Viewing and Creating Guides

In this video, we’re going to take a look at Guides in the Maps app on the Mac. We now have curated guides that were introduced with macOS Big Sur. We can even create our own guides. Let’s take a look at guides in the Maps app on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac.

Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, what we can now do with the Maps app in macOS, is view different curated guides. We can even create our own guides. To do that, the first thing we need to do is open up the Maps app. When we open up the Maps app, you’re going to see My Guides over on the left in the sidebar. This is where we will find all of our guides, including the curated guides that we’ve saved, as well as any guides that we’ve created.

Let’s go and create a guide. To create a guide, I just click on the +, and now I name my guide. So let’s just go with San Francisco. Let’s say I was planning a trip to San Francisco. So now I have my guide. Again, this is also where I will find curated guides that I’ve saved.

So how do we find these guides? How do I add places to my own guide? The first thing we need to do is search for the place where we’re going to visit or the place we want to research. In my case, I’m going to San Francisco. So I click on San Francisco here. This is from recent searches. I click on it. It takes me over to San Francisco. Now, from here, you’re going to see I have different guides. I swipe up to see different guides, and if I want to see more of them, I click on See More, and now I can see all of the different guides here.

So I want to see the scenic spots in San Francisco. I click on this, and if I want to add this to my guides here, all I have to do is just click on Add to My Guide. So let’s go ahead and do that. And now we can see we have scenic spots in San Francisco. I can easily open up that guide now in my maps app at a later date.

But in addition to that, when we go back over to this guide here, you’re going to see that it has different locations here. These are scenic spots. Let’s go to Lombard street. I want to save this. To save it to my guide, all I do is just go over to the + us here; you’re going to see San Francisco. That’s the name of my guide. And now, we can see it added it to my guide. Now what I’m able to do is go through this guide here and go to the different places or read about different places. Let’s go with the Golden Gate Park. I want to find out more about this. I can click on Find Out More. I want to add it to my guide, I click on the + and select my guide, and now we can see we have it in my guide here.

In addition to reading about the location, you’re also going to see that it places it on the map. When I go to Russian Hill here and click on it, we can see where it is in San Francisco. Let’s go ahead and select another guide. I’m going to click on the X here, and let’s swipe up here. Let’s go with the San Francisco Affordable Takeout Guide. I need places to eat. So I click on this, and now I have another guide. I can add it to my guides here, and now we can see we have it in my guide, so I can easily open up this guide just by clicking on this. And if I wanted to add any of these locations to my guide, all I have to do is find the place that I want. We’ll go with Lou’s Sandwiches here. I click on the +, and again, I can add it to my guide. I want to see where this is in San Francisco, I click on the name, and then we can see where it is.

Now, if I want to change the name of my guide, I just go over to the i here, click on it, and from here, I can change the name as well as change the photo. I can also delete this guide.

To view every place in this guide on my map, we first have to close our current guide here. So I click on this X, and I click on this X; I’m going to close all my guides. And now, when I go to San Francisco here, it shows me all of the different locations in my guide. So here we have the Golden Gate Park, which is in my guide, I have is Lou’s Sandwiches, which is in my guide. And then I also have Lombard Street, which is in my guide.

And then, if I want to view one of the curated guides, I go back over to my saved curated guides. I click on any one of them, and it opens that guide back up.

So that’s how we can view curated guides as well as create our own guides in the Maps app on the Mac. This is a great tool for researching trips. There’s only one catch to it. Not all cities have guides. If I were to go to my home city, my hometown of Holland, Michigan, I would not have any guides for Holland, Michigan. So the guides are not available in all cities or all locations.

So that’s how we can view curated guides as well as create our own guides in the Maps app. We first have to go to the location where we want to view the guides; once we do that, you’re going to see a little card where we can view our different guides for that location. We can save that guide to our own guides, as well as save the individual locations in a guide to our own guides that we create.

So that’s how we view curated guides as well as save our own guides in the Maps app on the Mac.