Mapping My Layovers

When I booked my flight back to California after finals, I realized I couldn’t remember all the airports I’d passed through this year. Chicago? Phoenix? Maybe Minneapolis? I wasn’t sure. I like keeping track of where I’ve been, but the layovers, the in-between spots, had slipped through the cracks.

So I opened up Google My Maps, Google’s tool for custom map making, and started plotting each one. It turned into a fun little project, and now I have a visual record of my freshman year flights.

I hope you find this as a useful tool for tracking your own travel! Here is a link to the custom map in Google My Maps.

To make the map, I created a new layer called First Year and searched for each airport I remembered. Google will drop a pin automatically. Then I used the “Draw a line” feature to connect the routes in order. Simply searching up each airport will teleport you there to place a pin and complete your line. You can add labels or notes, but even without them, the lines start to tell a story.

Google My Maps is easy to use, and I don’t hear it mentioned often, even though it’s great for more than just travel logs. I can imagine using it for trip planning, school projects (like mapping Spanish-speaking countries), or even local guides.

I don’t think every layover needs to be meaningful, but seeing them all on a map made the year feel a little more grounded. If you’ve had a lot of travel, or just like organizing things visually, it’s worth trying out.

Map last updated: March 8th, 2026.