Just a few examples of the benefits of sharing:

• Kid’s ballgame across town? Share maps to the field with their teammate’s parents
• Discover an awesome new spot for Asian food? Alert the Twittersphere!
• On a business trip? Pick a place to meet with clients and text your location to colleagues
• On vacation with the family? Tell your Facebook friends about the amazing resort you found using MapQuest Discover and booked on MapQuest.com

To share a location, simply touch the map, route marker or location pin and the new “Share” icon will appear on the left side of the info box. Select that icon, and then follow the prompts to send a link using email, text messaging, Facebook or Twitter. Once sent, the links can be opened in MapQuest.com on a desktop computer, or directly in our mobile apps – which allows the recipient to easily route from their current location. If the iPhone or Android app is not yet downloaded, we’ll show a message and link right to the App Store or Google Play.

This is just a start, and we will be expanding sharing options soon. Like our latest traffic feature that automatically re-routes you around traffic jams, sharing is just one of many innovations on our roadmap designed to help you get around and stay in touch – no matter how you live, work, and play.

Download our free iPhone or Android app today – and don’t be afraid to share!

As always, let us know what you think on Twitter or Facebook.

With our latest releases of the flagship MapQuest apps now in the App Store and Google Play, we can now check traffic conditions every few minutes as you traverse your route, and adjust on-the-fly. You don’t need to do anything: if congestion is detected and we can find a faster way around it, we’ll re-route automatically and notify you using a simple spoken instruction. You can keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

We think drivers will love the benefits of this feature: saving time and gas, reducing aggravation, and finding alternate routes even in familiar areas (try it on your commute!). And if you prefer to just crank the tunes and wait for the congestion to clear, you can easily disable traffic-based routing using Settings in either app.

Our traffic-based routing is based on INRIX data. INRIX collects more real-time traffic info from more sources than anyone else in the industry, including crowd-sourced data from commercial fleet and consumer vehicles as well as GPS-enabled mobile devices. MapQuest’s real-time traffic coverage includes over 200,000 miles of roads in North America, which is essentially all major roads in medium-to-large cities. And the coverage is even better during rush hour.

Download our free iPhone or Android app and start avoiding traffic snarls today – then tell us on Twitter or Facebook what you did with the time you saved!

The MapQuest Gas Prices site has been helping drivers find those best deals for years, and we’re happy to report we’ve freshened it up. The new design makes it easier for you to find gas stations sorted either by proximity or cheapest nearby, and select your preferred fuel type (premium, diesel, etc.). We’ve also used a device-responsive design so it will work better on smartphones and tablets, and streamlined updates so that prices are now refreshed up to three times per day.

Also, if you haven’t tried the free MapQuest Gas Prices apps for iPhone or Android, go to the App Store or Google Play and take them for a spin. They may just help you save some cash to pay off those holiday bills!

Drive safe, and enjoy the Holidays.

Helpful hints in the list view of your directions are another great addition. These maneuver notes help you find your turn or destination by providing information about landmarks nearby. The app will offer up extra advice such as “Main St. is just past King St.” or “Bruller’s Pizza is on the corner”, giving you vital context when in the thick of navigating an unfamiliar area.

On the less practical, but more fun side of things, we also made it a bit easier to change your position icon. Just tap your current icon, click ‘Change Icon’ and then you can choose a robot, tornado, unicorn, airplane, football or whatever icon makes you smile when you open the app.

Lastly, for the millions of you lucky folks that already have an iPhone 5, our app is now officially optimized for your larger screen. Great news because that means more map!

We hope you enjoy all these updates. If you don’t have the app already, get it for free from the App Store. If you do, please rate it via the App Store on your phone to tell us what you love or what you think we can improve – we always appreciate your comments!

Have the MapQuest app on iPhone or Android? Just click on “Directions,” enter your start and end locations, then click the “walking man” icon. MapQuest Mary talks you through each of your stops, and you can always use the business locator to grab a quick coffee or stop at a post office along the way. We’re here to help you with discovery along the way as well.

If you don’t have the app yet, download it for free in the App Store or Google Play. Or, if you don’t have a smartphone, walking directions are also available on m.mapquest.com while you’re on the go or mapquest.com before you head out the door.

Hope you take advantage of the Christopher Columbus Day, and like the “real deal,” get exploring!

Favorites

We have received a lot of feedback from users indicating they want an easier way to store the places they go to most often, as well as store locations for quick access later. Well, we’re happy to introduce Favorites. Now any place can become one of your favorite places. You can add a place to your favorites from that place’s details screen, then any time you want to go there, just select it from the favorites list in any search field.

In addition to adding my home and work as favorites, I find this feature really useful if I am taking a trip to a new city. Before I leave for my trip, I just add my hotel and a few local attractions as favorites for quick access while I’m out and about. No need to type or search!

Drop a Pin

Has this ever happened to you: You can point to where you want to go on a map, but you don’t have the address? Well now you can get there without having to type or search. Simply press and hold anywhere on the map and a pin will fall into place. From there you can get written directions, voice-guided navigation, or add it as a favorite. Dropping a pin is most useful for navigating to parks, hiking trails, cross-streets, or finding buried treasure.

