MapQuest Blog

Archives for Features and Improvements

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  1. MapQuest PreferencesIf you’re following us on Twitter, you’ve probably seen lots of people tell us that they know their own neighborhood and don’t need directions to get out of it. Well, you asked, we delivered. :-)

    MapQuest now provides the option to add your home address in your ‘Preferences’ by logging in on the top right corner of the MapQuest.com homepage. It’s easy to set up, just click ‘Sign In’, connect via Facebook and then enter the addresses under ‘Favorite Locations’. Don’t feel shy about using Facebook as a login, we won’t post anything to your Facebook wall without you specifically telling us to. Once you’re set up we’ll hide the steps from your house and start you right on a major road that you’re already familiar with.

    In addition to hiding steps out of your neighborhood, your preference section also does a few other very cool things. One of our favorites is that you can enter your car or truck type and MapQuest will calculate your car’s fuel costs for every route you search on MapQuest. We’ll also give you alternate routes so you can pick the cheapest way to get to your destination.

    MapQuest is also multi-lingual, sprechen Sie Deutsch anyone? In your Preferences section you can choose which language you’d like MapQuest to be speaking. It’s a great way to practice that rusty German from high school.

    One last helpful function is that you can store your and your friends’ email addresses to send maps and directions without having to type them up every time.

    So, what are you waiting for? Sign up, it’s easy, it’s free and oh, so helpful.  As always, let us know what you think on Facebook or Twitter.

  2. If you can dream it, you can pin it.  Heck, even if you can’t dream it, someone else dreamt it and you can just ‘re-pin’ it.  Unless you have been living on a remote island in the south pacific for past six months, you’ve probably heard about the tremendously popular social platform that enables people to create pin boards of things they love or are inspired by, called Pinterest.  Travel, be it a place you’ve visited or a place you like to go to, is a big part of what people share on Pinterest. We thought we’d make travel ‘pinning’ even better by giving people the option to create maps that work with Pinterest so each trip has context to followers.

    Here are some cool examples of how people on Pinterest use MapQuest to make their travel related pins even cooler.

    How does it work?  It’s super easy, if you just want a map of a location, simply create your map on MapQuest and then click the Pinterest Button at the top right of the MapQuest page. This will create a map image and link that you can then upload to Pinterst and add to your ‘pin board’.

    Careful…it’s addictive!

  3. MapQuest is headquartered in Colorado – so most of us love the great outdoors.  We know you do too, considering it’s one of the most-searched categories on MapQuest.com and has been for years!  This sparked an idea: Why not make it easier for you to get the information you want and need with new videos, photos, and guide content?  MapQuest National Parks, located at parks.mapquest.com, is a great jumping off point for your next adventure to one of the country’s 58 national parks.

    MapQuest National Parks

    The content in MapQuest National Parks not only helps travelers as they plan their upcoming trip, but it’s also inspiration for the excursions on your bucket list.  Take a sec to explore all the incredible vistas, stunning natural features and incredibly preserved history that inspired us as we created this project.

    Part of what makes this site unique is the videos featuring park rangers from the actual parks themselves.  No one knows Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon or any of these other amazing destinations better than the rangers that live and breathe it everyday.  The site also features breathtaking outdoor photography by QT Luong, a world-renowned nature and adventure photographer.

    Whether you’re checking the parks out for free during National Parks Week (April 21-29) or you’re scheduling a summer full of weekend trips to these great natural features, we hope this new tool helps inspire your national parks journey!

  4. Next time you are flying Southwest Airlines on a WiFi-enabled flight, be sure to check out the new flight tracker, built and powered by MapQuest, in the Southwest Airlines In-Flight Broadband Entertainment Portal.

    Southwest Airlines Flight Tracker - OKC to Denver shortly after takeoff

    After visiting my family in Oklahoma over the holidays, I took these screenshots on my flight back to Denver. This screen was taken shortly after the flight departed OKC and the attendant announced it was safe to use approved portable electronic devices.

    As you fly, the flight tracker updates with your current location, ground speed and altitude as well as your estimated arrival time, distance remaining and time remaining.

