How Can I Maximize My Time in a City? Our Favorite WS&T Travel Hack.

How can I maximize time in a city when I'm traveling?

We've all been there. You’re in a brand new city. You only have a few days to see and eat everything on your list.

But you have no idea where anything is, or how to be efficient… so you lose valuable time backtracking, or miss out on a great lunch spot because you didn’t realize it was right around the corner from that museum.

We can’t remember exactly which one of us came up with this idea, but it was a, wait for it... game-changer.

WS&T has a great solution for you! We started using this tool when we visited Oaxaca City, and E got very stressed about how were going to eat every single thing in the city in a week.

Make a Google Saved Places List!

This is our favorite, quick and easy way to maximize time in a city or country. While researching a city’s food and attractions, we’ll look up each and every place we aspire to visit on Google Maps, then save it to a list we make specific to our upcoming trip. That way, when we’re exploring a city, our saved pins will populate all over the map and we’ll be able to see what’s close by at any given time.

If you have a ton to eat and see, you can make different lists for food and attractions, or even different lists for breakfast/lunch and dinner. For foodies, source food spots from your favorite food blogs like Eater, The Infatuation, Food & Wine – or your favorite recommender, WS&T. You absolutely can't go wrong.

You can also change the pins for each list to any emoji you want! My Costa Rica map is now covered in tiny shooting stars.

We’ve even started using them at home and in domestic cities so we can really easily find great places to eat nearby.

Step-by-Step Guide to Making a Google Saved Places List

To start your own Google List, open your Google Maps app and look up the first place you want to save.

One of E's fave taco spots in Los Angeles. And yes, she should probably charge her phone.

Slide the oblong bubbles that start with “Directions” over to the left until you find “Save.” 

When you click on Save, a screen will appear saying “Save to list” and you’ll click “+New list.”

In this next page, you can name your list (“Colombia Eats!”) and put in a description. You can also click the little smiley face to change the pin icon. 

If you want to share with you partner, click below to make the list “Shared.”

Once you’ve created your list, you can add anything and everything to it using the same steps.

Don't forget to start by searching the destination (eatery, museum etc) in the main Google Maps search bar, then save it to your list. You can't add things from within the list.

To find your list, head to the main screen of your Google Maps app and click on the little label that says “You” on the bottom.

There you’ll find all of your saved lists. You can also create a new list, but you won't be able to add to it from within the list (follow steps above for adding destinations).

From here, you can also click the three dots on the right to “share list” with your partner or change the settings on your lists.

As you make your way around the city, you can easily see what spots are nearby. Zoom in to navigate. Zoom out to admire. It really makes logistics and planning for the day a breeze.

Now, to magically expand a stomach for the day... the search continues.

When you get really into it, your maps will look like this!

While you're here, check out our 7-day guide to Oaxaca and our favorite Oaxacan restaurants for all these picks!

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What About Those Other Tiny Trekkers? Click below to check out some curated picks for making life easier when traveling with (and without) small children.

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