For a full list of what’s new in MapQuest version 3.1, head over to the App Store where you can download the latest update!

Alas, one of the better summers of my life is winding down and in a few weeks I will be heading back to Northwestern. There are moments when I feel sad to leave home, but they are quickly stifled when I remember all the enticing places I get to return to in September. For convenience, and the chance that I’ve forgotten how to get around Evanston this summer, I used MapQuest’s Map Builder to guide me.

I will start nowhere else but FlatTop Grill in downtown Evanston. I sometimes question why I like a restaurant so much where I pay to prepare food myself, but then I remember when they bring it out. Because it’s that good.

The next Evanston destination I will visit is Andy’s Frozen Custard. In the theme of being healthy with over-eating at FlatTop, I can’t envision topping off my night in any other way than with a bowl from Andy’s. The retro décor and delectable custard combined, for me, are an integral part of the Evanston experience.

Dominick’s would be on my tour of Evanston, as well. I’ll see myself there with my roommates, most likely on a Sunday morning, to replenish our kitchen. As fun as it is having a trashcan with more contents than the pantry, we like to eat–we’re college students after all. We enter the grocery store with handfuls of coupons and leave with handfuls of processed, unhealthy, delicious foodstuffs.

Although football is not my favorite sport, I love football games. Every home game I’ll be at Ryan Field clad in a NU shirt, yelling with my peers, pretending like I know what’s going on. Football and football games are very different events.

Within the first week, I’ll have to make a stop at Beck’s Book Store. The used book store offers less expensive prices than other bookstores, and sells merchandise every student needs for success, like the “Northwestern Quidditch” shirt.

Even if I have no classes there, I will take a walk to University Hall, my favorite building on campus. Also the oldest building on campus, University in the fall is quite a sight, and pictures of the building during this season attract students worldwide. Then, when the bitter cold devours them in the winter they wonder what they were thinking.

And at some point in the quarter, I’ll have to make my way to the library. While it may not be the most inviting spot on campus, it provides an atmosphere in which students can get things done. Grades are ultimately the top priority.

Until then, I will have no problem enjoying every last minute at home, because Colorado is as good at being a state as Misty and Kerri are at volleyball.

If the fun of summer has hijacked your directional know-how as well, look no further than MapQuest’s Map Builder. It’s free, it’s easy to use and it’ll get you where you need to be.

With the same swiftness they arrived, the London Olympic Games are now gone. The seven years of planning came to fruition, and now I know how parents feel when their children go from newborns to college grads.

Although summer Olympic competition will pause for four long years, there are ample ways for us to follow our favorite Olympic stars in the meantime.

If you fell in love with the infectious smile of Gabby Douglas, the bountiful tears of Aly Raisman, and the unrivaled sass of McKayla Maroney, you don’t have to say goodbye just yet. The gymnasts will be going on a national tour this fall to cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Broomfield, Colo., Chicago and Boston.

If your fascination was fixed on the pool, you can see Missy Franklin swim in exciting high school meets in Colorado that match Olympic races in the sense that people swim. Or you could see what Ryan Lochte is up to in Gainesville, Fla., before he gets swept up in a whirlwind of post-Olympic appearances.

Perhaps it was platform diving that simultaneously took your breath away and captured your attention. American diver Nick McCrory will compete another season as an NCAA athlete for Duke, all the while staying at the top of his game so maybe he, too, can reach the Olympic heights like those of compatriot David Boudia.

Ashton Eaton, the best decathlete in the world, claims he will continue to train for Rio 2016 at his alma mater, U of Oregon. (Fun note: Eugene, Ore., home of the University of Oregon, is nicknamed “TrackTown, USA,” probably because the city seemingly pumps out champions like Eaton as frequently as Tweeters used the hashtag #NBCfail last week.)

And if the brutal play of water polo captured a spot in your memory, incoming Stanford freshmen and 2012 Olympian Maggie Steffens is likely to dominate the college scene. Now join me in the collective asking of the question, “Stanford athletes, what can’t you do?!”

It may be hard at first saying goodbye to the Olympics, but seeing our athletes around the country post-Games can make it a little less hard. And using MapQuest to get to them can make it even easier.

Hey, only 1,450 days until Rio!

When navigating, we put the most important route information front and center, letting you process it quickly. Our search functionality has been vastly improved, making it faster and easier to find exactly what you’re looking for. In addition to the features our users already rely on — like our one-touch search, trustworthy directions, business information and reviews, real-time traffic conditions, and multi-stop routes — we’ve also added some new functionality to MapQuest 3.0:

• Cleaner user interface – Experience the easier-to-use design
• Heads-up display for navigation – View important information at a glance
• Gas prices – Find the cheapest gas prices near you while on the go
• Live traffic cameras – See what the traffic looks like ahead to avoid congestion
• Greatly improved search – Find your destination with ease
• Enhanced audio performance – More reliable performance with less data consumption
• Landscape mode – Use any aspect of the app in landscape view — makes typing easier

MapQuest for iPhone has come a long way since its first release in 2009. We know you’re going to love this new version and we can’t wait to hear what you think!

Download MapQuest 3.0 right now (for free) from the App Store and get exploring!

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.