December 31, 2024 • 17 mins
Navigating New York City can feel daunting and overwhelming, but you can get around easily with the right tools and tips!
In this episode, we'll break down three Google Maps hacks that will save you loads of time and effort when mapping your route to your next must-see spot in NYC.
Not everyone uses Google Maps to navigate, but we've found it to be the most efficient and accurate during our travels across the globe, specifically in New York. These tips and tricks will be similar to those of other platforms like Apple Maps or Citymapper.
We'll cover:
- Live View
- Future Train/Route Times
- Route Filtering
1- Live View
New York's streets can be confusing, especially when you pop up from the subway and aren’t exactly sure which cross street you’re on… enter Live View!
When using transit (or walking) directions within Google Maps, you will see an option for Live View for the walking section. Click Live View and then pan your camera around slowly so the camera can capture where you are.
Once you do this, Google Maps will tell you exactly where to walk to your destination.
Here are photos and a video showcasing how to accomplish this in Google Maps.
Step 1- Put your destination in and click “Directions,” and choose the walking option
Step 2- Click Live View
Step 3- Scan your surroundings
Step 4- An arrow will indicate which way to walk
2- Future Train/Route Times
If you punch in a location for directions, it will show you the current times. But if you’re trying to plan how you’ll get from a dinner to a Broadway show tomorrow, that won’t help.
So, change the time of travel. Here’s how:
- Enter your destination and click ‘get directions’
- Ensure your starting point is accurate
- Choose the transit option (train icon)
- Right under that, you will see text that says ‘depart at (the current time)’
- Click that and update your preferences accordingly. I recommend choosing the “Arrive By” option
3- Route Filtering
Some people want to avoid buses and only take the subway, or vice versa. And
you can do that in Google Maps!
When you choose the transit option for directions, you will find an “Options” menu on the right side of the top menu.
Once in the options menu, you can choose to prioritize specific modes of transportation!
You can also filter routes based on specific criteria like:
- Best route
- Fewest transfers
- Least walking
- Avoid stairs and escalators
Recap & Next Steps
Istanbul Kebab House - This Episode's You'll Have to Check It Out Segment, check it out here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/euY87RtJZ6G6CjKs7
Download the full NYC Navigation & Transportation Guide here: https://rebrand.ly/nyc-navigation-guide
Get the NYC Basic Tips & Etiquette book here: https://amzn.to/4fo5TRj
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Better Together Here podcast with your host,
Devin. And Ashley?
Helping you make the most of your time in New York City,
everyone. And welcome to today's episode
of the Better Together Here podcast.
My name is Devin. My name is Ashley and.
In today's episode, we are goingto give you 3 Google Maps hacks
that are going to make getting around New York City so, so much
easier. When I learned about one of
(00:24):
these, it actually kind of blew my mind and makes the whole like
coming up out of the subway experience way less confusing.
So let's get right into it. Most of what we're going to be
talking about is an excerpt fromour Ultimate NYC Navigation and
Transportation Guide. If you have not already, you can
download it for free. It is 30 plus pages covering all
(00:45):
kinds of topics like getting to and from the airports, how to
use the subway, how to use Google Maps, which is what we're
going to talk about today. Hailing taxis, walking, biking,
everything you would want to know about getting around New
York City, all for free, all in one convenient guide.
If you have not already, go to bettertogetherhere.com and in
the menu there's a button that says NYC Transportation Guide
(01:05):
and you can download it for free.
OK, so we're going to talk about3 things when it comes to using
Google Maps. That is just going to make your
life a lot easier. Let us have a quick caveat here
that some people like using Apple Maps, some people like
using City Mapper. There are plenty of navigation
apps. I, we personally have found
Google Maps to be pretty accurate, pretty efficient, and
(01:29):
pretty easy to use. I'm also just very integrated
into the world of like Google Maps lists and saving things
there. Many of these features that
we'll talk about are probably available in some way, shape or
form on other map platforms, butI'm going to kind of walk you
through these things from GoogleMaps specifically.
So as you're listening to this episode, this might sound a
(01:51):
little weird, but this will actually be really helpful as
I'm going to kind of like walk you through this.
