This entry is an Amazingly Informative "Travel Planning Tip" Using Google Maps!
This Google Maps technique is simple and quick and entertaining, too !
*** Travel Planning is often labor-intensive map reading... and that leads to guess-work when studying various routes between city or state destinations and even different attraction sites within big cities.
*** Using Google Maps will let you find the best route from attraction to attraction... and then, it will visually "drive" you along the route !!!
*** It will show you virtually and visually all the way from your departure site... all of the twists, turns, road junctions, neighborhoods, landmarks, mountains, lakes, everything along your route... till you reach the next destination !!!
HOW TO DO IT:
--- Go to the Google Maps website at https://maps.google.com and call up the home page.
--- Click on Get Directions... and when the starting (A) and final destination (B) boxes appear, fill in a sample trip for the fun of testing it out.
(eg. type in Pompeii, Italy in the top (A) box and Sistene Chapel, Rome, Italy in the lower (B) box and press the Get Directions button again)
--- What you get are the basic driving directions, turn by turn, and other driving info such as total trip mileage and approx. driving time, too. And there is a cool, 3-D looking earth/satellite map illustrating your route from Pompeii to Rome, Italy.
This is all useful, BUT...
--- You can see a small button next to where it says "Driving directions to Sistene Chapel"... the little button says 3-D on it.
--- Click on this button, and then just sit back and watch in amazement ... as you begin to live out the whole virtual "driving trip" from the ruins of Pompeii to Rome and the Sistene Chapel !!!
--- It is extremely informative if you are going to drive yourself across unfamiliar territory... or even if you are charter-bussing it and you just want to know what to expect along your trip !
--- The virtual "drive" is really more like you're "flying in a helicopter" at about 1,000 feet above your whole route and spotting landmarks all along the way.
--- Then, once you reach your destination (eg. Sistene Chapel)... if you wait for a minute, many, finer details will appear on the "site/attraction" and you can manually manipulate the screen location to zoom in or out and virtually check out the entire destination before you actually arrive there.
This is SO COOL I just had to share this with everyone else !!!
--- It even works if you just want to go across a big town like Rome or New York or Chicago or Los Angeles
(eg. like going from the Nokia Theater in N. Hollywood down to see the RMS Queen Mary ship in S. Los Angeles)
Try it out and test drive your upcoming vacation trip... or... relive a trip that you really enjoyed !!!
Have FUN... and good luck on your many safe and enjoyable travels !
Posts
