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Do you use paper maps for long-distance travel?


MickinMD

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There's a documentary on local PBS right now called, "10 Streets That Changed America."

The young narrator, riding part of the original "Lincoln Highway" that initially connected the New York City area to the Midwest, asks a guide, "How did they figure out where to go without GPS?"

I loved navigating with paper maps on long trips.

I can remember not trusting GPS.  My sister gave me a birthday present of a Garmin car GPS in the early 2000s but I didn't use it for a couple years until I was riding with her from a relative's church wedding in Westminster, MD to the reception hall in Gettysburg, PA and she had no idea of how to get there but let her same model GPS unit tell her where to go and turn on the 20 or so miles of several rural roads and she had no trouble.

Still, until a few years ago I'd print out a couple 8.5" x 11" paper maps to get an easier glance at the route while driving.

Today, I no longer print maps and use GPS even on roads I know but don't know how far down the road the crabhouse is, etc. If I want to look at a map, today's smartphones provide large enough screens to consult maps from Google Maps and Here WeGo (permanent offline) maps, when I want an overview of where I'm going.

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39 minutes ago, donkpow said:

Even on the bike, I carry map sections and printouts when needed. The county puts out a really nice street map.

On the bike I don’t carry maps anymore. If I feel I’m really lost I’ll look at where I am on Strava. Mostly when I’m riding I’ll wing it and see where I end up.

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2 hours ago, Further said:

I carry a bunch of state maps, the official ones they give out at state welcome centers. They have helped me out a few times.

Yep - I almost always stop at a state's welcome area when I pass through any non-regular states to pick up a free state map and to use the restrooms :)

I don't need any for the nearby states, but somewhere in a door pocket of my car, there will be a paper map for each state I have driven to in my car.

Also, for European trips, I still usually bring a regional map(s).  Right now, I also photocopy some on ledger/tabloid paper and use it as a way to develop points of interest and possible routes - circling and highlighting key points or paths. For Australia and NZ, I preemptively downloaded the various regions into my phone's Google maps (offline maps), and that helped since we stuck to wifi only - no cell service.

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I remember someone did a trip tick thing for my move to Florida...always a lover of history...I thought how great it would be to be able to access historic information about the area you were in and the route you were on...  I remember my first truck only had AM radio...nothing like the Hog Report to help keep you awake on a long drive..for the Florida trip a friend checked out a couple of audio books which was a help just for the long drive.

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I can read a map and have several in my door pocket. Also have an atlas of all MI counties which has been helpful. Now not so much. Prior to fancy phones, it was only paper maps. If I was going to travel long distance, state-to-state. I'd have maps for everywhere I would be as a backup for sure.

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3 hours ago, Airehead said:

I like looking at a paper map to visualize the entire trip but I drive via GPS. 

I often do the same but just look at google maps.  I do have a good sense of direction but if I can’t calibrate my brain to any reference points I feel lost.  

I was doing a lot of travel for my previous job and often couldn’t calibrate my brain  as there was just so much travel involved. It would drive me crazy when I’d set my next destination and my phone would say head west on Rt 23... Hmm OK is that left or right?

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2 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

You don't have a sun to navigate by in California????

This is when I was in PA, IA and TX.  Areas I don’t know well but to be honest I did try to establish direction by the sun.  Then said F it I’ll just start driving and let the phone recalibrate if I’m going the wrong way.

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8 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

This is when I was in PA, IA and TX.  Areas I don’t know well but to be honest I did try to establish direction by the sun.  Then said F it I’ll just start driving and let the phone recalibrate if I’m going the wrong way. 

Yeah -- in my local area, I just "know" what direction I am headed, but toss me into a strange place - especially a city with twisting streets, and I lose my calibration.  I love Google maps on my phone, simply because it just makes driving less stressful in new areas.

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9 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Yeah -- in my local area, I just "know" what direction I am headed, but toss me into a strange place - especially a city with twisting streets, and I lose my calibration.  I love Google maps on my phone, simply because it just makes driving less stressful in new areas.

I used to love the land navigation training in the Army.  They would drive us out in covered deuce n half’s and pull teams of 2 out at various points. They would give us a set of coordinates and say go. Find that coordinate and there would be a marker for the next one & so on. Nothing but a compass, map, protractor and your brain & feet.

 I was actually quiet proud of myself when another soldier received serious burns due to a training accident on a range.  As we flew in by helo she had to fly out by helo.  Using the LZ as a reference point, direction of travel and terrain features I was able to call in a medevac with no map or compass! 

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2 hours ago, petitepedal said:

I remember someone did a trip tick thing for my move to Florida...always a lover of history...I thought how great it would be to be able to access historic information about the area you were in and the route you were on...  I remember my first truck only had AM radio...nothing like the Hog Report to help keep you awake on a long drive..for the Florida trip a friend checked out a couple of audio books which was a help just for the long drive.