Like if you wanted to pull out your phone and go open up Google
Maps and I'm going to show you exactly where things are.
I'm going to do this based off of Hilton Midtown, getting to
World, the World Trade Center. Those are just two random places
that I chose, but it will give us a good overview of what to
expect here. OK, the first tip that we're
(02:14):
going to talk about is live view.
Most of us have experienced You finally get off the subway, you
pop up out into the loud, busy, wild streets of New York, and
you're like, crap. What direction do I start
walking? You know you need to go a few
blocks, but you don't know if you should be going Uptown or
downtown, or you don't know which way Uptown or downtown is,
(02:36):
and you can't find street signs and it's dark and it's chaotic.
Enter live view. First step, step out of the
subway entrance while you're looking at your phone, trying to
figure out where you're going. Correct.
Step aside. Step aside when you come up out
of the stairs, give people an exit.
That is a great note to make because there's nothing more
(02:58):
frustrating than trying to get up out of the subway stairs and
there are people blocking the entrance.
Just do not do that. Take 10 steps away from the
stairs before you do any of this.
So again, going off of my example of Hilton Midtown to the
World Trade Center, if you were to click on the subway option
(03:18):
and then click on one of the public transportation options
that are available, for example,the one that says the E train,
28 minutes roughly. If you click on that, you'll see
at the beginning The Walking section, there's a little button
that says live view and it has amap icon.
When you click on that, what it does is it basically turns your
(03:39):
phone into like a augmented reality type thing and you
essentially grab your, you grab the camera, you tilt and you
kind of just pan your camera pointing at different buildings
and stores and signs around you.And it's going to tell you
exactly where you are based off those things.
And it will show you on the screen arrows pointing which
(04:02):
direction you should start walking.
This is a, a game changer to like not walk two blocks the
wrong direction and then finallyrealize and be like, oh crap, we
should have gone the other way. Like Ashley said, don't do this
at the top of the stairs becauseif you're standing there
pointing your phone on, people are going to be really
frustrated and rightly so. So live view makes it really
(04:25):
easy to know which direction youshould start walking or if
you're, even if you're not taking the subway, coming out of
the subway, even if you're just kind of turned around and you're
like, OK, I'm on 5th Ave. I need to go to 7th Ave.
I'm not exactly sure which direction to go.
Live View is going to make that much, much easier.
And that leads us to this episode's New York Know How.
(04:49):
This is from the NYC basic Tips and Etiquette.
It's a New York Times bestsellerlittle nice book with amazing
illustrations written by Nathan W Pyle.
We'll link it in the show notes,but we are pulling this directly
from there and the tip is. So this is from the book New
York Basic Tips and etiquette #41 If you get up early, the
(05:09):
city is yours. And it's got a great
illustration of an expansive NewYork City street and sidewalks,
and there's just one person on it, and she's going for a jog
and there's no one around her. We can attest to this.
My favorite time to go to Central Park is Saturday morning
around like 8:00 AM. Because it's empty.
(05:31):
There's no one there. It's way less crowded.
The streets are less crowded. People are hungover from the
night before or out getting breakfast or whatever it is.
I know on vacation a lot of times like I want to sleep in
totally understandable we have all people can understand that.
But there is a strong argument for if you are wanting to do
certain things like getting out into the city early in the
(05:54):
morning makes the experience so much better.
I. Feel like there's a old saying
about an early bird and a worm. Yeah.
What is that? I don't.
I think it's the early bird getsthe worm.
Which in this? Case.
The worm is not crowded sidewalks.
And the worm is the freshest bagel.
(06:14):
Oh, that's also a good point. And shorter lines.
For the freshest bagel. Cause most of the bagel shops
probably open at like 6 AM 7:00 AM.
We're checking obviously before you just venture on over at 6:00
AM to a bagel shop only for it to not be open, but much shorter
lines. And in this analogy, you are the
bird. Yes, correct.
(06:36):
Just to clarify, you are the bird getting empty New York City
streets, The worm. Well, if you're if you're a
bird, I'm a bird. It's gone very far now got them.
I don't know beyond that I can'thelp you anymore.
All right, and that is this episode's New York know how.