    The flight tracker allows you to zoom and pan to explore the map and discover more about cities and destinations Southwest Airlines serves.  You can also view the current weather conditions and forecast for your destination city.

    Southwest Airlines Flight Tracker - Weather in Denver

    Beautiful weather expected for Denver for the rest of the week

    Southwest Airlines - Aspen Travel Guide

    Clicking a pin on the map brings up the travel guide for that location

    Southwest Airlines Flight Tracker - 157 miles to go

    Cruising at 434mph at 35,996 feet with 157 miles to go

    For more information about Southwest Airlines In-Flight Broadband Entertainment Portal, visit http://www.southwest.com/wifi/.

    Happy flying and safe travels!

  5. MapQuest starts 2012 with an all-new mobile browser experience using HTML5. Designed to be more app-like, we built the mobile website from the ground up to have a much more intuitive look and feel. It’s now easier than ever to determine where you are, where you want to go, and how to best get there from your Android or iPhone web browser.

    Quickly find where you are:

    Pull up mapquest.com in your mobile browser and we’ll find your location and update it as you move around..

    Discover places to go:

    Find hotels, food, gas stations and more with a single tap. To help you decide, we have ratings and reviews for hotels and restaurants. We even have the latest gas prices near you.

    Get directions:

    When giving directions to a friend, most of us mention landmarks to make it easier: for example, “Turn left at Elm Street, immediately after the golf course”. MapQuest does the same for you by mentioning familiar places to keep you oriented and letting  you know if you’ve gone too far. And if you don’t want to drive, we’ll give you walking directions.

    Easy to use:

    Everything in the new MapQuest mobile web app is organized to be easy to find and easy to use. Common functions, like seeing traffic and switching to satellite view, are in the dropdown. And you can even pick from a selection of “you are here” icons, which includes everything from a battle tank to a unicorn. :-)

    Please check it out and let us know what you think!

  6. Autumn is a season for pumpkins, colorful leaves, and getting so seriously lost in a corn maze that one has to alert the authorities.

    Okay, the last one doesn’t occur with regularity, but it did happen to a couple and their infant child in Massachusetts this week. The couple was so helplessly lost in the Connors Farm corn maze in Danvers that they dialed 911 and had to be rescued. By a police K-9 unit.

    My first thought upon hearing this news was, “Wow — that’s quite the corn maze.” My second thought was, “If only that lost-in-a-corn-maze couple had a MapQuest app on their smartphone…”

    Which is a good point in the story for me to introduce myself. My name is Lance Gould, and I’m the new editorial director of MapQuest. MapQuest is one of the most recognized and trusted brands on the web, and now we’re going to be bringing our readers editorial that can entertain and inform them while still allowing them to get the excellent navigational experiences that they’ve come to expect from MapQuest.

    Our first foray into original content is a fall-foliage package called LeafQuest. In this effort, we’ve selected 150 of the most colorful leaf-peeping spots in the whole country. That’s three per state. (Well, 49 states — sorry, tropical Hawaii! — but with Washington, D.C. as a reliable stand in. It’s complicated.)

    Each state gets an article providing information on the three fall-foliage spots therein, including links to the official websites of those places; a navigable map demarcating the three leaf-rich spots with pinpoints; and a video showcasing glorious fall-foliage in that state.

    Also in the package are three feature essays on autumn. by such esteemed writers as Joyce Millman, a two-time Pulitzer nominee; James Parker, the entertainment columnist for The Atlantic; and Chuck Pfarrer, an ex-Navy SEAL and best-selling memoirist, who has a new book out now on the inside mission to kill Osama bin-Laden. That’s right — we have a fall-foliage story written by a rough-and-ready Navy Seal — that’s just how we roll.

    Stay tuned for other great content from MapQuest. Next up is FrightQuest, our Halloween package. And yes, Hawaii, for that one, we’ve got you covered.

    –Lance Gould

  7. Good news for those of you who have websites through GoDaddy.com: the company recently added a MapQuest feature to its sitebuilders, InstantPage™ and WebSite Tonight® that makes it easy to add MapQuest maps and directions to your Go Daddy site.

