Using Google Maps While Traveling Abroad - Even Without Wi Fi!

Just before our holiday trip to Europe (trip report will be resuming soon, just been a little busy at work the past week or so...silly real life :/) the new Google Maps app for the iPhone came out. One of the best things about the Google Maps website on the computer is that there are options for travel by mass transit which in DC really comes in handy. For that reason I was very excited to see that the new Google Maps for the iPhone featured integration with mass transit.

I didn't realize how nice that would be until we were in Europe and I was curious if it would be able to give us public transit options for the cities that we would be visiting. Boy was I surprised!! Not only did it give me the transit options for trips in each city (Milan, Zurich, Geneva and London) it also gave me options for long distance trains!!!

For instance we took trains between Milan and Zurich as well as Zurich and Geneva. If you wanted to figure out the best way to travel from the Hilton Milan to the Park Hyatt Zurich and arrive tomorrow by midnight you would start by entering your starting and ending points and then enter either the time that you want to depart or arrive. Make sure you have the middle transit option (the tram/bus looking icon) to get the mass transit options.

Once you hit enter you will see the many different options that you have to depart/arrive by the time you designated, a brief overview of what trains, busses or trams you will have to take and how long the trip will take.

Overview of Transit Options 

 Once you found your preferred option you can click on it and it will give you step by step directions on how to get from point A to point B. It will also give you the proper times for each departure in the next step and how long that trip will take. My favorit part, and what's best for a city that you have never been to and may not speak the language, is it gives you how many STOPS you have until your stop!

For this trip it shows that we will walk .2 miles from the Hilton Milan to the Milano Centrale Station and board a European Connector train to Zurich HB. After 7 stops we will get off and transfer to the S2 tram, get off and walk .4 miles until we reach the Park Hyatt Zurich.

Step By Step Directions 

The best part is that if you type in the directions before you leave you can still use them without a wireless signal! I would use the hotel wi-fi and get the directions that we needed before we left. Then I would keep the directions open in the maps app and refer to it whenever we would need it!

This proved to be very very valuable because it gave us an idea of where we were going, how many stops it would be, how long it would take and what time we would need to leave to make sure we made it on time. The ultimate test was on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in London when the transit schedule is modified for the holiday and Google out did its self again predicting the times perfectly! This is something you have to try out for yourself and something that can save you many headaches while traveling abroad!