Some of the best things in life are free. One of those happens to be the “My Maps” feature on Google Maps, which makes planning your next trip a cinch.

I’m planning a trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland for later this summer. I got my flight, booked my tour for Northern Ireland and created a list of sights from suggestions from some of my more experienced Dublin-traveling colleagues.

I have three days in Dublin before heading on my tour and then one more half-day back in Dublin afterwards. I set out to find a nice hotel or hostel that was in the middle of all of the sights I want to photograph, bars I want to frequent and historical locations I want to explore.  After reviewing my list, I was pretty sure it was going to be difficult to snag a bed in a location that made it easy to get to all of them without too much hassle.

My Map for Dublin (Click to Make Larger)

That’s when I discovered what might be my new favorite travel tool: My Maps on Google Maps.

1. I opened up the My Maps section and searched for Dublin. I narrowed it down to the city center – where most of the attractions I want to see in Dublin are located.

2. I entered all of the addresses for the places I want to see. The Guinness Storehouse, check; National Museum of Ireland, check; and so-on-and-so-on. For each of the locations I added, I got to choose one of 91 different markers. From push-pins to buses – useful for bus stops – there are a ton of options to make it easy to recognize what you’ve marked on the map.

And for many of the more popular spots, there are pictures of the destination (very helpful for the visually inclined) and links to the official Web sites. It’s mustard.

3. Now that I had an idea of where all of the spots I wanted to hit were, I added in the hotel and hostel options in the area that I was considering.

In about ten minutes, I had a personalized map of Dublin that made it easy to not only see where all of the stuff I wanted to do is located, but also where I can stay that gives me easy access to all of those spots. Plus, I can print out that map before my trip, share it with friends and share it with everyone so that other travelers can benefit.

Once you’ve gone and taken videos and photos, you can add them to your map. You can even invite others to collaborate and add their own markers to the map.

Check out my map.