How do I get more than 10 destinations on Google Maps?

Beyond Ten: Hacking Google Maps for Extensive Road Trips

Google Maps’ itinerary feature is incredibly useful, but its ten-destination limit can be frustrating for ambitious travelers. Planning a cross-country road trip or a complex city exploration? Forget hitting that frustrating “destination limit” message. This guide shows you how to cleverly bypass the restriction and build a multi-leg itinerary with as many stops as your adventure demands.

The key is understanding Google Maps’ limitations and creatively working around them, not against them. The app isn’t designed for seamless, multi-leg itineraries exceeding ten stops in a single view. However, you can cleverly chain multiple routes together, creating a de facto mega-itinerary.

The Chaining Method: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Plan Your Route in Segments: Divide your desired destinations into logical groups of ten or fewer. Consider geographical proximity and travel time when grouping. For example, if you’re touring Italy, one segment might be focused on Tuscany, another on the Amalfi Coast.

2. Create the First Route: In Google Maps, input your starting point and the first ten destinations within your initial segment. Optimize the route for distance or time as needed. Note the final destination of this route – this is crucial for the next step.

3. Initiate a New Route: Once you’ve saved or noted the route, create a new route. Your starting point for this new route will be the ending point of your previous route. Add the next set of destinations to this new route, again keeping the number of destinations at ten or fewer.

4. Repeat the Process: Continue creating new routes, always starting each new route at the ending point of the previous one. This seamless linking creates a continuous journey across multiple routes within Google Maps.

5. Utilize Google Maps’ Features: Don’t forget to leverage all the features within each individual route. You can still utilize traffic predictions, alternative routes, and estimated arrival times for each segment. This allows you to account for unexpected delays or traffic congestion.

6. Document Your Mega-Itinerary: While you’re working with multiple routes, it’s smart to maintain a master document – a spreadsheet or a simple word-processed list – outlining the entire trip, including all destinations in their correct sequential order. This will be invaluable for navigating offline or if you need a quick reference point.

Example:

Let’s say you want to visit 25 cities across Europe. You could divide this into three routes:

• Route 1: London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin (and five more cities)
• Route 2: Starting in Berlin (the end point of Route 1), visiting Prague, Vienna, Budapest, etc.
• Route 3: Starting from the endpoint of Route 2, completing your European adventure.

Beyond the Practical:

This method isn’t just about circumventing a technical limitation; it also allows for a more manageable approach to planning. Breaking down a large trip into smaller, more digestible routes simplifies the planning process and reduces potential overwhelm. You can more easily adjust individual segments as needed, without having to re-plan the entire trip.

By cleverly chaining multiple routes within Google Maps, you can transform a frustrating limitation into a powerful tool for planning even the most extensive journeys. So, go forth and explore – the world awaits, one ten-destination segment at a time.