12

This weekend I was on a 7h trip and looking for the next favorite restaurant along the route. All had was an android cell phone and a pretty slow internet connection. My first try was the hompage of that fast food company but that was not optimized for slow internet/cell phone So I gave a up after 10mins waiting.

My one and only test with google maps just showed the restaurants in the vicinity (off the route).

So if I plan a route with google maps or even navigate, is it possible to define a search for POIs along the current route (like for favourite fast food restaurants)?

Just realized that there's a workaround for a machine with sufficient screen size - just set the route on google maps and enter your favourite restaurants name in the search box. Maps will show all hits on the actual view, zooming in/zooming out will change the result list. So at home it's possible to quickly find POI's along the route (just because route and POIs are displayed on one map).

But this is not an option for a cell phone display - if I zoom out to look around 150 km ahead on the route, then the map and the results are far to small...

Improve this question
1
  • 1
    The workaround does not seem to work (any more?). In the web version of Google Maps, you can either search for a route and display the resulting routes, or you can search for locations. When you are searching for routes, the normal search box for locations disappears, and when you switch back to searching for locations, the discovered routes disappear.
    – O. R. Mapper
    May 13, 2017 at 9:17

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
7

Road.li lets you put in your start point, end point, and a query, and it will show you places that match the query along your route. It also shows how much time each place adds to your trip.

It is a tool that I created.

Improve this answer
5
  • 4
    Really nice tool!
    – Andreas Dolk
    Sep 9, 2013 at 9:55
  • Hi, I really found it interesting is the code accessible? or can you please explain how to integrate?
    – syms
    Sep 30, 2015 at 17:47
  • Cool, glad you find it interesting! You can check out (err, clone) the code here: github.com/llama/roadli.
    – doug
    Sep 30, 2015 at 22:23
  • "Roadli currently only supports trips shorter than 300 km" :-( One does usually not need a break during a < 3 hour drive. Otherwise pretty cool!
    – Bugs Bunny
    Jan 31, 2016 at 16:31
  • 1
    Seems extremely helpful. Bookmarked. You may want to also answer my similar question. The question is different in that I was particularly looking for non-mobile solutions, but as your solution is web-based, it may qualify as an answer there, too. The only enhancement I could imagine right now is that the map seems to be fixed at 1/4 of the page size, without an option to enlarge it.
    – O. R. Mapper
    May 13, 2017 at 9:19
1

I know this is quite an old question, but I found this site that provides some value:

Find Businesses On Your Way

It's not perfect (or perhaps I've not played with it enough yet), but it's better than anything else I've stumbled across so far.

Improve this answer
1
  • This site no longer appears to work.
    – rand0m1
    Sep 13, 2018 at 16:32

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.