    Great for individuals or small businesses that don’t have the resources or technical skills to build a website, InstantPage makes it easy to launch an eye-catching website in less than five minutes. The addition of MapQuest helps Go Daddy website owners drive more traffic to their brick-and-mortar storefronts.

    There’s no coding or HTML knowledge required to use the MapQuest feature on a Go Daddy website. From the Go Daddy site builder tool, simply choose the widget, type in your address and an actual map – not just a link – instantly displays. Visitors who want a larger map or directions to your store just click from the widget to a pre-populated MapQuest result form. What’s really cool is businesses with multiple locations can choose to display a separate map for each location or build one map that includes them all.

    GoDaddy.com, which currently manages over 50 million domain names, gives InstantPage* away free with every new domain or you can choose to upgrade to WebSite Tonight for a small monthly fee. Both options allow you to easily integrate MapQuest maps.

    MapQuest Map in Go Daddy Website

    *XXX domain names do not include free InstantPage.

  8. To help you find places easier, we’ve enhanced Search on our Map Toolbar with new categories and a more intuitive user-interface with six new category icons and relevant business categories in the drop-down menu that include:

    1. Lodging: Hotels & Motels and Campgrounds
    2. Restaurants & Bars: Coffee and Fast Food
    3. Travel Services: Airports, Gas Stations, Parking
    4. Shopping: Retail Apparel, Grocery Stores, Florists
    5. Activities: Tourist Attractions, Museums, Casinos, Parks
    6. Local Services: Schools, Pharmacies, Post Offices

    We improved our Map Toolbar so it’s quicker to use and has your primary search needs in mind. We removed the rotating carousel of categories, so you can expect to find each icon, such as the Restaurant “fork-and-knife” in the same position each time. We also recognize that you have a wide array of restaurants choices, so we expanded the ability to search for restaurants by a certain restaurant type or cuisine to help you narrow your appetite needs.

    Search for restaurants and bars on MapQuest Map Toolbar

    Here’s another helpful tip for your next road trip: To find the cheapest gas along your route and a rest area about halfway along through the trip, just enter your starting and ending destinations, click on the Gas Stations and Rest Area icons under Travel Services, and we’ll suggest where to stop along the way.

    MapQuest directions with gas stations and rest areas along the route

    We’d love to hear your feedback and find out how this feature helps your trip planning needs!

    P.S. If you’re a business owner and want to ensure that your business is included in the search results for a specific category, check out our Local Business Center blog post on SEO Tips and the “Categories” feature!

  9. 4th of July events can be a pain to plan, but don’t sweat it this year – MapQuest is here to help! By clicking the fireworks icon on the Map Toolbar on MapQuest.com, you can easily view all of your local events including 4th of July parades, festivals, amazing light shows and more. We have gone through the trouble of bringing the events to you, just click and get directed towards exciting Independence Day fun.

    July Events on MapQuest

    Eventful supplied us with over 350 star spangled events for you to choose from; whether you want to head to a local event or plan a road trip, there is something for everyone. Once you have chosen your destination, you can get directions and send them directly to your phone, GPS or car using the ‘Send To’ option.

    The 4th of July is a time to spend with family and friends so don’t miss anything by getting lost or stuck in traffic. You can view traffic conditions using the ‘Live Traffic’ option and find the quickest route so you can be front row for the parade and not miss the fireworks display!

    We would love to here how you spend your holiday so don’t forget to share with us on Facebook and Twitter.  Hope you have an explosive 4th of July!

  10. Do you know it would take 17,000 trees to make the paper for one month’s worth of printed MapQuest driving directions?* That’s a lot of paper and ink!

    Traveling TipsNext time you are planning a trip – travel green. Instead of printing the directions, just send it to your phone. On the printer-friendly page, you’ll see the new Send to Mobile option. Just enter your mobile number, then click ‘Send to Mobile’ and a text message with your maps and directions will be sent to your phone.  The link in the text message takes you to MapQuest.com on your mobile. A mobile map gives you quick access to helpful features like:

    • Pan, drag, and zoom the map to see more than what the printout would have given you
    • See traffic flows & incidents
    • Access location details & phone numbers
    • View aerial maps
    • Search nearby – a parking lot or nearest gas station?
    • In the event you get lost: find yourself on the map (iPhone & Android devices)

    If you haven’t already, download our iPhone or Android app and get an even better experience through FREE GPS turn-by-turn Navigation.

