So I'm doing prepositions as kind of a review for my high schoolers (its gone really well! Some of the most animated classes so far!) and I really want to follow it up soon with a lesson on directions.

I was thinking of using google maps to fly around a major city. I'm sure students have been bombarded with countless 2D maps, and want to figure out a way to make this much more interesting.

The problem is walking through a city using street view is a clunky process unless the landmarks are only three or four blocks apart. Also, another concern I have is how long it will take for me to go from place to place, only allowing one response every other minute or so.

One thing I do have in my favor is that if I work it right, I might (maybe?) be able to get the computer lab reserved for a week, which could (maybe?) help.

Anyone have any ideas as to how I could make this work out?

Another idea I just had was a scavenger hunt, and the class has to work together to get screen shots, somehow requiring them to tell each other where things are.

TL;DR
2D maps are boring, and I hate boring. Walk through maps are awesome, and I want one for my lesson. Concerned that a lesson would be all style and no substance if it was just me up front running a slow-moving google street view. Need help streamlining and getting more speaking out of it. Might be able to use computer lab. Also could make it a scavenger hunt.

I used google street view in one my directions lessons last year. It worked fairly well, but I only had access to the main computer in the classroom, so I could only have one student at a time up front using it. I had the other students direct him/her using a 2D paper map that I'd printed out of the same place.

Luckily for me, my hometown is pretty quaint and small--the coffee shop, post office, bakery, bank, pharmacy, school, etc, are all literally within a square mile. So it worked to have the kids direct each other using their 2D maps. (I was surprised at how hard they found it, though, to read a 2D map correctly... they kept saying "turn left/right" because that was the direction their finger had to turn on their paper, when in reality the student at the screen had to turn right. I had them turning their papers upside down a lot in order to read the map correctly.)

It still wasn't the dream activity I'd hoped for, because I couldn't think of a way to get all the students speaking--I gave a location to each student (or pair depending on size of the class), and starting from a designated spot they had to direct the student at the screen to that location. But since there was only one student at the screen and one giving the directions, the others were apt to lose interest. However, they were interested enough to see my neighborhood etc. that I stuck with the activity and was generally happy with it.

If you do get access to the computer lab, you could do that same classic information gap and have them work in pairs, 2 to a computer, one giving the other directions to a specific place marked on their map.

Like you said, though, the problem is that unless it's a small area, street view is pretty clunky. It also helps to have a grid-like area, where blocks are clearly marked. I was lucky that my hometown was both of those. If you want to use a bigger city you could focus on a very specific area.

Not sure if that helps you much... But good luck! I know there are some more directions lessons on here that use street view. You've probably seen them already but in case you a haven't, a quick site search should turn them up.