If you’ve never used Google Maps Trip Planner before, you’ll be amazed at how much it helps you organize and streamline your next trip. With Google Maps Trip Planner, you can map out walking tours, place placemarks to highlight areas you want to visit, and even use real-time location tracking to make sure you always know where your loved ones are.

Ready to plan your next trip? Log in to your Google account and sign in to Google Maps Trip Planner to follow along.

When you first log in to the Google Maps Trip Planner page, you’ll see a map and seemingly nothing else. That’s because the main page is the display map for your planned trips.

This display map can contain multiple layers (individual maps) on top of each other. But before you can add layers, you first need to create your travel maps. To do this, click the square Show larger map icon in the upper right corner of the window.