Tom’s Guide – “Today, Google announced the arrival of several new features meant to help with your holiday plans. The features cover everything from traveling on public transit to planning trips with your electric vehicle or a trailer. Most of the features are built around making travel easier and to help you get around without getting caught in the holiday crowds.

• Immersive View
• EV trip planning
• Popular Times
• Product Search
• Report Weather disruptions
• Routing tailored to trailers
• Transit Details
• Travel Deals on Google Flights

Some of the features already exist in Google Maps but have been improved or are a good tool to use as you plan your travels and shopping trips over the holiday season. Immersive View, for example, has been integrated with Maps since 2023, but as Google notes in its blog post, the tool could be useful for planning routes. Using the 3D planner, you can scope out the parking situation or unexpected turns before you leave. Similarly, Google already offers a Popular Times feature to track the best and worst times to travel. This year, Google says that its analyzed the data from that tool and found the busiest and least busy times for popular places that get a lot of traffic over the holidays like the airport, post office and shopping centers. Google also highlighted the Gemini integration that the company has added to maps this year which utilizes the AI assistant to find events using conversational language like “what are fun winter activities in New York city?” You can also ask Gemini questions like “Does this place have free parking?” The assistant will also provide summarized reviews of locations to give you an idea of what others think of a restaurant, event space or store.”