Google Maps is the map most travellers already have on their phone, so it is a natural starting point for planning a trip. It is not built as a trip planner, but with a little structure it can do a surprising amount of the job. This guide shows a practical way to use it for planning, and is honest about where you will start to feel its limits.
Step 1: Save places into lists
The most useful planning feature in Google Maps is saved lists. When you find a restaurant, museum, or viewpoint, tap Save and add it to a list. Create one list per trip, for example "Lisbon October", rather than dumping everything into a generic favourites list. That way, when you open the map later, you can show only the places that belong to this trip.
- Create a new list for each trip and give it a clear name.
- Add a short note to each saved place: why you saved it, whether you need to book, or the best time to go.
- Share the list with your travel companions so everyone can add to it.
Consider using separate lists for sub-themes if your trip is large, such as "Food", "Sights", and "Day trips". It makes scanning easier once you have dozens of pins.
Step 2: Look at the whole trip on the map
Open your list and zoom out. This is where the planning actually happens. Look for pins that sit close together and group them mentally into days. Note any outliers. If you are travelling between cities, zoom out further to check the overall shape of the journey.
Step 3: Check opening hours and busy times
Tap each place to see the listed opening hours, reviews, and photos. Look at the popular times graph where it exists to judge when it is quieter. Treat this as a first filter and double-check official sources for anything that depends on a ticket, a season, or a holiday, since listed hours are not always up to date.
Step 4: Use directions to measure travel time
Use the Directions feature between places you plan to visit on the same day. Switch between walking, driving, and public transport to see realistic travel times. For public transport, set a departure time close to when you will actually travel, because schedules differ by time of day and day of week.
Directions can also take additional stops. Add them in the order you plan to visit and Google Maps will show the route and total time. There is a cap on how many stops you can add, so for long trips you will need to split the route into segments, for example one segment per day.
Step 5: Download offline maps
Before you leave, download offline maps for your destination area. This helps when you have weak signal or want to avoid roaming charges. Saved places generally remain visible on the downloaded map, but check this on your own device before you depend on it.
Where Google Maps works well for planning
- It is familiar, fast, and already on your phone.
- Its place data, photos, reviews, and transport information are broad and generally reliable.
- Saved lists are easy to share.
- Navigation on the day is excellent.
Where it starts to feel limited
Google Maps lists are a flat collection of pins. There is no native concept of a day, a sequence, or a route made of your saved places. You cannot easily say "these six places are Tuesday, in this order" and see the day as a single object. Lists also mix well with browsing, but they are weaker at structure: reordering, grouping by day, and comparing alternatives all take workarounds.
- No built-in way to assign places to days and see each day as its own route.
- A limit on the number of stops in a single directions request.
- Notes are short, so detailed planning ends up in a separate document.
- Discovery is tied to what is already on Google Maps, so it does not suggest an itinerary for you.
Many people end up keeping the Google Maps list for saving places and a separate document or spreadsheet for the actual day-by-day plan. That works, but it means two sources of truth that you have to keep in sync.
A workflow that combines Google Maps with a planner
Google Maps remains excellent for checking a specific place, seeing live transit options, and navigating on the day. A dedicated planning tool is better for turning a pile of saved places into a structured trip. A sensible split is to use a planning map such as PlaceOnMap to collect places, organise them into route points, and see the whole plan on one map, and then use Google Maps when you need turn-by-turn directions to the next stop.
If you want to compare the approaches more directly, read our comparison of Google Maps and AI travel planners.
Quick checklist for planning with Google Maps
- Create one list per trip and name it clearly.
- Save every candidate place with a short note.
- Zoom out and group nearby pins into days.
- Check opening hours and verify them with official sources when it matters.
- Use Directions to measure realistic travel times for each day.
- Download offline maps before you travel.
- Keep your day-by-day order somewhere you can edit easily.