Become a power Google Maps user with these new features

Since the release of Google My Maps there have been a number of new and very useful new features introduced to Google Maps. With the introduction of the Google LatLong Blog these features have been easier to track and learn more about. Here is a roundup of what's new..

"Avoid Highways" in driving directions - This LatLong blog post outlines the option to avoid using highways when plotting driving directions. Take the scenic route, make the drive less stressful and meander through small towns and eat at quaint diners. A New York Times travel columnist is showing you how it's done. This feature also instantly turns "driving directions" into "cycling directions"!

List View added - When searching for points of interest on Google Maps, you now have the option of viewing the results in List view versus the standard map view. Check this out by searching "Parks in New York City" or "Hotels Los Angeles". Here is some more analysis of the feature by SearchEngineLand's Greg Sterling.

Now search with the name of your neighborhood - Google Maps has also added neighborhood searching to 50 cities in the US. Googler David Tussey explains: "..You can now do searches such as bagels upper east side new york and restaurants, over the rhine, cincinnati on Google Maps. Additionally, this capability allows you to do city-level searches where the city is uniquely named, regardless of size, such as bakery corpus christi, or movie theater albuquerque."

Universal search now blends Google Maps business listings - (See this search for an example of this..)

Search for your home address in more countries - Now you can search for your home address on Google Maps (and Earth) in these countries: Brazil, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal. These additions make "geocoding", or address searching, available now in 24 countries!

Try out these new features on:

[Google Maps Link]

For more past updates on new Google Maps features, click on the "Google Maps" label below for a chronological list of all past posts here on Google Maps Mania.

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