For my nonstop drive to FL I simply chose to sleep.  My passenger kept waking me up though as he thought it unsafe to always straddle the white line.

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My wife always gets the paper maps.  She is a bit 'directionally challanged' and cannot figure out how three rights make a left.  She follows along on maps and uses them to orient herself to landmarks she knows.

A few years ago we spent some time in Iceland and drove the whole way around the island over a week or so.  So there we were, with her with her paper map and seemingly every town had 12 letters and they all started and ended with "V", and every time I turned a corner she rotated the map.  

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29 minutes ago, Zephyr said:

My wife always gets the paper maps.  She is a bit 'directionally challanged' and cannot figure out how three rights make a left.  She follows along on maps and uses them to orient herself to landmarks she knows.

A few years ago we spent some time in Iceland and drove the whole way around the island over a week or so.  So there we were, with her with her paper map and seemingly every town had 12 letters and they all started and ended with "V", and every time I turned a corner she rotated the map.  

Last weekend my wife daughter & I were looking at apartments and we were driving in this one apartment complex.  We end up making a right into the complex and then four left turns as it’s basically a square complex.  My wife is completely turned around and starts to make a left to leave while my daughter and I both say right turn! WTF how do you guys know how to get out of here?

Apparently our kid got my internal compass...

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Primarily use GPS...even when has me going around in circles. Worst was in a rental out of LaGuardia and decided I wanted to see Giant Stadium over and over again. Another time took northern route out of CT through PA with planned overnight in Alexandria VA. For some reason when hitting the western beltway around Washington, and the hotel due south, it took me east to the Washington/Baltimore freeway east of Capitol, crossing the Potomac by the airport by Alexandria and back out to I95.

i do collect the paper maps at the welcome stations and use to get ideas of where to visit and possible future trips, and if the Interstate is backed up to a crawl, what are the original pre-Interstate roads that can re-route on.

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Two years ago, I couldn’t find an Atlas in town...even at a truck stop! I asked my kids to stop by B&N to grab one before we moved the girls to Arizona. They didn’t. That night we got separated in rural KS. Apparently we were using 2 different GPS programs and they had different opinions on routes to take! We were about 20 miles apart. 

They wanted to call it a night, but I was not about to backtrack with a 26 foot van towing a Jeep on snowpacked roads! We eventually pushed through to Santa Fe because it was the first place that would take all their pets. 

When we got home, I did a service call to a trucking company. They had a stack of atlases. Their insurance company gives them out! They let me take one. 

I have a good sense of direction. I use GPS on my phone to find obscure locations. I sure like having the Atlas on a long road trip to double check my work or if a local recommends we check something out that wasn’t planned before. 

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There are a couple of trips I do often where the Garmin wants me to take a route that's not the best.

Here's an example that also shows why it's worth taking a look at a map - whether it's paper or on your phone screen. I have cousins that live on the West side of the Susquehanna River opposite Wilkes-Barre in Kingston and Larksville, PA. When I visit from Baltimore. traveling North on I-81, which passes East of Wilkes-Barre, the Garmin nuvi-52 wants me to take an exit that takes me near Blackmun St. which winds through town and connects with two more slow streets that take me SW to reach the bridge at Plymouth (left-middle of map) that's a few miles on slow streets from Larksville and Kingston (above and right of Plymouth).  But a few exits later on I-81, there's another connecting expressway, Rt. 309. that crosses the river and has an exit right at the edge of Kingston, a few minutes from the cousin's home whose address is the one the Garmin is working with. I tried the Garmin's route and it's slow, even with little traffic. The locals confirm Rt. 309 is the way to go. Now I always keep driving past the I-81 exit the Garmin wants me to take and it recalculates a few times, finally picking Rt. 309.  There is an online app that lets you set a route and copy it to the unit's memory, but it's not user-friendly and it's more work than worthwhile to set it up.

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I need a map to take me where I need to go in some of these large hospitals we have to visit. Sadly they don’t have them. The last hospital we were in I always parked in the parking garage and then took a series of elevators and hallways to eventually get where we needed to be. I had finally learned the route when I arrived at the hospital I couldn’t find a space in the garage. I drove around and around and almost the top tier of the garage I saw a sign saying “cancer patients enter here”. I thought I found a short cut. I stopped at that entrance and went in and got a wheel chair and got my wife into the building. Then I went back and parked the car.(found a space on the top floor). I asked directions to radiation oncology and they said I was in the wrong building and gave me directions on how to get there using ramps and bridges and elevators. It was a long way but we got there.

Our follow up visit last week they were doing road construction at the entrance to the parking garage and I missed it. I ended up going into a garage marked valet parking. I drove up to the entrance to the hospital, got out and the valet got us a wheelchair and gave us a claim ticket for the car and he took it and parked it. We asked directions inside to radiation and they said take this elevator to 2. The elevator door opened and we were at the sign in desk. Why didn’t someone tell me this?

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