    [* One tree equals 8,000 sheets of paper according to thinkrecycle.com.]

  11. Business listings are a powerful way for local business owners to be found on the web.  Today, we’re excited to announce the beta launch of the MapQuest Local Business Center. This new tool helps businesses create or edit their free business listing on MapQuest, and also gives them the opportunity to enhance their listing on eight sites across a partner network.

    Often times, business listings on the web are out of date or missing important information like the hours of operation or website. This makes it hard for customers to find that business online.

    MapQuest Local Business Center gives business owners the tools to update their free listing and add a lot more helpful content. It also provides additional marketing opportunities to help bring in more customers and improve search engine rankings.

    Ready to get started?  The first step is to create an account in the business center and claim your business. You’ll be asked to verify basic information including name, address and phone number.

    Next, you can add additional information, including a business description, website, photos, business video, hours of operation, payment methods, parking tips and more.  You can even move the map marker to show the exact location of your entrance, which is very helpful for stores in strip malls, shopping malls and other multi-shop locations.

    Once your information is entered, you’ll need to do a simple verification by phone or credit card (again, claim-your-listing is free, we’ll just authorize the card to make sure you really are who you say you are).

    Once it’s verified, your updated listing is live within minutes on MapQuest.

    You can enhance your business visibility by buying a Premium Listing, which includes a promotion that appears in-line with your business listing in MapQuest search results and on the MapQuest details page.  Premium Listings on MapQuest only are available for $99 a year.

    You can also upgrade to the MapQuest Multi-site Premium Listings package bundle, which will distribute your updated information and promotion for $399 a year to a broad partner network: Yelp!, Yahoo!, SuperPages, CitySearch, White Pages, Yellowbook, YellowBot and LOCAL .

    Head to the MapQuest Local Business Center to claim your listing!

  12. Mother's Day 2011 Brunch, Flowers and Other IdeasIn theory, you should always listen to your mother. But no matter what she says (‘I don’t need anything! It’s just a silly Hallmark® holiday!’), she’s expecting you to pull out all the stops on Mother’s Day.

    Luckily, the editors at City’s Best have done all the legwork for you this year. Simply click on the “Mom’s Day” icon in our Map Toolbar on MapQuest.com for your city location to see a list of these recommendations.

    They’ve combed 25 cities across the country picking out the best brunch spots, special activities and impressive florists to ensure Mom has a lovely day (and that you don’t endure guilt or three weeks of passive aggressive behavior).

    Not that she’d ever do that.

    Ashley McAdams is a Senior Editor of Local at Huffington Post Media Group.

  13. Are you Irish, Irish at heart or just looking to enjoy some green beer this St. Patrick’s day? MapQuest is here to help you find Irish pubs and restaurants in your area. Now through March 18, type in your location on MapQuest.com and click the map toolbar icon of a four-leaf clover to locate the best places to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

    Trying to attend (or avoid) one of the nation’s top St. Paddy’s Day parades? Here are some My Maps that outline events in New York, Chicago, Boston, Denver, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Dublin, Ohio, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

  14. MapQuest gets a lot of passionate feedback from our 44+ million users.  Among the most frequent enhancement requests are walking and transit directions on MapQuest.com.  With increasingly walkable cities and the growing popularity of transit as a convenient and eco-friendly travel option, we are happy to announce the launch of…both!

    Walking Directions are now available just about everywhere driving directions are on MapQuest.com (we’ve had them for a while on our MQ4Mobile and Mobile Web apps).  Walking directions will guide you down the most efficient paths and through parks, often avoiding vehicle traffic. To use the feature, just click Get Directions, select the “walking man” icon above the Start field, and enter your locations.  It’s as simple as that!

