Comparing Google Places API and Google Directions API

The Google Places API allows users to search for and retrieve detailed information about places, including restaurants, businesses, and points of interest near a given location. It can return data like addresses, phone numbers, operating hours, user reviews, ratings, and even photos. The Google Directions API, on the other hand, is designed for route calculation between two locations using various transportation modes like driving, walking, or public transit. It supports alternative routes, estimated times, waypoints, traffic-aware routing, and road avoidance features. The notebook demonstrates how to get latitude and longitude from a given address using Google’s Geocoding API. It also shows how to search for nearby pizza restaurants by using the Places API with a 1.5 km radius and keyword filtering. A sample query finds multiple pizza places near Long Island City and displays their names and addresses. The Directions API is then used to calculate a route from Long Island City to Wall Street in NYC, showing step-by-step instructions, duration, and distance. The final section includes a map visualization using Folium, where decoded Google polylines are used to draw the full route on an interactive map. Altogether, the notebook serves as a practical guide for combining location-based APIs with Python for real-world navigation and search tasks.