(06:57):
OK, back to Google Maps hacks. The second one here again, if
you want to open back up your phone is when you go to get
directions usually like if you're used to just driving,
you're just going to look at thecar one, but there is the one
that looks like a train. If you click on that, it's going
to show you a bunch of differentoptions, like for example,
again, the Hilton Midtown to World Trade Center.
(07:18):
Right now this moment, it's saying there's the E train
option or you can take the NQR, transfer to the 4-5, you can
take the AC, you can take the NQR to the 2-3.
It'll tell you roughly average amounts of time it's going to
take and how much walking is involved with each one.
But the hack here that a lot of people don't know is right
underneath the subway or like the train sign, it will say
(07:42):
leave. And then whatever time you're
currently looking at, if you click on that, it's going to
pull up a little dialogue box where you can change the time
that you're looking at. This is really helpful for when,
for example, if you're trying toplan out your route to go home
to get back to the airport to know exactly what time you need
to leave to catch a train, especially if you're taking any
(08:04):
trains that maybe only come every 10 to 20 minutes.
It's nice to have an idea. So instead of it right now
saying, you know, the 1:30, if Isaid, OK, I want to get to the
World Trade Center tomorrow, I want to be there at 9:00 AM so
that I can be first in line to get into the museum.
If that's your thing. You could change it to Sunday,
just tomorrow. We're recording on a Saturday.
(08:25):
And you can even switch it from the time that you leave to the
time that you arrive. So if you said I want to be at
the World Trade Center at 9:00 AM and then you click done, it's
going to give you train times that are specific to that.
And just by doing that, it actually gave me a different
option as to which one is the most efficient.
Instead of telling, instead of taking the E, it's telling me
(08:47):
that the R would be a little bitmore efficient.
So this is a nice thing to do again, especially if you're
going somewhere and you're goingto be coming home late at night
when train times might be different or you're leaving
early or whatever it might be. It's really helpful to be able
to kind of look ahead at what the real train times are going
to be when you're going to be doing your travel.
(09:09):
Just to piggyback off that a little bit for those of you that
don't know, early in the morningand late at night, the trains
run much less often. So usually throughout the day,
middle of the day, afternoon, the trains are coming pretty
often, pretty quickly. But if you, for example, are
flying out on a red eye and you're leaving late at night or
(09:30):
your flight leaves early at 6:00AM in the morning, like you need
to make sure that you are looking at your train times
ahead of time because sometimes your train only comes every 20
minutes. So if you miss that subway,
you're going to be waiting around, you're going to be
stressed. So that is Google Maps hack #2
is to look at the different train times again, you do that
(09:50):
by putting in your route, clicking the train option and
then right underneath it'll instead of the time that you
want now it'll also you can do the time you want to leave the
time you want to arrive, etcetera.
Extremely helpful thing and thatleads us to this episode.
You'll have to check it out segment.
The next stop is Istanbul kebab house.
(10:12):
Istanbul Kebab House is a kind of hole in the wall spot in
Hell's Kitchen. As you can guess, it is Turkish
food. When you walk in, it almost
looks like a like catering type place.
Like there's this big almost like deli style thing a lot.
They do a lot of to go orders, which is part of that.
And then there's only maybe fouror five total tables.
(10:35):
It's not usually super crowded so you don't need to worry very
often about a reservation, but this place really flies under
the radar. It is extremely authentic food
and the portions are massive. Like when you order one of their
meat platters or some of their dips, you are getting plenty of
it. When we go there, we love to do
the, I believe it's called the appetizer sampler.
(10:58):
And so you can get like Baba ghanoush, you can get hummus,
you can get their falafel, grapeleaves, the eggplant, it's like
a spiced eggplant. It's another one of our
favorites, so I definitely wouldrecommend doing like the
appetizer sampler. It's a pretty good size.
You could share it with two people.
You could also share it with sixpeople.
They have a bigger size that youcould get if you have more
(11:19):
people. And then we also love to get
like a meat, some type of meat platter.