    MapQuest Transit Directions Example

    Rail Transit Directions are now available in six major metro areas (NYC, Chicago, D.C., San Fran, Boston and Philly) all of which have large subway, elevated and/or commuter rail networks. Rail transit is integrated with walking directions, allowing travelers in these cities to route between towns, addresses, points of interest, or specific transit stations.

    To use the transit feature, just click on the train icon (right next to the walking icon), enter your locations, and select the time and date of your trip. Your route map will show walking and transit segments in different colors, with icons indicating the mode of travel, station locations, and transfers. Timing information will be included in your step-by-step directions in the left column. For more details, please see our Help site.

    While extremely helpful for travel planning, MapQuest Transit version 1.0 is just a starting point. We’ll be working to add more cities, transit system maps and station details, mobile support, bus routing, and additional enhancements.

    Please try out the new features, and stay tuned for more!

  15. Today, we added an additional eight new country-specific Open.MapQuest.* sites that are built on OpenStreetMap data – branching out into select South American countries along with Canada and Finland!  Here’s the complete list:

    Puerto Rico: open.mapquest.com.pr Portugal: open.mapquest.com.pt Brazil: open.mapquest.com.br
    Venezuela: open.mapquest.com.ve Chile: open.mapquest.cl Haiti: open.mapquest.ht
    Finland: open.mapquest.fi Canada: open.mapquest.ca

    We’ve also added some great new functionality for developers: Open Guidance Service, Open JavaScript SDK, Open Aerial tiles! Read this informative Developer’s Blog post containing all the details and sample code snippets. Alternate routes is another fantastic functionality that we announced earlier this week – read more here. And – not to be outdone – we’ve now got world-wide routing using OSM data! So, you can even now get a route from Dublin to Shanghai and be sure to view the alternate routes!

    World wide driving directions with alternate routes: Dublin to Shanghai

    We have one more cool feature that we’ve added specifically for our OSM mappers: a list of places that you’ve clicked on to edit in Potlatch 2 called: My Map Edits.  This functionality gives the individual contributor the ability to quickly and easily recall the maps that they contributed to and see how the map data is enriched by those contributions and others in the area.

    My Map Edits

    And finally, on our main U.S. site, open.mapquest.com we are joining in the Super Bowl fun with the addition of the Play-by-Play directions (read more here).  The OpenStreetMap community has also been working hard to add the new expanded highway, exit ramps, and other road changes in the area around the Cowboys Stadium. If you happen to live in the area, feel free to join in the fun to help improve and update the map.

  16. The routing team at MapQuest has always taken pride in providing driving routes which help you get you to your destination quickly and efficiently. Our routing algorithm has been tuned over many years based on user feedback, and incorporates a wide range of factors from speed limits to road class to the impact of left turns. We’ve added flexibility in recent years by expanding customization options like avoiding tolls, highways, and other road types – and by making routes interactive so you can simply drag onto roads you prefer to use.

    As we all know from our own travels in familiar areas however, there is often more than one reasonable way to get between points A and B!

    With that in mind, we are pleased to announce Alternate Routes on MapQuest.com.

    When you generate driving directions, you will now often see one or two additional options in addition to the “main” route – which is produced using the same time-tested MapQuest technology you’ve come to know and trust. Alternate routes are likely to be just a shade longer in terms of timing or distance – and we won’t show any at all if no good options exist.

    You don’t need to do anything to generate alternates – simply look for them under the Suggested Routes heading in the left column.  Each option is given a unique descriptive name based on the main roads it uses. When you move your mouse over the alternate, it will turn light green and you’ll see the alternate route displayed in pink on the map (see image). To select an alternate, just click on the highlighted area and we’ll automatically update your driving directions (for more details, please visit our Help Site).

    MapQuest Alternate Routes

    We hope you like the additional options, and we’d like your feedback.  If you know of alternates that you think are better than what we’ve shown, let us know by filling out our feedback form (please be specific!).  We’ll use your input to make MapQuest’s alternate routes even smarter.

  17. MapQuest's Send To Cell and EmailWe just launched a nice upgrade to the ‘Send To’ feature, ultimately making it easier for you take maps and directions with you on the go.  The upgrade now sends you to our new MapQuest Mobile Web experience, a site that feels more app-like than most mobile websites.

