Passport Pals Family Travel System: Google Maps
After traveling to more than 20 countries with three kids, we've learned a few family travel lessons the hard way. Surprisingly, getting lost was rarely the problem. It was standing outside the last museum wondering where to go next.
Imagine the kids are tired, hungry, and ready for a break after your morning museum. You can almost see the sibling argument forming like thunderclouds on the horizon.
“Quick!” I whisper to my wife, “Lets just go anywhere for lunch!” Which inevitably leads us to a restaurant with a man outside trying to herd people to their picture-menu tourist trap.
Eventually we stumbled into a simple system that solved almost all of these problems: save everything in Google Maps before you ever leave home.
Although our kids are older now, we still use the simple rule: one planned activity in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The rest is open to explore, eat, wander, find a cool bookshop or hidden corner of a city. While we don’t plan every minute of a trip, we do plan the big stuff and the “must-see” or “must-do” activities. This lets us hit the bucket list while removing decision fatigue, finding restaurants that fit our family ahead of time, and allowing flexibility that is often required for a family traveling to a new place
So how do we strike that balance between planning enough and leaving room to explore? Google Maps!
During our trip research, we pin or “save” everything we want to do and see ahead of time in our Google Maps account. Once we're actually on the ground, we always have something around the corner (sometimes literally) to eat, see, do, or explore. For example, while visiting London, a must-see is the museum of natural history. But what happens when you finish that activity at 4pm, you don’t want to eat dinner yet, the hotel is too far away, and you need to kill an hour? The kids are getting restless, you don’t want to waste an opportunity to experience London’s best, so do you start to aimlessly wander and hope for the best?
We don’t. We look at what we saved on our map that’s nearby the museum that will satisfy the needs of our family. For example, St. Luke’s Playground is .5 miles, an amazing bakery called EL&N café less than ¼ mile, or an independent bookseller just outside the museum called South Kensington Books. Not a set agenda…options. Something to keep our kids engaged and the adults interested. Conflict avoided.
Our Four-Step Planning System
- Identify your must-see attractions
- Pick your anchor activities
- Add places around those anchors
- Repeat until your map comes alive
We generally make a checklist, and we search for and pin (aka save) the following around every major anchor event we plan:
- Coffee shop
- Playground
- Lunch option
- Ice cream
- Grocery
- Bakery
- Public bathrooms
- Metro station
- Parks and Playgrounds
- Toy Stores
- Bookshops, and so on
But instead of searching generic terms like, “restaurant,” we get specific to what our family loves, like “best Italian lunch near London’s Museum of Natural History.” The beauty of pinning these places ahead of time is that you get a chance to look at the environment inside to see if it’s a fit ahead of time. If your family is a little louder or more unpredictable, the fine Italian restaurant with the white linen tablecloths might not be the most comfortable, and now you know before you’re there! You can look at menus, pictures of food, and patron reviews ahead of time to see if it’s a good option before you ever get on an airplane.
Whether you're planning a weekend in Washington, exploring London, or spending two weeks in Italy, the process stays exactly the same. It creates a loose plan or structure that you can rely on. Some of our most stressful times traveling with our kids happened when we didn't have a back up or were fumbling around for something to do or eat. Using these techniques at least gives you a framework for planning and confidence in an unfamiliar area.
Let’s use Barcelona as our example.
Step 1: Start with the Big Picture
"What are the two or three experiences you absolutely don't want to miss?"
(Figure 1)
Open Google Maps, type Barcelona in the search bar to get a high level view of the city. If you've researched places to go and things to see, then start off by typing your first spot to pull it up. If you're in the early phases, click the "Things to Do" button at the top
Step 2: Pick an Anchor Location or Activity
We'll pick La Sagrada Familia as our first addition. Click the location on the map to pull up the side-bar. Use this for research of a location - look at reviews, images, opening times, etc. If this is a place you want to add, click the "Save" button
(Figure 2)
Once you click "save" a drop down appears. The first time you add a spot to a new location, you'll click "+New List" A pop up appears and asks you to name the map. We'll be generic and call it "Barcelona," Click "Create" You should see a pop up at the bottom of the page confirming your addition.
(Figure 3)
Great! You've added your first pin to the Barcelona Map. As a family, we generally try to plan one major activity in each half of the day. This usually looks like a big tourist sight, museum, tour, or event requiring tickets or reservations. These events usually have some type of admission time or entry time.
This means there may be time on either side of the even that needs some type of planning in order to keep the kids engaged, learning, and moving. If you get to the event early (you made all the correct subway trains, congrats), you might want to grab a coffee or croissant beforehand. Having a spot pre-saved lets youg o straight there, reducing time spent waiting around before the event, which in our case was a recipe for disaster.
Once complete with the sight or event, its off to the next place! Using Google maps helps plan out the next couple steps. For this example, let's say our entry time to Sagrada Familia is 10am, and we want to have lunch in the area before heading back to the hotel to regroup before the afternoon activity
Step 3: Plan the Time Around the Anchor
(Figure 4)
Using Google Maps, stay in the vicinity of La Sagrada Familia and search "best restaurants" or "best lunch" or you can even get very specific and search something like, "best restaurant for kids."
(Figure 5)
Once you search, the returns will pop up on the map, and you can start looking at what might be a good option. In this case, a restaurant called Kala got 4.9stars and looks interesting. Clicking on the restaurant pulls up the side bar, where you can look at all user's images of the food, menus, ambiance (vibe), and other details. Use this info to see if it's a good fit!
(Figure 6)
Looks pretty tasty, especially if your kids like brunch! Looking at the seating area, looks a little tight if you're a bigger family, but they may have room outside. Use all the information available, and save it to your Barcelona map to create a pin. Once pinned, it's easier to find and come back to.
(Figure 7)
You can quickly add things around your main event. In this example, we pinned a playground, a cafe, a great spot for lunch, and we even found an escape room.
Step 4: Build out the Rest of the Trip
Repeat this search, research, pin approach to build out your map. Get creative with your searches, especially when looking for things to do between the big events.
If your partner or kid has a certain hobby (gardening, interior design, knitting, e.g.), search a boutique that serves that hobby. It's so fun to see how different cultures approach hobbies! And you'll likely find a meaningful contribution to your collection or hobby that you'll remember forever.
We want our kids to remember more than just the famous landmarks. Sometimes the moments they talk about years later are the tiny neighborhood bakery, the playground overlooking a castle, or the little bookstore where they picked out a souvenir. Planning this way creates space for those discoveries.
Remember, the goal isn’t to plan every minute, it’s to remove the stress of not knowing what’s next. This system gives us a loose structure so we can stay flexible, curious, and calm, even in unfamiliar places.