Save Google Maps Driving Directions

Feb 26 2008

Save Google Maps Driving Directions

Published by gringod at 7:49 pm under General,Technology

This is an old article and the information contained within it may be out of date, not reflect my current views and/or contain broken links. If you feel this article is still valid and requires updating, you can use the contact form to let me know. However, I make no guarantee that it will get updated.

One of the really neat features of Google Maps that I use quite often is the ability to alter driving directions if you don’t like the given results. I’ve just written up my recent trip to the UK on my R1200GS and one of the features of the site is having a map displaying the route for the trip.

Doing a simple driving directions gives the basic route that I took but it doesn’t include the wrong turns and deviations that I made. In Google Earth the only way to change a given route is to manually modify the line, which take hours. With Google Maps I can modify the route to take account of these deviations but it doesn’t allow you to save the changes… unless you know Google-Fu!!!

It turn out the url to view a Google Map is also the same url used by the Google Maps API to access kml files. The process to save a modified route to kml is as follows:

Get the basic driving directions
Modify the route as you wish.
Click the Link to this page link.
Copy the email/IM link.
Paste link back into your browser address bar.
Add &output=kml to the end of the url & hit enter/go.
Save the kml wherever you wish.

NOTE:

Following the comment from Nicole (25-04-2009) I have done a bit of playing around with Google Maps and exporting KML. When you create a route in Google Maps use the right click Directions from here / Directions to here and the right click on the map and select “Add destination”, when you come to use the above method to export the KML file, only the starting point and the first destination will be included in the exported route.

If you want to export the full route, you need to set the start point and the final destination and then “drag” the route to the intermediate destinations in-between. If you use this method and the export the KML file will include the full route.