    To give the Send To email or phone a try, pull up a MapQuest map or directions from your computer or iPad and click “Send To” at the top-left of the page. You can send the link to yourself, friends, and/or family. It won’t matter if the recipient is using a home computer, smartphone, or an older cell-phone with a web-browser – they’ll all be able to open the link and access the info they planned in advance from their computer.  From here, MapQuest Mobile Web can now use your phone’s GPS to find your current location (assuming your phone is capable), search for restaurants, parking, etc in 1-click, and get directions to a multitude of places.

    Hope you find the new upgrade useful!

  18. When the holidays come around, many people look for different ways to give or help out in their communities. MapQuest said to itself, “Self, why don’t we dedicate a portion of our site to helping people give back?”

    Throughout December, MapQuest is giving charities front-row access to 47 million people via a charity icon on our Map Toolbar. Thousands of charitable locations are mapped across America and we’re excited to be fueling the spirit of giving.

    MapQuest is honored to be working with Habitat for HumanityFeeding America and the American Red Cross Blood Drives this holiday season (December 1-31, 2010), displaying charity locations on MapQuest.com in an effort to facilitate giving. Whether it’s donating food or clothes, giving blood, or helping to build a house, this feature makes it easier for people to give back this holiday season.

    We hope you take the time to donate and share this experience with your friends and family!

  19. We’ve been talking a lot about our new My Maps tool lately. Last week we wrote a post that gave you some ideas of what you can do with My Maps. As a quick recap, My Maps lets you create and save maps of locations then share it with friends and family. For specific ideas on what you can use My Maps for, check out the post from November 16th. In this blog, we thought we would show you how to create a My Maps from scratch. Following is a short tutorial or how-to that shows how easy it is to use.

    Step 1 – Sign InSign in for MapQuest My Maps

    After heading over to MapQuest.com the first thing you do is sign in using an AOL, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, or Google account. Signing in first will make sure that all of your My Maps information is saved. Take a look at the screen shot to the right. That’s what you will see when you first arrive.

    For the sake of the season, we are going to create a My Map for a ski trip to Copper Mountain. During our three day, two night trip, we want to find:

    • A good place to eat
    • A bar to visit after a hard day of skiing
    • The hotel

    Step 2 – Start Adding Points of InterestAdding Points of Interest to a My Map

    We have been told Alpinista Mountain Bistro is a great place to eat and want to place it on our map. After searching for Alpinista Mountain Bistro, we locate it on our map then click the pin to offer us other options.  We select ‘Save to My Maps,’ then ‘Create New Map’ and the Alpinista Bistro is added to the list. Here we can change the pin icon, add notes, and search nearby points of interest.

    Naming a MapQuest My MapBecause this is a new My Map, we need to create a name and add notes so it’s easy to find and add to the map later if we wish. Let’s go ahead and name it ‘Snow Day at Copper Mountain.’ Check out the screen shot on the right to see an example of what this looks like.

    After pressing ‘Save’ you can always go back to this map to either add points of interest or share it with friends via Facebook, email, mobile phone, a car navigation system, or a GPS system.

    Step 3 – Adding Notes

    Now continuing with other restaurants, we have heard good things about Double Diamond Bar & Grill, so we add that to the My Map and make some notes about it. Underneath the address there is the ‘Edit Notes’ button. There you can add information about the place including what you had to eat or an interesting fact. You can even change the icon that is displayed on the map, which can help you distinguish between lodging, restaurants, bars, etc.Adding Notes to a MapQuest My Map

    Step 4 – Using The MapQuest Toolbar For Finding Places of Interest

    For the sake of navigation and finding other points of interest around us we decided to place our lodging on the map. Instead of searching for the specific place, we used the MapQuest Toolbar to show us all of the lodging in the area. Our place, Copper Mountain Gold Lodging, was right there so we clicked the pin and pressed ‘Save to My Maps.’ It’s that easy!

