Create Your Map 🗺️
❤️💪🏻 To skip ahead to the Create Your Map travel hack, scroll down!
If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I have a thing for Lonely Planet guidebooks. I like them a lot. Dog-eared pages, scribbled notes in the margins, that satisfying feeling of sliding one into the outer pocket of a backpack—it feels like the beginning of something. 📘✨
But recently—and I’m not alone here; my travel groups on social media agree—the quality has gone down. They’ve stopped printing things like restaurant prices or local shop hours (which I get—those things change quickly). Instead, they’ve shifted focus to the vibe of a place: the type of traveler who’d enjoy it, the way the light hits the walls. Still fun to read, but honestly? Not nearly as helpful when you're starving and need to know if the place is open on a Tuesday.
Meanwhile, researching a trip online feels like being thrown into a digital mosh pit. There’s so much information, and not all of it’s good. If you want to go to the exact same spots that flood TikTok—go for it! But prepare for long lines and that sneaky little voice in your head wondering if you’re just on someone else’s trip.
So lately, we’ve been doing something different. A method that blends YouTube rabbit holes, ChatGPT info-gathering, and straight-up asking locals. And honestly? It’s been a game-changer. 💥
♥️💪🏻 Create Your Own Map
It’s that simple. Open your Maps app (Apple or Google) and create a guide or custom list for your trip.
For our upcoming trip, I’ve got one titled "Baltics 🇫🇮🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹 (2024)" under Guides in Apple Maps. As we watch shows, read books, or hear restaurant recommendations, we drop pins like breadcrumbs. 🥖 Each location becomes part of our personal travel constellation: our hotel, the Baltic opera house I read about in a magazine, a bakery mentioned in a book, a coffee shop someone on Reddit swore would change my life.
And once we’re there? That map saves us—especially when we’re hungry. 🍽️✨ No one wants to waste a meal abroad. Or argue while hangry over where to eat.
We add new spots the moment we land.
Ask the Uber driver his favorite sandwich place? Add to guide.
Ask the hotel concierge where she grabs a drink after work? Add to guide.
Last week in Croatia, I offered to take a photo for a couple sitting next to us in the most breathtaking seafood restaurant overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The kind of sunset where everyone goes quiet for a minute. ☀️🌊 Turns out they were from Napa Valley—wine industry pros—and we struck up a conversation. It was their last night after a full week in Split, so naturally I asked them: What was your favorite meal?
They told us about a hole-in-the-wall olive oil bar tucked deep inside the palace walls. The next day, we found it. And it turned into our favorite meal of the trip too.
📍 Uje Oil Bar 🥈 Bokeria Kitchen & Wine
Both made our final Guide to Split ☺️