Planning trips with a lot of other people can be as much fun as riding the bus at rush hour. You may be making out you itinerary, but so are your trip partners. You can wait to share the dueling plans a the airport, or you can use technology to help all of you get on the same page before the trip.
I like to use the collaboration tool on Google maps. I had already been using Google maps to help plan out my trips, but now, when I’m going on a trip with other people, I can use Google maps to help with my trip planning.
One person creates the map initially and saves it. For example, I created a map for my recent trip to Maui. Then, I clicked on the collaborate link on the sidebar of my map and invited my sister to join me in creating this map through an email. She then had access to the same map and we both edited it together. I was good at adding restaurants and attractions, my sister was the go-to girl when it came to finding the best snorkeling beaches and the directions to their parking lots. Together, we created one super map for our trip and found a convenient way to share any new trip research with each other.
The cool part is (yes, it gets better) that we can keep adding stuff to the map long after our trip has ended. We can add photos of places we visited and save the map as a reference for all our future trips to Maui. I foresee many more trips to Maui, so I know this map will just get more and more pins on it.
That’s cool! I have never used it the way you did. What a great idea!
I like this tip so much, I cross-referenced it on the fly: http://keepsmesmiling.blogspot.com/2009/09/travel-planning.html
Way to go on collaborative technology! I’ve been using Google Docs recently – I will now add this map tool to my arsenal!
those google people in mtn view are good.