I love Google Maps
But travel doesn't have to be a giant to-do list.
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In 2018, I was in South Africa working on a massive event, and I decided to book-end the trip with five work-from-Paris days ahead of it, and then after the festival, I spent four days in Cape Town and another four in Amsterdam.
I was relatively new to my job and I wasn’t friendly enough with my colleagues to get invited on their post-event trips, and I wasn’t even really comfortable enough to ask if I could join. A few activities came together last minute, but for the most part, I traveled alone for almost three weeks.
Except for Paris, all of these cities were new to me, so I read everything I could and saved interesting restaurants, bars, and museums to Google Maps lists. The lists were stacked with more options than I could possibly cover in a few days, but that didn’t matter. I had a foundation for what I wanted to do. When I finally arrived in these cities, these maps proved to be extremely useful — they’d helped me establish some sort of bearing before I arrived, and I was able to structure my day so I wasn’t aimlessly wandering around a new city.
In many ways, having those lists helped me feel less alone. They filled the void for the person you’d normally consult for plans, and helped guide me around a lot of unfamiliar places. Walking into a restaurant or bar alone is intimidating, so the research I’d done ahead of time gave me the confidence to go to places I might otherwise not enter.
That trip was where I really learned that I could be friends with myself. I knew that at the very least, if I walked into a pre-researched wine bar alone, I might not have anyone to talk to, but I’d get great wine and great food. With the help of Google Maps, I was able to focus less on where to eat and more on having a good time by myself.
Since that trip, I’ve curated a lot of lists, but something about the last few years has reprogrammed my brain in a way that that travel has become less about experiencing a new place and more about trying to visit things on my lists. The post-pandemic travel rush is certainly a big culprit here, but with recommendation culture taking over social media, there’s an urgent compulsion to experience the best of something and being able to tell people about it.
Every time I open Instagram, or Reddit, or my email inbox, or really anything, I’m met with a constant stream of someone offering me the next best bar or a secret hidden gem or something that definitely no one else has heard about. I obsessively cross-check my lists with Eater’s The 38 Essential Restaurants in New York City and The New York’s Time’s Where to Eat in NYC and
’s Instagram post because she went somewhere I’d like to visit and … you get it.I trust these publications and these people, and our tastes seem to overlap, so going where they go makes a certain level of sense. I hate wasting time and money, especially while traveling, so maybe it’s easier to have someone tell me what to do. But what do we lose when all of our weekends and trips start to look the same? When I let the lists dictate too much of my life, I miss out on the simple joys of discovery.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about recommendation culture and my beloved lists. How can I balance going to the places I’ve curated with something more spontaneous? How can I prevent recommendation culture from making me act nutso?
I keep coming back to the reason I started making lists in the first place: using them as a tool to build context in a new place. It’s daunting to go to a new city or country, and I am not easy going enough to arrive without some sort of plan. The research I do to build these lists help me narrow down neighborhoods I’d like to visit. If there’s a high concentration of wine bars that I’ve researched, there’s likely other things I’d enjoy in that area. And if I go there and the bar is packed, well, there’s probably a handful of other options, and I’ll still have a great time.
Maps also help provide some structure to my day that I most definitely need. I have never been a plan-every-second person, but I get hung up on the idea of aimlessly milling about. I loathe the action of standing around looking at a phone to figure out the plan, so if I can structure my day around even a single endpoint, I can get going and fill in the gaps along the way. If I happen to pass other places on my list, great! If not, I need to remember that I’ll live.
Like everything, there has to be a balance. I am not going to stop making lists — who am I kidding? I’ll still obsessively research new cities and cross-check my existing lists when a new Eater ranking comes out. But re-evaluating the place these lists have in my life has made me remember that travel doesn’t have to be a giant to-do list, but more about the joy of the new and unexpected.
You’ve made it down here! You deserve some lists.
My lists basically fall into two categories: lists for cities and lists for specific needs like happy hour or live music. The places on these lists are a mix of places I’ve been and liked, and places I’ve seen others recommend. I’ve left notes for my recommendations and if I haven’t been there, I tend to list where the recommendation came from.
Drop your lists and recs in the comments!
New York City
New York City Mainstays | New York City Happy Hours | New York City Live Music
Brooklyn - Want to Visit | Manhattan - Want to Visit | Queens (I need recs here!)
Hudson Valley, NY
Restaurants & Drinking | Shopping/Markets | Live Music/Arts/Activities
Not New York
Portland, Maine | Chicago | Jersey City | Louisville | San Diego County | Rhode Island
Not America
London | Dublin | Amsterdam | Paris | Cape Town | Johannesburg | Portugal | Spain
Bonus
Ugh I can truly identify with this. My Google map of Spain has well over 1,000 places. Map overwhelm is real! 😅
Loved this so much! As someone who just moved back from london, those spots are 🧑🍳 💋