Google Maps is a great tool to find directions while traveling, but for many like us who do not own cars, those directions would not always be the best one. Well though the destination may be the same, directions for driving also includes conditions such as one ways and more, giving you a curved route rather than a shorter one which you can cover by walking.

That said we definitely have one more reason to love Google Maps even more, with the introduction of Walking directions. Walking directions as the name suggests will be quite useful for people who want to walk to their destinations.

You can tell Google Maps that you want walking directions, and we’ll try to find you a route that’s direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when we know about them. Just get directions as you normally would. If you’re going 10 km or less (some call this 6.2 miles), we’ll show you a link that you can click to get "Walking" directions.

Walking directions with Google Maps is definitely a relief, since earlier we had to decipher the map to get the shortest directions that we could walk out. Check out the difference when we searched for directions between 900 Broadway, NY, NY 10003 and Union Square, NY, NY.

Like you can see, walking directions definitely makes a large difference when you want to walk it out. What do you think of this new introduction? Would it be useful for you?

Tip: If you only see driving directions, copy the permalink of the page by clicking on "Link to this page", append &dirflg=w and paste the new URL in the address bar.

Google Lat Long Blog [Via Google Operating System]