Using Google Maps to help discover your surroundings

As the grips of winter is starting to release ... ever so slowly, mind you ... it means that we're going to start to wander out of our homes a little more.

Maybe you've gone on holiday and want to discover some new place... or just showing off your local community to a visitor... but how can we find out what's out there?

For me, it's always turning to Google, and there's just a an app specifically for that.  Well 2.  One would be Field Trip (from the same group who brought you +Ingress).  But without even having to install a new app, you have Google Maps usually pre-installed.

If you're on the web, there's an option to just click anywhere on the map and a 'card' will pop up to 'search nearby'.

It's not quite there as simply on our device.  What we need to do is to zero in our location (or zero in on any location actually) and just tap the search bar and you'll have a list of options appear.  Make sure that if there's anything in the search bar, you clear it out first.

First is the search history, but then you get an attractions 'bar' listing a button for restaurants, cafes, bars, entertainment and 'more'.  (if you're in a more popular area than my tiny wee town of Thunder Bay, you might get a bigger 'explore bar').

Below that  you can see some items that might match from recent search history terms (if you've enabled that feature on your account) for that area.

It'll help you find some neat things.

Have you ever found something via Maps that you might not have otherwise? For me it was Smoke's Poutinerie.