All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

Since Josh at Seen Creative raved about Yahoo! Maps Beta, I couldn’t help but try it myself.

Here’s two instances:

Some friends were driving back from a summer trip on the I-15. Since it’s a long drive from Utah back here to Arcadia, CA, they were talking to me for awhile.

“We just crossed the California/Nevada border.”

“What freeway are you on?”

“The I-15.”

I was able to double-click on the the intersection of the I-15 and the California/Nevada border. Then, right-clicking on that point, I could drive “To here” or “From here”. That’s amazingly convenient, don’t you think?

Then, I set point B to home.

“You’ve got about 210 miles to go, around 3 more hours.”

They got stuck for awhile in Yermo and I gave them some locations of nearby gas stations, in addition to the next ones in Barstow (which was about 8 miles from there).

It all worked out, and they got home just fine. They didn’t really need the information I was giving them - they already had things figured out. It was just cool to see how Yahoo! Maps Beta is doing it right.

Today, I ran some errands. I went to Mwave (to pickup speakers), Office Depot, and Guitar Center. I could’ve just hit the ones I knew, but I figured I’d use Yahoo! Maps Beta to find the ones closest to where I was going in a circular route.

The route I took: 37.5 miles (Walnut, West Covina, Azusa). If I would’ve went to the ones I had in mind initially, I would’ve drove 54.7 miles (Walnut, Monrovia, Pasadena).

So, I definitely love:

• “Find On The Map”
• The ability to have more than one point (so I can hit all the places in one trip)
• Roundtrip
• Double-clicking to set a point (not just centering the map), so you’re able to drive somewhere that you don’t have an address to
• Printable version can include the map or just print text-only

Intrigued? If you’ve used Yahoo! Maps Beta, how has it helped you? Do you have any ideas to help improve it?