Snapchat Wants To Help You Find Your Next Vacation

June 26, 2017

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3 min read

Snapchat Wants To Help You Find Your Next Vacation

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Snapchat took the world by storm when it allowed users to augment their world through its playful puppy filters. Now, the social media platform wants to inspire travelers looking for their next real-world destination with its new “Snap Maps” feature. Accessible by pinching out from Snapchat’s main camera, the feature lets you see where your friends are, what complete strangers are “Snapping” and provides glimpses of events happening around the world.

You’ll be able to spot where your friends are when they have the app open and also see high concentrations of where Snaps are being sent. If there’s a special event — like Pride in New York City — it will show the location of the parade as a featured bubble on its heat map.

It seems to be an extension of last year’s “Discover” feature, which allowed users to submit and search for crowd-sourced stories on events like parades and holiday celebrations. The map, which basically looks like a cartoon-ish version of Google Maps, creates a more visually appealing way to understand where the stories are getting submitted from.

While Snapchat admits maps aren’t a new concept, it claims to have reinvented the context of it. “It’s not about figuring out how to get to your destination, but about discovering where you want to go," Snap product designer, Jack Brody, told Refinery29.

Think of it as window-shopping for your next vacation. On the map, you can go to any location in the world — Paris, for example — and see what people in that location are snapping.

Basically, you can explore snaps of landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building and see what it would look like if you were actually there.

The next time you catch a serious case of wanderlust, you can use Snap Maps to scope out your next vacation spot — or simply satisfy it from the comfort of your couch. Interested in following along with TPG on all his travel adventures? Follow him on Snapchat or scan his "Snapcode" via the app here: