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 In
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 Interest
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.
Because 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.
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
In 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.
We 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.
