How do I mark two places on Google Maps?

How to mark two places on Google Maps

Learning how to mark two places on google maps helps you plan efficient travel routes and measure distances accurately between multiple destinations. Discover the simple steps required to pin locations and create custom maps for your next trip.

Marking Two Places on Google Maps: The Basics

You can mark two places on Google Maps by creating a custom map, getting directions between them, or measuring the physical distance. The best approach depends entirely on your goal - whether you need driving routes, temporary distance measurements, or a saved itinerary for later.

Google Maps serves over 2 billion active monthly users globally. Interestingly, 72% of these users open the app primarily for real-time navigation, while the remaining 28% rely on it for local discovery and trip planning. Most tutorials just show you how to drop a single pin. But theres one counterintuitive mistake that causes countless users to lose their multi-stop routes completely - Ill explain how to avoid it in the Custom Maps section below.

Lets dive in.

Method 1: Create a Custom Map (Best for Trip Planning)

If you want to save and view two or more pins together permanently, Google My Maps is the right tool.

First, go to Google My Maps on a desktop browser and log into your account. Click Create a new map, then use the search bar to find your first location. When the pop-up card appears, click Add to map. Search for your second destination and do the same. This creates a dedicated, saved layer for your locations.

A single map layer can hold up to 2,000 individual pins, making it perfect for complex itineraries. Performance does tend to degrade slightly if you push past that limit.

Here is that mistake I mentioned earlier: relying on the standard Saved lists on your phone instead of My Maps. When I first planned a cross-country road trip, I just starred 15 locations on my phone app. The result? A chaotic map of random stars with no logical order. Standard lists dont save routes. My Maps - though it requires a desktop to build initially - actually preserves your planned sequence.

Method 2: Use Directions (Best for Navigation)

For immediate travel between two points, the Directions feature is the fastest route.

Open Google Maps, tap the blue Directions button, and enter your starting point. Then, enter your second place in the destination field. This instantly pins both locations and connects them with an optimized driving path.

The systems ETA predictions are about 97% accurate - a precision achieved through advanced AI integration. Rarely have I seen a navigation tool adapt so quickly to live traffic changes.

Conventional wisdom says you should just add stops as you think of them. But based on my experience, you should add your furthest destination first, then add stops along the way. You can add a maximum of 10 stops per trip. Beyond that, it breaks. If you manually reorder a messy 10-stop route by dragging the destinations, you can often cut driving time significantly.

Mobile vs Desktop UI Differences

On mobile, adding a second pin usually involves the directions interface. On a desktop, you have much more screen real-time real estate to right-click and drop temporary markers anywhere without immediately starting a driving route.

Method 3: Measure Distance (Best for Straight-Line Checks)

Sometimes you dont need a driving route - you just need to know the physical space between two points.

On a computer, right-click your first place and select Measure distance. Click anywhere on your second place to drop another point and see the straight-line measurement.

Because calculations rely on a spherical model of the earth, linear distance measurements overestimate by roughly 0.5 to 0.7 percent. This works perfectly fine for most casual users, even though the theoretical error makes professional surveyors nervous about relying on it for property boundaries.

It is a rough guide. Not legal truth.

Choosing the Right Method for Multiple Pins

Google My Maps (Recommended for Planners)

1. Saving complex itineraries and viewing multiple categorized pins together
2. Up to 2,000 pins per layer, highly customizable
3. Saves permanently to your account for future access
4. Requires desktop browser for creation, viewable on mobile

Directions Tool

1. Real-time navigation and driving routes between points
2. Maximum of 10 total stops per trip
3. Temporary unless the route link is explicitly shared or saved
4. Works flawlessly on both mobile app and desktop

Measure Distance

1. Checking straight-line distance without roads
2. Unlimited temporary points along a single path
3. Disappears as soon as you clear the map or close the window
4. Best on desktop via right-click menu

Planning a Multi-City Sales Route

David, a regional sales manager in Chicago, needed to visit 8 different clients in one afternoon. He initially tried entering them all into standard map directions as he drove.

The first attempt failed miserably. He added stops randomly, and the app routed him back and forth across the city during rush hour. He spent two hours just sitting in traffic on I-90.

At a coffee shop, he realized his mistake. He sat down with his laptop, opened Google My Maps, and plotted all 8 clients. By visually seeing them on a custom map, he could manually group them by neighborhood.

He then exported the optimized sequence to his phone. His travel time dropped from an estimated 4 hours to just 2.5 hours, proving that visual planning usually beats on-the-fly navigation.