Pro tip, do not eat the pepper, the pepper that comes on that
plate. It looks like a little bell
pepper or shishito pepper. Apparently it's only a jalapeno,
but I have a pretty high spice tolerance and I was crying once
(11:40):
when I ate a big chunk of it. I think it's the way that they
cook it is like something about it just activates and if you get
the wrong bite it's just so beyond.
It's like 5 times what a normal jalapeno is.
Or they just have a plug for these special Turkish jalapenos
that are actually spicy because.That might be it.
I'm not finding jalapenos like that at my grocery store.
Yeah, me neither, because I don't go to the grocery store
(12:01):
because I eat. Groceries.
It's really unassuming and it looks like it's it's like
grilled looks like it's cooked in a delicious manner and it is.
But just be warned. Just take a little nibble.
You've been warned. The staff here is always very
friendly. We have also liked the Turkish
coffee. It comes in these awesome little
authentic like Turkish coffee cups.
(12:22):
It's hard to even explain. They have these little like
covers on them. It's just it's a very like
unique kind of authentic experience to it's.
Like a little tea cup with gold all around it and then has like
a gold crown that like sits at the top and you have to like
take the crown off before you drink it.
We also really love the baklava there.
If you save room for dessert, it's like a little tiny portion
(12:42):
but nice to have a couple bites of dessert.
That's Istanbul Kebab House. It's in Hell's Kitchen.
It is fairly priced, especially for how big the portions are,
and we've always had a good experience there.
We've always had a good meal, we've always had friendly staff
and we've always gotten right into a table.
So that is this episode. You'll have to check it out
segment. And now back to Google Maps
(13:04):
hacks. Dan.
Clear of the closing doors, please.
All right. The last one that we're going to
talk about is the route filtering and options tab within
here. So again, I'm looking at Hilton
Midtown to World Trade Center. If you click options it, it's
kind of on the right hand side, about 1/4 of the way down your
(13:25):
screen. If you click options, what it's
going to do, it's going to bringup a bunch of different like
toggles. So for example, if you are the
type person where for whatever reason you're like, you know
what? I don't like taking the buses.
They're a little bit more confusing to me.
I only want to take the subway. You can come in and toggle off
buses or if you were like you know what subway for whatever
(13:45):
reason isn't working, you could turn off all the subways and
only show bus routes and just get a little bit more filtered
down to what you want to see. Also within this trip options
little mini menu, there is a wayto kind of filter your routes.
You can say by best route, whichis in most instances what I
leave it on. But there's also fewest
(14:06):
transfers and least walking as also a wheelchair accessible
one, which avoids stairs and prefers elevators, which is very
important if that is important to you, because not every
station in New York City is wheelchair accessible.
Very few of them have elevators.And so this is a nice way to be
(14:26):
aware of that. So I would recommend before you
come to New York City, putting in your hotel, putting in a few
different places that you want to go and just kind of punching
in and looking at the different things that you can do.
I know this sounds like a littlebit, I don't know.
I I look back, I think back to my life, like growing up where
you had a real paper map in yourhand and you know you had to
(14:47):
stop. OK grandpa with the paper map,
OK. And you had to stop at a gas
station. And your mom would be like, oh,
like, why don't you go ask them?And you're gonna be like, I know
how to get there, Don't worry about it.
And then like you'd get lost for20 minutes.
Like I grew up with that. And so this all seems like a
little bit overkill to be talking about tips for using
Google Maps. But I will say, most people
coming to New York City, you have a limited amount of time.
(15:09):
You're trying to do a lot. You're trying to pack things in
and getting on the wrong train or not knowing how to get around
it just is stressful. It's overwhelming.
It makes you frustrated and causes infighting within your
group. And no one wants that.
Everyone wants to just have a good time, so hopefully these
Google Maps hacks are helpful for you.
Again, this was all pulled from our Ultimate NYC Navigation and
(15:30):
Transportation guide. It's available on our website,
bettertogetherhere.com. It is completely free.
Yes, you need to put in your e-mail because just to be
transparent, we want to e-mail you about stuff.
We e-mail once a week. That's it.
There's no spam, there's no weird things.
We're not selling your data. We are emailing you once a week
with new articles, new episodes,and tips for exploring New York
(15:52):
City. So make sure that you sign up
for our newsletter, You automatically become signed up
by downloading the guide as well, and you have a much better
experience getting around New York City if you have not
already. Also, please engage with us on
whatever podcast platform you are listening right now.
