How to save relatives’ houses for balik kampung

Balik kampung often means many houses in a few days: parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins who have moved to a new taman. Some you visit once a year, some you have never been to. Kampung houses often have no number, several share one road, and the signal tends to drop just when you need the map.

A list of exact pins, made once, means nobody has to call ahead for directions or follow another car through the kampung.

1. Make a list. In Google Maps, go to your saved places (in the You tab) and create a new list, for example “Balik kampung”. Menu names can differ a little between versions of the app.
2. Drop a pin on each gate. Search for the area, switch to Satellite, then press and hold on the house’s gate. Check that it is the right house before you save it.
3. Save it to the list. On the pin’s card, tap Save and choose your list.
4. Name it. A dropped pin has only its coordinates as a name, so add a note to it in the list, such as “Rumah Mak Long, blue gate, next to the mosque”, or give it a private label with Label.
5. Share the list with your spouse or your siblings so everyone has the same pins. Open the list and tap Share.
6. Download the area. Before you leave, download an offline map of the kampung area in Google Maps (from your profile picture, choose Offline maps), so you can still see the map and get driving directions where the signal is weak.

For a house you have never been to, ask in the family WhatsApp group. Whoever lives there or nearby can drop a pin on the gate in Google Maps and share it, as in our guide to sharing an exact house location on WhatsApp. Open the pin from the chat and save it to your list.

When you are at a house, take a minute before you leave: press and hold on the map where you are standing at the gate, and save that pin. Next year, nobody has to remember the way.

Waze can save places too: search for a place, then save it from its card. That works well for houses with a clear address. For houses without one, keep the exact pins in Google Maps, and send yourself a Waze link for each (the steps are in If they use Waze).

• Write the turn, not just the house: “second junction after the padi field, house with the rambutan tree”.
• Add a photo of the gate in the family group. A house looks different at night, and from the road than from the map.
• Check old pins once a year. Families move, and new houses go up on the same land.