How To Use Travel Mapper
Matt - January 4, 2023
What You'll Learn
- How to get the most out of Travel Mapper to plan your trip and while on your trip.
- How to perfect your trip plan.
- Free version vs. paid versions
Planning Your Trip
Generate a Template
Start using Travel Mapper by opening a Google Sheet and navigating to Extensions in the menu bar. At the bottom, you'll see Travel Mapper.
Follow the menu from Extensions → Travel Mapper → Start Here → Generate Template
While we're here, notice the other menu options within Travel Mapper. View Map is handy to reopen the map if you close it. Use Help to contact us if you have any trouble. Ok, back to that template we're generating..
Click Generate Template to automatically create the Travel Mapper template for your Google Sheet. You'll have the option to choose a Sample Template or an Empty Template. Choose Sample to get familiar with an example itinerary in Travel Mapper and Empty when you're ready to plan your own trip.
As you're working through the steps above, be sure that you're signed in to Google Sheets with the same account that you used to install Travel Mapper.
See item 1 here for help if you run into an issue.
Template Layout
Notice that the template consists of the following tabs:
- How To
- A quick place to reference a demo video and the FAQ.
- Itinerary
- Where the activities of your trip are scheduled with associated details like cost and category.
- Check List
- Your Packing and To-Do lists in one place to checkmark what's complete.
- Split Costs
- Track everyone's expenses to square up on who owes who. Scroll down on this tab to see the How To instructions.
- Backdoor Data
- This tab is used to help with backend processing for Travel Mapper. You won't use this tab unless you purchased the Comfort Class tier, explained below.
To the right of the spreadsheet is the integrated map, which can be closed by clicking the x and reopened from the View Map menu option.
Adding Your Activities
There are three ways to add an activity to your trip in the Activity column (E) of the Itinerary tab.
- The Add Place button (formerly Add Activity) on the side map
- This will auto-populate the Activity, Location, and (when available) Link columns on the Itinerary tab. It will also plot the activity on the map.
- The Add Place button (formerly Add Activity) in the Edit Trip view
- This will auto-populate the Activity, Location, and Link (when available) columns on the Itinerary tab.
- See activities on the larger map by clicking View Map on the left of the Edit Trip view. Click Update Map on the smaller side map to see the activities added from within Edit Trip.
- Type your activity into the Activity cell on the spreadsheet.
- Think of this like a Google Maps search where the first result is what will be plotted on the map.
- If you were to type "visit Aunt Jayne" into Google Maps, it would not know where you're referring to on the map. For activities like this, use the Location column (F) to put the location address (Aunt Jayne's address) to correctly plot it on the map.
- Click Update Map on the smaller side map to plot activities added this way.
Fine Tuning Your Trip
You've got most of your activities added to your trip - now it's time to finalize the dates, times, categories, costs, and other details. There are two ways to edit these details: the Edit Trip view and the normal spreadsheet cells.
Edit Trip, Drag-n-Drop
Most users find this to be the most enjoyable way to edit their trip. The Edit Trip view is similar to a Kanban board where each activity is a card that can be moved between days or other activities.
If you have activities on your Itinerary with no dates you'll see an Activities Without Dates column on the left. These can be dragged into date columns or left where they are. Drag each activity where you want it to finalize your schedule.
Within each activity card, you can edit the name, time, cost, category, link, address, and notes. You can also check the Do Not Map box for any activities that you don't want plotted on the map. If the card has a location, clicking the pin icon on the top right will open the location in a new Google Maps tab.
On the bottom of each card, you can delete an activity from your trip or delete the date by moving to to the Activities Without Dates column.
After making edits to your trip, be sure to click the Save button at the bottom for the spreadsheet to reflect these changes once you exit out of the Edit Trip view. Click Update Map on the side map to reflect the latest changes after exiting Edit Trip.
Alternatively, clicking the View Map icon within Edit Trip will automatically save your changes and show them on the larger map.
Normal Spreadsheet Editing
You can also edit your trip in the traditional manner of editing each cell on the spreadsheet. This may be preferred when you want to copy-paste the same category onto many activities, or duplicate an activity by copy-pasting the full row.
Add dates by typing them in using the date/month/year format and edit dates by double clicking the date cell and using the calendar pop-up.
As previously mentioned, you can enter the address for an activity in the Location column (F) if the activity alone does not result in the proper pin location on the map. You can also choose Do Not Map from the dropdown.
You can ignore the "Invalid" message that pops up when hovering over a Location cell with an address filled in. This is a byproduct of having the Do Not Map dropdown option.
Edit categories of each activity by choosing from the dropdown in the Category column (J).
Using the Map
An integrated map enables better trip planning by helping to visualize all your activities and ensure the order of your activities makes sense given their locations.
Using the various ways to add activities covered above, you'll have a map of pins representing your trip on the smaller side map as well as on the larger map within Edit Trip. Hovering over each pin will provide the date, time, cost, link, and corresponding row number for that activity on the spreadsheet.
Check activities by day or by activity with the map filters on the side map.
While On Your Trip
Email Your Trip Summary
Email a simple and organized summary of your trip to stay on track on the go. Each activity includes links you've added and a Google Map link to help you navigate your destination.
Import Your Trip to Google My Maps
Additionally, use Google My Maps to help you navigate while on the go. Your Travel Mapper itinerary can be exported from your Google Sheet and imported to Google My Maps so you can see all your activities on a mobile map.
Overview of Travel Mapper Tiers
Economy Class
Free option to use Travel Mapper. Allows for generating unlimited Travel Mapper templates for consistent and fast formatting for every trip.
Does not include the integrated map, location autofill, drag-n-drop editing, email summary, or Google My Maps export.
Comfort Class
Mid-tier option that includes all functionality. This requires you to add a Google API key to each Travel Mapper spreadsheet you generate to enable the premium functionality.
First Class
Top-tier option that includes all functionality. No limits, no API key required.
