffizi and it would be convenient to be able to find restaurants that have been recommended by other travelers in the neighborhood. It seems like there should be a way to do this but I haven't solved the puzzle.

Any suggestions from those of you who are tech experts?

rpbrax

If you will have data (that isn't $200/mb or whatever most US carriers charge abroad), I reccomend My Maps. I have downloaded the app on my phone and it works great, and is very useful. A "getting started" guide is here.

If you won't have data, you can download city maps on regular google maps and add places with more difficulty, but I think going old school and getting a physical city map and marking spots is a better bet.

mikew99

I second the recommendation for Google maps, although I don't bother with the My Maps maps feature anymore. When I want to mark a location of interest, I just search for it on Google Maps and then save it.

The nice thing about Google Maps is that you can do the searching and saving on your desktop, and all of your saved locations automatically appear with stars on your mobile device, too.

NB: I do have international roaming data; I'm not sure how well this works offline.

travelmom4

Thanks very much for you suggestion. I will try that -it sounds like a good fit as I will have some data when traveling.

GateGuardian

Google Map is the easiest IMO. When I was in Paris, I also used an app on my Android phone called Ulmon Paris, which allows you to save points of interest and the map works offline as well.

Hoyaheel

Although I still don't like the changes to My Maps in the past couple of years, I still use it because I haven't found anything I like better. And I do like to have a record of all the things I've found (some, like my NYC map, are ridiculously hard to read because I've been adding pins to it for many years )

While we have started buying local sims for our android phones in the past couple years of travel, if we don't have that access, we'd still have internet for our laptop in the hotel or rental apartment so could look stuff up before leaving....

In the past, we've used a handheld GPS (you can get gps coordinates of Google Maps prior to travel and either write them down or enter them into the GPS as well)

travelmom4

Gate Guardian, I looked up Ulmon and it is available for many cities. Thanks for the heads up!

wcj1

I too use Google Maps Engine along with the My Pins 3rd party app. However, since you are starting from scratch, you might want to look at the HERE Maps app, which has great offline usage and has a collections feature to store points. The only reason I don't use that is because of how much I have invested in Google Maps and the ways that I use it.

paperwastage

Ulmon CityMaps2Go and Tripadvisor map might be better

the official Google MyMaps/Map engine android app doesn't work offline, and limits to 3 max visible layers.

the icons you use are not cached, and downloaded everytime you reload the map... slow to reload on a 128kbps connection (tmobile int'l roaming). unfortunate...

I use MyMaps too because I'm too tied into eco system (and it's very easy to share the map with other friends).



map engines APi seems to be deprecated.. not sure about MyMaps/web-version of Map engine


https://developers.google.com/maps-engine/

getmethere

For my last trip to Argentina, I created my first custom maps with My Maps for my android phone and tablet. But they needed an (speedy) internet connection. So I imported My Maps' POIs to an offline map app, Maps.me. Using both was a game changer for me. I didn't have to lug around (hard copy and online) guide books and cheat sheets, with and without an internet connection.

Maps.me does not support My Maps' layers and variety of pin icons, which I like a lot. An annoyance.

Have yet to try Here maps to see if it can. Here is also for phone only.

Here's the tutorial that got me started, and there are plenty more online and in youtube.

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsn...ogle-maps.html

paperwastage

Google released an update for MyMaps on android

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/02...te-since-2014/

giving it a testrun

gfunkdave

This thread should get some more responses in Travel Tools, where I'll move it now.

JayhawkCO

Citymaps2go I heartily recommend. I used it extensively on several trips (Portugal, Caucasus, Peru) and it was great when I didn't have data.

Chris

paperwastage

mymaps seems to have offline functionality now... not sure how long the data is cached (eg: google maps offline maps is valid for 30(?) days?)

there used to be a 3-layer visible limit - that seems to be gone too

Dave737

maps.me worked nicely for me.