We do this in our spare time. We make very little to no money
(16:15):
from this. We also want people to hear
about this because we think whatwe're telling people is helpful.
We think it is going to help them have a better experience in
New York. And we love New York and we want
more people to have a good experience in New York.
So you can help us do that and accomplish our goals by engaging
with us on the podcast platform.Following downloading episodes
shows the algorithm that you care a lot about it.
(16:38):
Leaving a review is extremely, extremely helpful.
Leaving ratings wherever you are.
And if you have questions about New York, you want us to look at
your itinerary. You aren't sure about a certain
place to stay or not? Send us an e-mail
hello@bettertogetherhere.com andwe will e-mail you back.
I would also add, if you know a friend or a family member that's
coming to New York, send them one of our episodes.
(16:59):
Send them the free transportation guide.
We want to get all this information out to as many
people as we can because again, we love New York City and we
want people to also love it. So thank you for your help in
doing that. And other than that, we'll catch
you on the next episode. This is the last stop on this
train. Everyone, please leave the
train. Thank you for watching.
Welcome to the Better Together Here podcast with your host,
Devin. And Ashley?
Helping you make the most of your time in New York City,
everyone. And welcome to today's episode
of the Better Together Here podcast.
My name is Devin. My name is Ashley and.
In today's episode, we are goingto give you 3 Google Maps hacks
that are going to make getting around New York City so, so much
easier. When I learned about one of
(00:24):
these, it actually kind of blew my mind and makes the whole like
coming up out of the subway experience way less confusing.
So let's get right into it. Most of what we're going to be
talking about is an excerpt fromour Ultimate NYC Navigation and
Transportation Guide. If you have not already, you can
download it for free. It is 30 plus pages covering all
(00:45):
kinds of topics like getting to and from the airports, how to
use the subway, how to use Google Maps, which is what we're
going to talk about today. Hailing taxis, walking, biking,
everything you would want to know about getting around New
York City, all for free, all in one convenient guide.
If you have not already, go to bettertogetherhere.com and in
the menu there's a button that says NYC Transportation Guide
(01:05):
and you can download it for free.
OK, so we're going to talk about3 things when it comes to using
Google Maps. That is just going to make your
life a lot easier. Let us have a quick caveat here
that some people like using Apple Maps, some people like
using City Mapper. There are plenty of navigation
apps. I, we personally have found
Google Maps to be pretty accurate, pretty efficient, and
(01:29):
pretty easy to use. I'm also just very integrated
into the world of like Google Maps lists and saving things
there. Many of these features that
we'll talk about are probably available in some way, shape or
form on other map platforms, butI'm going to kind of walk you
through these things from GoogleMaps specifically.
So as you're listening to this episode, this might sound a
(01:51):
little weird, but this will actually be really helpful as
I'm going to kind of like walk you through this.
Like if you wanted to pull out your phone and go open up Google
Maps and I'm going to show you exactly where things are.
I'm going to do this based off of Hilton Midtown, getting to
World, the World Trade Center. Those are just two random places
that I chose, but it will give us a good overview of what to
expect here. OK, the first tip that we're
(02:14):
going to talk about is live view.
Most of us have experienced You finally get off the subway, you
pop up out into the loud, busy, wild streets of New York, and
you're like, crap. What direction do I start
walking? You know you need to go a few
blocks, but you don't know if you should be going Uptown or
downtown, or you don't know which way Uptown or downtown is,
(02:36):
and you can't find street signs and it's dark and it's chaotic.
Enter live view. First step, step out of the
subway entrance while you're looking at your phone, trying to
figure out where you're going. Correct.
Step aside. Step aside when you come up out
of the stairs, give people an exit.
That is a great note to make because there's nothing more
(02:58):
frustrating than trying to get up out of the subway stairs and
there are people blocking the entrance.
Just do not do that. Take 10 steps away from the
stairs before you do any of this.
