4sqMap now lets you see foursquare Explore recommendations for anywhere you want to go

The recommendations I get from foursquare Explore are typically very good. I’m the kind of person who likes to plan ahead, so it’s always aggravated me a little that I could only get recommendations near my current location. That all changes today thanks to 4sqMap.

You can now get Explore recommendations for any spot on the globe just by dragging the map pin to your desired location. Explore’s recommendations appear to the left of the map. At the top of the page, you can select categories such as Food or Nightlife, just like in the foursquare app on your phone. It even has clickable versions of the search suggestions foursquare offers (i.e., “Try Tacos”).

I really like that I can now get recommendations when I’m heading to a different part of town. I no longer need to wait until I get there to fire up the app and see what foursquare recommends for me to eat. I simply check before I leave the house. It’s also great for foursquare users who don’t have Explore built into their native apps yet.

4sqMap essentially offers a front end to the powerful foursquare API. It shows maps of your friends’ recent checkins, venues you’ve visited, your mayorships, where you’ve earned badges, and a list of venues you’ve visited in each category. Since our original post, they’ve added maps showing foursquare checkin tweets in real time, trending venues, specials, and your foursquare leaderboard. They’ve also added a powerful map-based search that can be filtered by foursquare category.

The leaderboard and Explore were only made available to third-party developers on Tuesday, so it’s impressive to see both of them worked in to 4sqMap so quickly.