Google publishes tips for safe holiday travels

According to Google’s statistics, 40% of all Americans plan to travel during the holidays, despite the difficult health situation in the world. The company published a detailed travel guide in order to help people make informed decisions and travel safely during the holiday season.

Travel advisories

When planning your trip and searching on Google for information about flights, hotels, or things to do pay attention to COVID-19 related travel advisories or restrictions for your destination. You should see links to relevant information from your country’s travel authority when possible. This information is available on the search results page, at the top of google.com/travel, and in Google Maps when you search for hotels.

Free cancellation filter

The COVID-19 pandemic spread uncertainty around the world. Many hotels and rentals try to accommodate for that, offering more flexible cancellation policies. You can search for a place to spend your holidays and filter results to show only properties or rooms with free cancellation.

COVID-19 layer in Google Maps

When people travel they often find themselves in a new town or an area they haven’t visited for a while. Google added a new COVID-19 layer to Maps in order to help people get relevant information about the spread of the disease in the area they’re visiting. Just tap on the layers button on the top right-hand corner of your screen in Google Maps and click on “COVID-19 info”. There you’ll get a seven-day average of new COVID cases per 100,000 people for the area of the map you’re looking at.

Relive past trips

If you don’t plan to travel at all, you can set yourself up with a piece of nostalgia and relive your adventures from the past. In Google Maps on Android, users will soon access a new “Trips” tab in Timeline that will show them a summary of their past trips, places they visited, distance traveled and even the means of transportation used.

Google compiled the following checklist to help you remember all the steps for a safe and pleasant, trouble-free trip during your holiday.