So again, going off of my example of Hilton Midtown to the
World Trade Center, if you were to click on the subway option
(03:18):
and then click on one of the public transportation options
that are available, for example,the one that says the E train,
28 minutes roughly. If you click on that, you'll see
at the beginning The Walking section, there's a little button
that says live view and it has amap icon.
When you click on that, what it does is it basically turns your
(03:39):
phone into like a augmented reality type thing and you
essentially grab your, you grab the camera, you tilt and you
kind of just pan your camera pointing at different buildings
and stores and signs around you.And it's going to tell you
exactly where you are based off those things.
And it will show you on the screen arrows pointing which
(04:02):
direction you should start walking.
This is a, a game changer to like not walk two blocks the
wrong direction and then finallyrealize and be like, oh crap, we
should have gone the other way. Like Ashley said, don't do this
at the top of the stairs becauseif you're standing there
pointing your phone on, people are going to be really
frustrated and rightly so. So live view makes it really
(04:25):
easy to know which direction youshould start walking or if
you're, even if you're not taking the subway, coming out of
the subway, even if you're just kind of turned around and you're
like, OK, I'm on 5th Ave. I need to go to 7th Ave.
I'm not exactly sure which direction to go.
Live View is going to make that much, much easier.
And that leads us to this episode's New York Know How.
(04:49):
This is from the NYC basic Tips and Etiquette.
It's a New York Times bestsellerlittle nice book with amazing
illustrations written by Nathan W Pyle.
We'll link it in the show notes,but we are pulling this directly
from there and the tip is. So this is from the book New
York Basic Tips and etiquette #41 If you get up early, the
(05:09):
city is yours. And it's got a great
illustration of an expansive NewYork City street and sidewalks,
and there's just one person on it, and she's going for a jog
and there's no one around her. We can attest to this.
My favorite time to go to Central Park is Saturday morning
around like 8:00 AM. Because it's empty.
(05:31):
There's no one there. It's way less crowded.
The streets are less crowded. People are hungover from the
night before or out getting breakfast or whatever it is.
I know on vacation a lot of times like I want to sleep in
totally understandable we have all people can understand that.
But there is a strong argument for if you are wanting to do
certain things like getting out into the city early in the
(05:54):
morning makes the experience so much better.
I. Feel like there's a old saying
about an early bird and a worm. Yeah.
What is that? I don't.
I think it's the early bird getsthe worm.
Which in this? Case.
The worm is not crowded sidewalks.
And the worm is the freshest bagel.
(06:14):
Oh, that's also a good point. And shorter lines.
For the freshest bagel. Cause most of the bagel shops
probably open at like 6 AM 7:00 AM.
We're checking obviously before you just venture on over at 6:00
AM to a bagel shop only for it to not be open, but much shorter
lines. And in this analogy, you are the
bird. Yes, correct.
(06:36):
Just to clarify, you are the bird getting empty New York City
streets, The worm. Well, if you're if you're a
bird, I'm a bird. It's gone very far now got them.
I don't know beyond that I can'thelp you anymore.
All right, and that is this episode's New York know how.
(06:57):
OK, back to Google Maps hacks. The second one here again, if
you want to open back up your phone is when you go to get
directions usually like if you're used to just driving,
you're just going to look at thecar one, but there is the one
that looks like a train. If you click on that, it's going
to show you a bunch of differentoptions, like for example,
again, the Hilton Midtown to World Trade Center.
(07:18):
Right now this moment, it's saying there's the E train
option or you can take the NQR, transfer to the 4-5, you can
take the AC, you can take the NQR to the 2-3.
It'll tell you roughly average amounts of time it's going to
take and how much walking is involved with each one.
But the hack here that a lot of people don't know is right
underneath the subway or like the train sign, it will say
(07:42):
leave. And then whatever time you're
currently looking at, if you click on that, it's going to
pull up a little dialogue box where you can change the time
that you're looking at. This is really helpful for when,
for example, if you're trying toplan out your route to go home
to get back to the airport to know exactly what time you need
to leave to catch a train, especially if you're taking any
(08:04):
trains that maybe only come every 10 to 20 minutes.
It's nice to have an idea. So instead of it right now
saying, you know, the 1:30, if Isaid, OK, I want to get to the
World Trade Center tomorrow, I want to be there at 9:00 AM so
that I can be first in line to get into the museum.
