Seeing some of the most popular monuments, historical sites, museums and galleries in the world is an exciting part of travel, but visiting them can be frustrating if you don’t have room to move.
There are so many wonderful tools available nowadays that make travel easier, from having a map of the world in your pocket to reviews on just about everything.
Now there’s even a way to tell when places are going to be busy. When you do a Google search of a museum, gallery, restaurant and so on, a popular times bar will pop up where you can check when the attraction will be the busiest.
With this tool, you can see when there are less people likely to be at the attraction and plan your trip for then.
For example, if you are visiting New York City you may want to see the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
A Google search of MoMA will bring up Google’s snapshot of it. Here you’ll see the address, opening hours, events and reviews before the popular times.
You can see that Mondays are a quiet day for the MoMA, whereas you may want to avoid Friday afternoons because that’s when people traffic reaches its peak (see below).
You’ll also notice that it tells you how long people typically spend at the attraction. The popular times and duration of visit data is based on data collected by Google through people who have visited the destination and opted into Google Location History.
This simple, free tool could save you a lot of frustration and really enhance your experience at some of the world’s most popular attractions.