    Step 5 – Finish and Share

    Don’t forget to share your map through Facebook, email, mobile phone, a car navigation system, or a GPS system. You’ll want your friends to know about your latest adventure. Here is the finished Snow Day at Copper Mountain map created using MapQuest’s My Maps feature. http://mapq.st/h/6-dydIpGoT

  20. Let’s start off with a big bear hug to all of you loyal MapQuest fans—we ♥ you!  We’re listening to your feedback about the new site and appreciate your emails and support!

    We figure this is a great time to start sharing tips and tricks, so you can become one of our power users:

    Direction Hints in MapQuest Directions

    Direction Hints

    Direction Hints – (pictured right) Keep an eye out for the new direction hints in our driving directions.  They’ll help you anticipate upcoming turns and recognize if you’ve gone too far.

    Live Traffic – Keep yourself out of a jam with our Live Traffic info. It’s updated every 5 minutes, with great coverage for highways and local roads. Remember, you can click on incident and construction icons for more details.

    Hide Steps in Printed Directions - (pictured below) Want to simplify driving directions in your neighborhood? Now you can hide steps on your printed directions. Once you have a map or directions, click the “Print” button in the upper left corner, then click “Hide Row” to only print out the steps you really need.

    Hide Steps in MapQuest Printed Directions

    Hide Steps in Printed Directions

    MapQuest Map Toolbar

    MapQuest Toolbar

    Mouse Right-Click on Map – Want to pinpoint someplace without an address—like a picnic spot in a large park, or one of those hard-to-find soccer fields? You can mouse right-click on the map and we’ll return an approximate address or latitude/longitude coordinates for that location. Then you can save it to your My Maps and share it with others.

    Map Toolbar - (pictured left) It’s easy to find businesses around you (or along the way) with the Map Toolbar. Try using our suggested categories or enter whatever you’re looking for in the search field.

    We’ll share more tips soon. In the meanwhile, consider yourself “in the know” and pass it on!

  21. I think we can all agree that everyday life offers us plenty of adventures. Whether we are managing business meetings, soccer games or planning a trip with friends and family, each and everyday is filled with adventure.  As Dr. Seuss said: “Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!”

    With this in mind, we created My Maps.  We debuted this tool when we launched the New MapQuest back in June, but with all the changes, you may not have noticed the addition and/or realized all the things it can do! To give you an idea, My Maps lets you create and save maps of important (or not so important) locations and then easily share it with friends and family. With My Maps you can:

    1. Create a Trip ItinerarySpring Break Road Trip, Napa Wine Tour, etc
    2. Plan an EventWedding Weekend, Pub Crawl, etc
    3. Create a CollectionMy Favorite Pizza Places, Vermont Cheese Trail, etc
    4. TBD – In other words, things that we haven’t even thought of yet



    MapQuest My Map for a Wedding Weekend

    If you still need some ideas to get started on your own My Maps, we have plenty. How about the best route to see holiday lights – plan ahead and share with neighbors to give them tips on where to go. Or are you planning a weekend ski trip or three days in a new city? How about something more off the beaten path? Think about these trips now and start building, save it, add to it, ask friends for suggestions and then publish it to your social network.

    Still need more inspiration?  Well, check out our latest My Map Thanksgiving Dinner…On a Map.  As a heads-up, this one falls under that ‘TBD’ category that I mentioned earlier.  Take a peak – you might be able to use it as a way to talk to that cousin that you’re always seated next to at Thanksgiving. Hey, we all need some good conversation starters….

    We hope you’ll take a sec to check out My Maps and find it as entertaining/helpful/fun/informational as we do.  Check back again next week for a quick ‘how-to’ create your own My Map.  Until then…

  22. Halloween is right around the corner and with that comes the terrifying experience of the Haunted House and other frightening festivities!

    MapQuest is making sure that you’re not missing out on any of the fun and fright this year so we’ve partnered with Hauntworld.com and Examiner.com to provide our millions of users access to Haunted House locations all over the U.S.

    To see what’s happening in your area, just click on the ghost on our Map Toolbar.  If you don’t see any icons appear on the map, try zooming the map out.