If that's your thing. You could change it to Sunday,
just tomorrow. We're recording on a Saturday.
(08:25):
And you can even switch it from the time that you leave to the
time that you arrive. So if you said I want to be at
the World Trade Center at 9:00 AM and then you click done, it's
going to give you train times that are specific to that.
And just by doing that, it actually gave me a different
option as to which one is the most efficient.
Instead of telling, instead of taking the E, it's telling me
(08:47):
that the R would be a little bitmore efficient.
So this is a nice thing to do again, especially if you're
going somewhere and you're goingto be coming home late at night
when train times might be different or you're leaving
early or whatever it might be. It's really helpful to be able
to kind of look ahead at what the real train times are going
to be when you're going to be doing your travel.
(09:09):
Just to piggyback off that a little bit for those of you that
don't know, early in the morningand late at night, the trains
run much less often. So usually throughout the day,
middle of the day, afternoon, the trains are coming pretty
often, pretty quickly. But if you, for example, are
flying out on a red eye and you're leaving late at night or
(09:30):
your flight leaves early at 6:00AM in the morning, like you need
to make sure that you are looking at your train times
ahead of time because sometimes your train only comes every 20
minutes. So if you miss that subway,
you're going to be waiting around, you're going to be
stressed. So that is Google Maps hack #2
is to look at the different train times again, you do that
(09:50):
by putting in your route, clicking the train option and
then right underneath it'll instead of the time that you
want now it'll also you can do the time you want to leave the
time you want to arrive, etcetera.
Extremely helpful thing and thatleads us to this episode.
You'll have to check it out segment.
The next stop is Istanbul kebab house.
(10:12):
Istanbul Kebab House is a kind of hole in the wall spot in
Hell's Kitchen. As you can guess, it is Turkish
food. When you walk in, it almost
looks like a like catering type place.
Like there's this big almost like deli style thing a lot.
They do a lot of to go orders, which is part of that.
And then there's only maybe fouror five total tables.
(10:35):
It's not usually super crowded so you don't need to worry very
often about a reservation, but this place really flies under
the radar. It is extremely authentic food
and the portions are massive. Like when you order one of their
meat platters or some of their dips, you are getting plenty of
it. When we go there, we love to do
the, I believe it's called the appetizer sampler.
(10:58):
And so you can get like Baba ghanoush, you can get hummus,
you can get their falafel, grapeleaves, the eggplant, it's like
a spiced eggplant. It's another one of our
favorites, so I definitely wouldrecommend doing like the
appetizer sampler. It's a pretty good size.
You could share it with two people.
You could also share it with sixpeople.
They have a bigger size that youcould get if you have more
(11:19):
people. And then we also love to get
like a meat, some type of meat platter.
Pro tip, do not eat the pepper, the pepper that comes on that
plate. It looks like a little bell
pepper or shishito pepper. Apparently it's only a jalapeno,
but I have a pretty high spice tolerance and I was crying once
(11:40):
when I ate a big chunk of it. I think it's the way that they
cook it is like something about it just activates and if you get
the wrong bite it's just so beyond.
It's like 5 times what a normal jalapeno is.
Or they just have a plug for these special Turkish jalapenos
that are actually spicy because.That might be it.
I'm not finding jalapenos like that at my grocery store.
Yeah, me neither, because I don't go to the grocery store
(12:01):
because I eat. Groceries.
It's really unassuming and it looks like it's it's like
grilled looks like it's cooked in a delicious manner and it is.
But just be warned. Just take a little nibble.
You've been warned. The staff here is always very
friendly. We have also liked the Turkish
coffee. It comes in these awesome little
authentic like Turkish coffee cups.
(12:22):
It's hard to even explain. They have these little like
covers on them. It's just it's a very like
unique kind of authentic experience to it's.
Like a little tea cup with gold all around it and then has like
a gold crown that like sits at the top and you have to like
take the crown off before you drink it.
We also really love the baklava there.
If you save room for dessert, it's like a little tiny portion
(12:42):
but nice to have a couple bites of dessert.
That's Istanbul Kebab House. It's in Hell's Kitchen.
