I really love driving and I really love technology, and the thing I like the most is how easy it is to drive to places that I have never visited by just taking my Mapquest maps with me. Many years ago before the internet and mapping softwares were available I would have to write down the directions of the places I was going to visit, and it could take me hours to find my destination.

I’m always on the run, my day job forces me to go from one place to the other all day long, I’m not going to get into much detail about what I do for a living, because I created this blog to get away from my reality, anyway back in the day I would spend countless hours driving around the whole city, so, when Mapquest driving directions came along my life got a lot easier and I was able to save a lot of money as well. You might be wondering how I saved money, well thanks to accurate driving directions provided by softwares like Map quest I could take shorter routes, faster routes that had less traffic, so, the consumption levels of gasoline lowered and that’s where I saved a lot of money. A web based application like Mapquest also helped me make my job faster and easier, because I was provided with easy and fast driving directions and routes by the best and most known online mapping software at the moment.

These online mapping softwares helped me so much that I got hooked on them, and since I was a big driving fan as well, I was always trying to find new online mapping softwares that provided accurate turn by turn driving directions, you know new and maybe even better alternatives. So, one day I stumbled upon Yahoo maps, I felt it was good but I still prefer my old Mapquest maps for driving directions. My preferred online mapping software is constantly improving, they are even better now than before, you can select multiple destinations in a single route (multi-stop route builder), you can write down different addresses and you can get driving directions for all of those places in just one site and at the same time, and this is great for me since I need to be constantly driving from one place to the other, this feature actually helps me save a lot of time because I don’t have to create a lot of different routes, I just have to make one big route with multiple stops on it. Other cool features about Map quest is that you have a lot of options depending on the things that you prefer, so, things can get easier, if you are a more visual person then you can choose to look at your roadmap from the bird’s eye view to see which streets or highways you are going to take, you can also get exact driving directions for the route that you are going to take, and you will receive accurate information on how you are going to get there, and even the exact distance between the turns that you have to make in your route. You can also use the Mapquest multiple directions feature, you can check live traffic conditions along your route very easily through a simple click, and if you are planning a long driving trip you can spot the rest stops and exits in your route.

On the other hand we have google maps and google earth for driving directions, they are great, I like them as much as map quest and they might be better than mapquest right now, especially if you learn how to combine them both, since you can now use them both to get exactly what you need, I’m not going to explain how Google Directions works since this whole website is dedicated to it and it has been thoroughly explained. But, I can name just a few features that we can use at Google maps, one of them is the street view, you can see great images of the street and move from the drivers point of view in any direction so you can have an exact idea of where are you going to drive and how you are going to get there, this is probably the feature I love the most about Google maps driving directions, and Mapquest has recently added the street view feature as well, but I believe that google has more coverage, this means that google has the street view feature available for more countries and cities than Mapquest, with this feature you can take a good 360 degree look for almost any address in the U.S.A and many other places around the world.

From these online services you can get exact turn by turn directions, if you want to find all the great online mapping softwares, just in case you want to try out several services then you can perform a search in Google, all you have to do is type in the search box “turn by turn directions” and you will get all the major map sites on the front  page.

Google and Mapquest driving directions have also released mobile phone applications, the Iphone has a built in application working with Google Maps, and Map quest also has an app for the Iphone, blackberry, Android, and many other mobile devices, for some of them you can download apps for free, on the other hand Yahoo which is my third favorite when it comes to online mapping and directions does not have a mobile application yet. You could also try the app provided by ATT which is called the ATT Navigator or Mapquest Navigator, but it does cost $9.95 U.S dollars a month.

Even though I’ve always used Mapquest, I am starting to like Google Maps and Google Earth more. Yahoo Maps still need more work and they need to create new and better features so that they can compete with the big dogs.

Remember that you can print directions from any of these online mapping softwares, I always like to print them, in the last article I explained how you can get google directions and print them so you might want to check it out, it can be very useful. Next time that you search for Google Mapquest Directions or Yahoo Map quest directions you should consider taking out the Google or the Yahoo from the front if you are seeking for driving directions from Mapquest, is just an advice since I’ve seen many of my friends make searches in that way, I think that they might be a little bit confused.

I hope you enjoyed this post, I hope your driving becomes easier, faster and safer, and I also hope that you get to save a lot of money by choosing better routes.

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