Google Maps is getting 3 game-changing upgrades

Whether you love exploring or just have a shoddy sense of direction (guilty) Google Maps is a great tool that provides guidance and traffic information via GPS. Stopping to ask people for directions is luckily a thing of the past, but Google is not sitting still.

Three new upgrades are coming to Google Maps that could change how you use it forever. 

1. Improved Immersive View 

If you've ever felt like the street view on Google Maps is a bit flat, then you're in luck. The AI-powered Immersive View feature is being expanded to a whole bunch of new locations.

I went to Venice last week (sorry to make you jealous), but It turns out I didn't need to bother as you can now get a 3D model of St Mark's Basilica from the comfort of your own phone. If you are making a visit, you can even use a slider to check what the weather will be when you go and what that landmark will look like in that weather. 

Immersive View is expanding to Venice, Florence, Amsterdam and Dublin as well as 500 landmarks around the world. 

2. Glanceable Directions

When you're exploring a beautiful city (like Venice- did I say I've been?) the last thing you want to do is have your head down focusing on your phone screen. Luckily with the new Glanceable Directions, you can get your route info in an instant and keep your head up and eyes open to drink it all in. 

This new feature will use information that was once only available on the Comprehensive Navigation mode to help you know exactly where to turn to reach your destination and adapt your path on the fly. It even works on your lock screen!

3. Recents

Desktop maps users are getting a great feature to use when planning a trip. The Recents tool will let you keep track of everywhere you want to visit and store them in a list on the left-hand side of the screen. Much like your search history, you don't need to worry about closing maps and losing your progress either. 

Google has promised that users can also share their itineraries with their travel buddies and even make a route that includes all of their destinations at once, it just might take a while if it spans countries and continents!