How to feel like a local with our free interactive maps on your phone

Travelling the world, we make sure to give you access to the best spots so that you can plan your trips and enjoy them to the fullest. Our free interactive maps sum up the best of the best and give you access to insiders’ tips. To make the most of them, you can easily download them and customize them to your own needs.

We use Google Maps to create the maps, and we use maps.me on the go. Regularly listed as one of the top travel apps in the world, maps.me has proven to be a fantastic asset on 4 continents and 20 countries since we discovered this fantastic smartphone application for our trip to Japan.

We love it so much that we want you to be able to use our interactive maps on the go as well: here is a brief tutorial, based on the example of the interactive map of Paris.

Start by downloading the free “maps.me” app on your smartphone (the rest of the example is based on an iPhone and will also work with Android and BlackBerry devices).
Start the app on your smartphone and download maps section to get the relevant regions for your trip. In our case, browse to Europe, France, Paris & Ile-de-France, and “Download map”.
Now, on your computer, go to the relevant interactive map: https://bestregardsfromfar.com/europe/france/paris/

Click to enlarge and open in Google Maps
A new tab opens and the map opens in Google: click on the 3 vertical dots on the top-right-hand corner of the reading plane to access more options. Then, click on “download KML”.

Downloading our interactive Google Map

Then, check the export to KML (only) option. And OK.

Select the format and OK

Next, a window opens prompting you to either open or save the file. Choose to save it to the directory of your choice.
Once downloaded, go to that directory and email the file to yourself, on an email address you get on your smartphone.
On your smartphone, check your email, and press for a long moment on the *.kml file attachement at the bottom of the email you have just sent to yourself. Several options will appear: select the “copy to maps.me” option.

Transferring the interactive Google map to Maps.me

Maps.me will open, and all of our pins will appear on your map! Click on a pin to access the relevant notes and links to our articles and more. Note though that the colors of the pins are not respected, and all the pins appear in red by default.