Navratri parking hassles: How to find your car with Google Maps

The festive season is upon us, and Navratri is just around the corner. While you’re probably busy getting your best outfits ready and choosing which Garba venues to hit first this year, there’s a key aspect you’re likely missing completely.

Just like you, most of the city is likely planning to hit the same venues too, making parking a proper Navratri-nightmare. If you’ve ever parked your car a little farther than usual and struggled to find it later, you know exactly what’s about to happen.

However, a neat Google Maps trick lets you pin your car’s parking location down to the meter and locate it at the press of a button when you’re headed back home. Here’s how you can save your parking location and find your car easily this festive season.

How to save your parking location

When you’ve found a spot and parked your car, open Google Maps on your phone and tap the blue compass icon on the bottom right to bring the screen to your exact GPS location. Give your phone a few seconds to accurately pinpoint your location if necessary.

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Your current location will now be denoted with a blue dot on the screen. Zoom in on the dot as much as possible using the pinch out gesture and tap on the dot. You should see a few options pop up. Choose the Save Parking option to save the spot, which should now be denoted with a dedicated icon saying, “You parked here”.

If you’re on an Android smartphone, you can tap on this icon and swipe up to see some more feature, allowing you to set a timer (for timed paid parking venues) or change your parking location. You can also remove the parking icon from this menu when you return to your car.

Finding your way back to the car

When your Navratri session is done and you plan on heading back home, simply open up Google Maps, tap on the blue compass again to home in on your location, and you should see the save parking spot icon. If the car is farther away than you expected, you can tap on the icon and navigate to the saved location too.

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There you go. You now have instant navigation to your car, irrespective of where it is parked. While Navratri is always a joyful experience, we hope this tutorial also makes the festival a little more convenient for you.