Malls are terrifying places. Malls are either so crowded that you can barely wade through the legions of shoppers feverish with the bloodlust of commerce or they are so devoid of both stores and shoppers that they represent a chilling example of commercial ghost towns.
Regardless of which experience you can call your own the next time you visit a mall, it’s always helpful to know exactly where you’re going so you can get what you need and then find the nearest point of egress as quickly as possible. While Bing Maps might not be able to help you fend off the feral hordes of shoppers you encounter or make you forget about how depressing it is that a mall has become a boneyard of American dreams, it can at least help you get in and out of there efficiently as if you had memorized the floor plan of the facility itself. Only, thanks to Bing’s Venue Maps, you don’t need to memorize any mall’s schematics because you can see the layout of the entire structure and location of every store right from Bing Maps.
For a while now Bing Maps has been providing floor maps for shopping malls, museums, airports, amusement parks, and many other sprawling structures that might promote the unenviable condition of getting lost. Today, Bing announced that it has added thousands of Venue Maps for shopping malls located around the world, bringing the total tally of Venue Maps to over 2,750. This update, according to Bing Maps Blog, is especially focused on shopping malls in North America, Europe, and Asia. More, if you’re in the U.S. or the U.K., all of the new Venue Maps are available on Windows Phone Maps (7.5), the Bing app for iPhone, and the service’s mobile site, m.bing.com/maps.
While users can peruse the expansive list of Venue Maps by country or alphabetical arrangement, here’s a few examples of what Bing Maps is serving up to give you a heads up of what you cana look forward to:
Europe Mall, Russia
Factory Getafe, Spain
Centrale Shopping Centre, England
Centre Commercial Charmilles, Switzerland
Now, sally forth through the great lands of shopping and find your way deftly.