    Now you can find the Haunted House nearest you AND discover the quickest route to get there on MapQuest.com. That way, you’re only a few minutes away from the spooky, scary, creepy, crawly excitement!

    Happy Halloween!

  23. Today, we’ve launched a new MapQuest Open site that’s outside of Europe – http://open.mapquest.in – for all our friends in India! MapQuest has many other websites that are international country specific, but we’ve never had one for India – until now – and it’s using OpenStreetMap data!

    When you first visit open.mapquest.in in your browser – the map is centered on India and the default language is English.  Here’s a nice map of Mumbai that has a lot of detail that has been created from scratch by OpenStreetMap (OSM) mappers from all over the world.   This new Open site has all the great features that our regular MapQuest sites have that you’re used to – a map style that is easy on your eyes, single box search for cities and locations of interest, and of course, driving directions with draggable routes enabled.

    Another wonderful thing about this new site for India, is that it also has all the great elements on our MapQuest Open sites – map tiles updated every 15 minutes, with driving directions and search being updated daily.

    Do you have a concern that the map data is incorrect or you just want to add in that great restaurant?  Simply right-click anywhere on the map, edit the data in OSM and it’ll appear in our tiles within minutes.

    We also have these same great map tiles available for any website developer to use, for free!  Just check out the multitude of information on our Developer Network.

    In addition to India, we’re continuing to round out our European map sites by launching two more MapQuest Open international sites in Europe: Austria and Belgium!

    And…as if that wasn’t enough – we’ve also enable our carousal search bar for easy searching on the map near your location. Happy Mapping!

  24. AOL’s City’s Best, “best of” program unveiled their new site today at www.citysbest.com including the best of food, entertainment and lifestyle venues selected by local editors and writers in 25 metro-markets.  Starting today, City’s Best’s  6,000+ local listings are now searchable on MapQuest through our one-box search, and each listing links to a more in depth page about that location.

    AOL’s City’s Best brings another highly relevant source of local content to MapQuest, including places with the best reputation in many popular categories such as Restaurants, Bars, Retail, Movie Theaters,  Hotels, Bakeries, Spas, Pet Shops, Ice Cream Parlors and more. The new City’s Best markets include Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Twin Cities and Washington, DC.

    To easily find City’s Best listings on MapQuest, simply type your “City’s Best” search term in the one-box search field and click “Get Map”. Try search terms such as “City’s Best”, “City’s Best, Denver, CO”, and “City’s Best restaurants in Denver”.  Be sure to click on the “More Info” link for a local write-up by City’s Best editors and writers.

    City's Best Search in NY, NY on MapQuest.com

    City’s Best current lists include the top ten venues by category and market based on the expertise of local editors. Starting today, October 13 through November 30, you can cast your vote for your favorite places at www.citysbest.com. The final “Best of”’ winners based on people’s choice will be announced on December 14. We hope you’ll vote for your favorite places!

  25. Noticed that gas prices are finally going down a bit?  We have too, but it’s still always more expensive than you want it to be when you fill up your full tank.  This is one of the reasons why MapQuest Gas Prices is a tool that will help.

    MapQuest Gas Prices shows you the highest and lowest gas prices, helping you find the cheap stations in your area. You can also search for any fuel type like gasoline, diesel or other alternative fuels like biodiesel, CNG, LPG, etc. Once you search, we’ll give you a list of results sorted by cheapest to most expensive. Alternatively, you could sort the results by alphabetical order or by distance (from your search location).

    MapQuest Gas Prices for Chicago, IL

    The application also includes a Gas Calculator that lets you compute the cost of your trip given your vehicle mileage, the cost of fuel, and the total trip distance. This tool can be extremely helpful if you want to estimate how much you’ll need to allocate for gas when planning a road trip.

    When you use the gas prices site, you’ll notice that it’s tightly linked with the new MapQuest site. So, on your search results, click on any gas station icon on the map and you’ll see links to:

    • Get directions to the gas station
    • Search for any point of interest near the station

    We hope you find this tool to be helpful in managing your fuel expenditure! Stay tuned to the blog for more improvements to MapQuest Gas Prices.

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