My Google Map Blog

While many people will celebrate the holidays at home this year, 40 percent of Americans are still planning to travel. Here are a few ways Google can help you make informed travel decisions or revisit trips from holidays past.

Stay up to date on the latest travel information

When you search on Google for information about hotels, flights or things to do, check to see if there’s a COVID-19 travel advisory or restriction for your destination. If there are no restrictions, you can see indicators for travel reopening, like the percentage of flights operating or hotels with availability, directly in your Search results. On google.com/travel you can also see trends for flight and hotel availability over the past six months, as well as links to local resources, like the number of COVID-19 cases in the area.

Book accommodation confidently

Earlier this year we added a hotel “Free cancellation” filter on Search and google.com/travel to help you easily find properties with a refundable rate. In addition to refundable rates, many hotels and vacation rentals are taking additional measures to ensure the safety of guests in response to COVID-19. Now when you search for a place to stay on google.com/travel and view a specific property, you may see a tip when additional health and safety precautions, like enhanced cleaning, are being taken. Tap on the “About” tab to see the full list.

We’re working with hotels and vacation rental providers, as well as industry associations, to add more health and safety information to the results you see. If you’re a hotel owner, verify your business using Google My Business, and let guests know what measures you’re taking to keep them safe by adding health and safety attributes to your Business Profile. 

See local COVID-19 information 

If you’re planning to visit a new city, you can use the COVID layer in Google Maps to quickly get information about COVID-19 cases in the area—so you can make more informed decisions about where to go and what to do. 

Stay informed on the road

Once you’re headed out on your trip, you can use Google Maps to see helpful safety alerts along the way. If you’re driving, we’ll notify you about COVID-19 checkpoints and restrictions along your route, like when crossing national borders. If you plan to take public transportation, we’ll show you alerts from local transit agencies, so you can quickly know if government mandates impact transit services or require you to wear a mask while riding the bus, subway, or train.

Get nostalgic & relive past trips

For those not traveling this holiday season, you can use new features in Google Maps or Google Photos to take a walk down memory lane. If you’re using Maps on Android, you can soon access the new “Trips” tab in Timeline to see a summary of your past vacations, along with information about the places you visited, the total kilometers traveled, and the modes of transportation you used. If you choose to turn on your Location History setting, you can use Trips in Timeline as a handy tool if you’re feeling nostalgic or want to share vacation recommendations with friends or family. 

You can also see and share your past trip itineraries including hotels, restaurants and other places you’ve received reservation confirmations for in your Gmail by going togoogle.com/travel and tapping on the “Trips” tab. 

In Google Photos, you can already see photos grouped by location with theinteractive map view. In the coming weeks, we’re bringing Timeline to the Photos map view, so you can easily see the paths you took on a certain day alongside your photos—whether you captured that epic shot while hiking through Yellowstone, or while driving down the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. You can choose to show or hide your Timeline from your map view's settings in Photos at any time.

If you will be traveling over the holidays, here’s a handy checklist to help you make informed decisions as you plan.

As a program manager for Street View, I’ve had the opportunity to work in more than 20 countries around the world, collecting imagery that transports people to new places and powers Google Maps. 

You can even find my blurred face from time to time in Street View. I’ve trekked a desert in Abu Dhabi (with a camel no less) and walked around the Great Pyramids of Giza (I’m the blurred face to the right). You can see my reflection throughout the 152nd floor of the Burj Khalifa, as I operate the Street View camera, and you can see me playing tourist in the canals of Venice. 

Like many people though, life and work look different for me now than it did last year. While travel is now out of the question for many, that doesn't mean exploring and learning about our world has to stop. 

Over the past 60 days we’ve seen Google Search interest spike more than 700 percent for virtual tours worldwide. People are looking to discover world famous museums, with the Louvre, the Smithsonian and the MoMA among the five most searched virtual tours globally. Alongside museums, people are also searching for a little bit of whimsy and beauty with searches for Disney virtual tours and Versailles virtual tours rounding out the list.

Those destinations only scratch the surface of what you can explore in Street View. There’s more than 10 million miles of Street View imagery you can freely explore by yourself or with professional guides who are taking their walking tours virtual. Today, I’m inviting people worldwide to take time for a virtual travel day on Street View. 

When I drop into a new place with Street View, it shakes up my routine, broadens my perspective, makes me feel more creative and brings a smile to my face. If you’re like me, sometimes you need an idea of where to go before you, well, go. So here are a few virtual travel itineraries with pictures of my favorite places to travel to in Street View:

Picture perfect landscapes

Streets with a view

Places of worship

Ancient sites

Take a train ride through the Andes, above the sacred valley and atop the mist of the mountains, to the most historic site of the Inca Empire. Machu Picchu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, is one of the most famous, mythical and spiritual sites in the world. Now for the first time, in partnership with thePeruvian Ministry of Culture, people across the globe can go on a journey to Machu Picchu directly in Google Maps, uncovering its temples, terraces and plazas that have remained intact since the 15th century. People can also explore rare Inca artifacts and expert insights on the Google Cultural Institute.

Gazing at the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu more than 2,400 meters above sea level, the site below is a lasting tribute to the power of the Inca Empire. It’s still unclear how the structure composed of behemoth stones was so precisely built without the use of mortar or modern day machinery, but its walls, terraces and stairways weave effortlessly into the mountainside and natural landscape.

Standing in the Templo Principal, you can imagine how many people have stood at this central gathering place before you. Located at the highest position of the city, this site holds great spiritual meaning to the people of the Citadel. And touring the vast Plaza Principal allows you to virtually walk one of the most sacred ceremonial grounds on the site, which once hosted social and religious celebrations for the Inca.

Within the long and narrow compounds, called kanchas, you can also explore the Observatorio Astronómico (Intiwatana), Templo del Sol, and Templo de las Tres Ventanas—sites dedicated to Inti, the Inca Sun god—or marvel at the architectural complexity of structures like the Grupo de las Tres Puertas, whose doors lead to the main square.

After virtually touring these sacred and ceremonial spaces, discover more Wonders of Machu Picchu on the Google Cultural Institute. You can explore more than 130 Inca artifacts online thanks to the Museo Macchupicchu at Casa Concha. In three new online exhibits, the museum's curators share their expert insights on the Inca's daily life and rituals—which are still a subject of great mystery and fascination over 500 years later. Highlights include a perfectly preserved pair of plates decorated with butterflies, and an ingenious device of strings and cords used for record keeping and accounting. See these rare objects in the context of the museum by taking a virtual tour.

Whether you visit Machu Picchu via a train or hike up the Inca Trail, we’d be honored to be your virtual guide through this sacred space. And while in the area, enjoy exploring still more archaeological treasures from this ancient civilization at the Museo Machupicchu at Casa Concha, which holds the largest collection of Inca artifacts in the world.

Machu Picchu, a true wonder of the world, is now just a click away.