It is fairly priced, especially for how big the portions are,
and we've always had a good experience there.
We've always had a good meal, we've always had friendly staff
and we've always gotten right into a table.
So that is this episode. You'll have to check it out
segment. And now back to Google Maps
(13:04):
hacks. Dan.
Clear of the closing doors, please.
All right. The last one that we're going to
talk about is the route filtering and options tab within
here. So again, I'm looking at Hilton
Midtown to World Trade Center. If you click options it, it's
kind of on the right hand side, about 1/4 of the way down your
(13:25):
screen. If you click options, what it's
going to do, it's going to bringup a bunch of different like
toggles. So for example, if you are the
type person where for whatever reason you're like, you know
what? I don't like taking the buses.
They're a little bit more confusing to me.
I only want to take the subway. You can come in and toggle off
buses or if you were like you know what subway for whatever
(13:45):
reason isn't working, you could turn off all the subways and
only show bus routes and just get a little bit more filtered
down to what you want to see. Also within this trip options
little mini menu, there is a wayto kind of filter your routes.
You can say by best route, whichis in most instances what I
leave it on. But there's also fewest
(14:06):
transfers and least walking as also a wheelchair accessible
one, which avoids stairs and prefers elevators, which is very
important if that is important to you, because not every
station in New York City is wheelchair accessible.
Very few of them have elevators.And so this is a nice way to be
(14:26):
aware of that. So I would recommend before you
come to New York City, putting in your hotel, putting in a few
different places that you want to go and just kind of punching
in and looking at the different things that you can do.
I know this sounds like a littlebit, I don't know.
I I look back, I think back to my life, like growing up where
you had a real paper map in yourhand and you know you had to
(14:47):
stop. OK grandpa with the paper map,
OK. And you had to stop at a gas
station. And your mom would be like, oh,
like, why don't you go ask them?And you're gonna be like, I know
how to get there, Don't worry about it.
And then like you'd get lost for20 minutes.
Like I grew up with that. And so this all seems like a
little bit overkill to be talking about tips for using
Google Maps. But I will say, most people
coming to New York City, you have a limited amount of time.
(15:09):
You're trying to do a lot. You're trying to pack things in
and getting on the wrong train or not knowing how to get around
it just is stressful. It's overwhelming.
It makes you frustrated and causes infighting within your
group. And no one wants that.
Everyone wants to just have a good time, so hopefully these
Google Maps hacks are helpful for you.
Again, this was all pulled from our Ultimate NYC Navigation and
(15:30):
Transportation guide. It's available on our website,
bettertogetherhere.com. It is completely free.
Yes, you need to put in your e-mail because just to be
transparent, we want to e-mail you about stuff.
We e-mail once a week. That's it.
There's no spam, there's no weird things.
We're not selling your data. We are emailing you once a week
with new articles, new episodes,and tips for exploring New York
(15:52):
City. So make sure that you sign up
for our newsletter, You automatically become signed up
by downloading the guide as well, and you have a much better
experience getting around New York City if you have not
already. Also, please engage with us on
whatever podcast platform you are listening right now.
We do this in our spare time. We make very little to no money
(16:15):
from this. We also want people to hear
about this because we think whatwe're telling people is helpful.
We think it is going to help them have a better experience in
New York. And we love New York and we want
more people to have a good experience in New York.
So you can help us do that and accomplish our goals by engaging
with us on the podcast platform.Following downloading episodes
shows the algorithm that you care a lot about it.
(16:38):
Leaving a review is extremely, extremely helpful.
Leaving ratings wherever you are.
And if you have questions about New York, you want us to look at
your itinerary. You aren't sure about a certain
place to stay or not? Send us an e-mail
hello@bettertogetherhere.com andwe will e-mail you back.
I would also add, if you know a friend or a family member that's
coming to New York, send them one of our episodes.
(16:59):
Send them the free transportation guide.
We want to get all this information out to as many
people as we can because again, we love New York City and we
want people to also love it. So thank you for your help in
doing that. And other than that, we'll catch
you on the next episode. This is the last stop on this
train. Everyone, please leave the
train. Thank you for watching.
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