Google Maps MCP: places, routes and trip plans for agents

Ask an agent for a two-day Kyoto plan and place search alone won’t cut it. It has to pin down the right venue, check opening hours, work out walking or transit time, and group stops that sit near each other. @cablate/mcp-google-map packages those chained calls as 18 tools, every one marked read-only. It’s a community project with about 470 stars as of 2026-10-06.

What it does

• Place lookup: maps_search_places, maps_search_nearby and maps_place_details return ratings, hours and reviews; maps_compare_places lines candidates up side by side.
• Routing and ordering: maps_directions, maps_distance_matrix, and maps_plan_route, which orders up to 25 stops for field visits or deliveries.
• Area context: maps_explore_area covers several categories in one call, alongside elevation, time zone, weather, air quality and static maps.
• Local rankings: maps_local_rank_tracker measures where a business ranks across a geographic grid, for local SEO work.
• Works without MCP too: the same tools ship as a standalone CLI (exec geocode and friends) that prints JSON, and three Skills cover general map research, trip planning and local SEO.

Who it’s for

• Travelers who want Claude Desktop or Cursor to draft an itinerary and check every leg’s travel time.
• Ops teams geocoding address lists or ordering a day of field visits.
• Local marketers checking how a shop ranks from one neighborhood to the next.

Setup

Needs Node.js 18+ and a Google Maps Platform key on a billing-enabled project (common workflows need Places API (New), Routes API and Geocoding API). For stdio clients:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-maps": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cablate/mcp-google-map", "--stdio"],
      "env": { "GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Set GOOGLE_MAPS_ENABLED_TOOLS to expose only the tools you need. npx -y @cablate/mcp-google-map doctor checks the setup without sending a live request.

Our take

The Google Maps sample server in the official MCP repo covered a few basic lookups and is now archived. This one is far more complete: composite tools chain the find, verify and route steps, and Streamable HTTP mode isolates API keys per session, so a team can share one server. Watch the bill, though. Every call runs on your own Google Cloud account, and doctor --live and the end-to-end tests send billable requests too. The README is also clear that a successful response doesn’t prove a place is safe, accessible or open right now, and that showing reviews or photos means following Google’s attribution rules. MIT licensed.