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Instagram imitates Google Maps: new ‘Popular Places’ feature lets you search for restaurants, parks, hotels and more

Every once in a while, the popular sister social network of Facebook adds new features and improvements to the platform. In fact, in a few weeks, Instagram has introduced, among other things, the control of sensitive content, the automatic translation of the text of the stories and the limitation of interactions in private messages.

The latest innovation is a function that allows you to find places of interest on Instagram (such as restaurants, cafes or parks) taking into account the location of the user and the popularity of the establishments. Let’s go, in the purest Google Maps style. The social network promised that Spain would be one of the first countries to have it available and, indeed, it is already active for everyone on both iOS and Android.

Finding popular places in your area

If you want to find popular places close to your current location, just follow the following steps on iOS and Android (as long as you have the location activated, of course):

  • Enter the Explore tab by clicking on the magnifying glass icon that you will find at the bottom.
  • Once inside, touch the map icon in the upper right corner, next to the search bar.
Instagram Popular Places
  • The first time you use the Popular Places feature, you will see a message explaining what it is. Press ‘Start’.
  • When the page of ‘Popular places’You will see on a map the most popular places of interest in your environment and a list at the bottom with images, number of publications, schedules and even prices.
Instagram Popular Places 02
  • Precisely in that lower part, above the list, you can find more specific recommendations clicking on the different labels (Restaurants, Cafes, Tourist places, Hotels …), but keep in mind that some of these labels may not contain points of interest.

Apart from this process, you can also do a search using a hashtag (for example, #restaurant) so that Instagram will show you a map and a list with the places published with that tag.

Finding Popular Places in Another Region

In addition to finding places near your current location, the ‘Popular Places’ feature allows you to search in other areas (for example, at the destination of your next trip). To do this, you have to do the following:

  • Enter the Explore tab by clicking on the magnifying glass icon that you will find at the bottom.
  • Tap on the search bar and tap on the location icon, which is all the way to the right.
  • Enter the name of the city or region you want to explore (for example, New York) and choose one of the results from the drop-down list that will appear below.
Instagram Popular Places 03
  • A new page will instantly open with a small map of that region and featured or recent images posted by users there.
  • Tap on ‘Explore Nearby Places’ (iOS) or ‘Explore Nearby’ (Android) and the ‘Popular places’ page will appear with its corresponding map and the list of the most popular places of interest there.
Instagram Popular Places 04

From there, by clicking on the different labels, you can find Restaurants, Cafes, Tourist Places, Hotels, etc. of the area with related publications and information such as the price, the time or the distance.

There is no doubt that, with its limitations, this new Instagram feature is inspired by what Google Maps has offered for a long time. Yes indeed, do not expect to find reviews and ratings in it of users, you will have to settle for the posts they have made.

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