Here’s a shortcut I’ve been finding useful when reviewing walking trails where you can’t verify their existence from the Wayfarer map. He’s an example:
A trail marker in the woods.. of course, the Google satellite photo looks something like this:
I’ve found that OpenStreetMap (or indeed several other mapping services) have better trail information than Google. But how do you find the right spot on those maps?
Wayfarer uses two types of address to verify location, a standard street address or a Plus Code. In this case the Plus Code is: 284V+94 Milton Keynes, UK
Plus Codes are a Google-only thing, and you can’t use them on other mapping services. But what you can do is find the latitude and longitude in Google Maps. First search for the plus code and then right-click on the pin.
Click on the coordinates, in this case that copies 52.005978713080765, -0.6571924889557412 or something similar into the clipboard.
You can then past the coordinates into OSM, Bing or whatever will accept them. That gives you a map like this (OSM is missing some of the new growth trees)..
Right-clicking the path in OSM gives you this.. Query Features | OpenStreetMap
This gives you a confirmation that the named trail goes through this point..
Of course, it only works if the trail is in OSM, but of course you can use it on any submitted wayspot in any mapping service if you quickly want to get a second opinion on the submission.