How to Use Online Mapping Sites

By Michelle Hainer

Liz Anastasia, of North Branford, Conn., took the two-hour route to see her son in Boston so often that she knew the way by heart. But last spring, she needed to make a stop on her way home from Beantown to pick up her husband from the airport.

"I got the directions from Mapquest, and they seemed fairly easy," says Anastasia, who gave herself extra time to get to the airport on time. What she -- and Mapquest -- didn't anticipate was a highway detour due to road construction. "I took a wrong turn and kept getting farther and farther away from the highway," says Anastasia who, as night fell and her gas tank dwindled, began to get nervous. Finally after driving for what seemed like hours, she stopped to ask someone for directions to Bradley International Airport. "He was like, 'Lady, are you lost!'" she recounts. Fortunately, Anastasia finally found her way -- though she was almost an hour late picking up her husband.

Like a lot of people, Anastasia's been using sites like Mapquest to get driving directions for years. Yahoo!, Google and Rand McNally also offer free online mapping programs that will calculate driving directions for virtually any destination. But while these sites often take the guesswork out of getting from Point A to Point B -- and offer tips on where to get the best pizza or hotel room in almost any city -- they can also be difficult to decipher or just plain incorrect. (Why do your directions tell you to take a road called Smith Street, when the sign clearly says it's called Smith Avenue?)

So before planning your next road trip, check out these tips for getting the most out of mapping web sites:

Tip No. 1: Provide as much information as possible Most mapping sites will ask you for the full addresses of your starting and ending points. "Input the address as though you were addressing a letter," says Jeremy Kreitler, director of Yahoo! Maps. "While we've gotten very smart at interpreting what people type in, the more information, the better." Also, make sure you're spelling the street names correctly and that the system didn't inadvertently give you directions for a similar town or city. "Take the time to make sure you've gotten what you want," Krietler adds. "Don't just print and get in the car."

Tip No. 2: Check for detours If Mapquest had been able to detect the construction on the highway Anastasia was using, for instance, she probably wouldn't have gotten lost. But map sites can't always predict traffic conditions. Yahoo! Maps does allow users to click on a Live Traffic button, which pinpoints problem areas and offers alternate routes. Traffic can also help you figure out where slow spots are. If your city or town has a municipal web site, that will often offer traffic updates as well.

Tip No. 3: Cross reference your information To play it safe, double check map site directions. Type the exact same destination into more than one site and see if the directions match up, or if one site gives you a faster, more direct route. And if you have one handy, consider checking your directions against a paper map -- especially if you make an unexpected stop along the way and get off track. "It's always a good idea," Kreitler says. And if your destination has its own web site, it might provide easy-to-follow directions that have been tested time and time again.

Nowadays, Anastasia always consults a standard paper map, though she hasn't shied away from online mapping programs. "I still love Mapquest," she says. But before she pulls out of the driveway: "I always make sure I absolutely know where I'm going."