Google Maps makes it easy to get around national parks
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Nature lovers, I have good news! Google Maps is getting easier to use in national parks because of Google Earth. The updates will start to happen this month before National Park Week starts on April 22. On that day, there are no entry fees.
Up until now, the app made it hard to find instructions to a trailhead. Without a preview of the path on Maps, it can be even harder to find your way along the trail. At least for public parks, this should begin to change.
With this update, when people in the US look for a certain trail in a national park, Google Maps will show the whole path instead of just a pin. It will also tell you how to walk or ride a bike straight to the start and let you download a map of the park so you can use it even if you do not have internet.
Do not know where to begin in a big national park? Even with that, Google Maps can help. When you look for a park in Google Maps, you can now see photos of its most popular features. You can read reviews from other people and find out more about each place. For paths, there will be information like how hard the path is and whether it is best to walk or ride a bike along it.
A blog post from the company says that similar features for Google Maps on iOS and Android will “roll out globally in the coming months.” But it does not say if tracks outside of national parks should have the same kinds of features.
AllTrails is my go-to app for mapping most hikes because it usually has more information than Google Maps or Apple Maps, especially for smaller or less famous trails. AllTrails shows maps, reviews, and trail conditions as long as you are online. However, to download its maps, you will need to buy a membership.
Google also shared a list of the national parks with the highest user ratings on Maps, in case you wondered which ones people seem to like the most. They each had more than 1,000 reviews with 4.5 or better ratings.
