Google Maps | 7 ways to enjoy the app on your Easter trip | Peru | Highways | Tolls | transit | Establishments | TECHNOLOGY

If you’ve decided to travel during the “long holidays” of Easter, Google Maps is one of the most useful tools for planning routes to the destinations you want to visit and for discovering new places that have caught your attention. The Redmond geolocation application can be of great help to you and here we leave you with 7 tips to improve your experience using the application.

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“OK Cards”

Do you want to use Google Maps offline? It’s very common to run out of data or Wi-Fi signal while traveling, but don’t worry: you can save entire cities to your phone or tablet to navigate when you don’t have a connection. Open the app from your mobile device, go to the city or place you want to save and speak into the microphone saying “OK Maps” and the map will be saved on your phone.

Survive without a signal

Even if you haven’t saved the map and you’re offline, Google Maps can help you find your location. For this you need two things: to have activated the satellite tracking function (GPS) and to have loaded the map before losing the signal. Open the app and on the main screen you will see that the blue circle for your location keeps moving even when you are not connected. Very useful for the road or when you can’t spend too much on data.

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to explore

Want to try a new restaurant or find things to do in the area? When searching for a place, a drop-down section will appear at the bottom of the map where you can discover suggested places and tourist attractions near your location. This can help you plan your trip in advance, as exploring the city in advance will reveal sites that catch your eye and can be added to your itinerary.

When you search for a town or city, Google Maps shows you a tourist guide, where you can find information about that place, the main tourist attractions, the main hotels and even the most interesting things to visit. Also, when using the map, when you zoom in on a location, you will see directions to points of interest. You will have icons to distinguish tourist sites, cultural sites, restaurants, natural sites, etc.

Establishments in one click

Google Maps can be very useful if you find yourself in an unfamiliar place and want to find an ATM or a pharmacy. How? The mobile app shows you shortcuts below the search bar and gives you quick access to interesting types of businesses such as supermarkets, gas stations, pharmacies and even parking lots. To have a better experience of this utility, you need to enable GPS.

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Traffic and incident reports

If you’re traveling in your own car, Google Maps shows you what’s in front of you. When you search for a route, you see traffic jams along the route and traffic incidents in real time. In the app, you’ll see lines overlaid on the streets, color-coded from green (fast traffic) to dark red (slow traffic).

Avoid highways and tolls

This is another Google Maps feature for those traveling in their own vehicle. In the mobile app, you can specify how you want to travel with options that allow you to avoid highways and tolls. When looking for directions, select “directions” and a new window will appear with “Route Options” and mark the category you wish to avoid.

Google Maps recently announced that you will soon see the estimated toll price for your destination before you start navigating thanks to reliable information from local authorities. This feature will soon arrive in Peru.

Use voice commands

While driving, you can use Google Maps voice commands integrated with the Google Assistant. With this feature, you can give directions to the map without having to use your hands. All you have to do is say “OK Google” when you’re in GPS driving mode and you can say a voice command, for example, “What’s the nearest tap” to say on the screen.