Paper maps..latest craze

[Mainiac]

According to NBC News the latest craze is paper maps. AAA are evidently printing more than they have in a long time. Interesting that the increase in demand is from the younger generations. I know I like my Garmin for turn by turn directions, but nothing replaces my Gazetteer or Road Atlas. Especially for planning purposes. Especially nice to find interesting side trips out around the boring interstates...

 

 

 

 

[Frank C]

Agreed.  We carry this large format road atlas/national park guide.  Using this in conjunction with the Google Maps app, Harvest Host app, etc. has been great for our trip planning. 

[Steve Morris]

I always have this in the truck with us. It has come on handy in areas without cellular, and where the Garmin shows blank spaces. Currently at 18 Gazetteers. It holds five, along with a few folding maps, a notepad, and a couple pencils.

 

[Steve Morris]

Oops, I forgot the link. It looks like it is discontinued/out-of-stock, anyway.

https://www.blueridgeoverlandgear.com/collections/all/products/trip-planning-bag?variant=19020204867680

[Mike and Carol]

30 years of land navigation in the army, usually with at 1:50,000 folded map sheet, trained my brain to be comfortable with a paper map.  I like my GPS’s for turn by turn directions, but we also carry a big atlas with us for planning and exploring alternate routes.  Mike

[Katjo]

I still use a wall calendar and have a phone landline (lol) so you can bet we are still a fan of paper road maps! We have a ton of  triptiks from AAA that we have accrued from road-trips taken long ago! 

[SeaDawg]

Do you seriously have a true landline? We've had voip for decades, which is what the cable vendors bundle here.  I don't even know if a true wired landlines is still available here.  

We call the "landline" the solicitor line. We give out that # when someone requires a phone #. Everyone else calls our cells. 

Kind of miss those landline days, but I don't miss "dialup " speed.

And yes, we carry atlases and paper maps, as well as two phones and a GPS. 

 

 

[Caddymv]

The GPS only takes you where you asked it to take you. Looking at paper opens all kinds of possibilities. Paper first. GPS after you decide

 

 

[Paul and Santina]

I have to admit, I’m chuckling just a wee bit. Many years ago, more than I like to admit, I used a slide rule in college, maps when driving and, yes, I got up off the sofa to turn the channel or fix the rabbit ears on our black & white TV. While sailing, we used paper charts pre-GPS days, and still carried ‘em with the arrival of GPS, just in case. But since we started RVing last year, all maps have been recycled. We use iPad apps now. Gaia GPS is excellent. As is Avenza maps, where I can download the Delorme Atlas and Gazetteer for any state we’re traveling through, and many state park maps, National park maps, motor vehicle use maps, state highway maps, etc are available, many are free and all in one handy place. No need to lug around and find storage space for big unwieldy maps. The neat thing about using a Delorme map on Avenza (or any digital map) is the GPS tells you where you are, and you can readily zoom in and out and look around. No need for cell or WiFi, these apps can use GPS alone. And Google maps can also be used with GPS only if you download map areas of interest. Other apps for camping planning and navigating are RV Life (yearly cost) and RV Parky (free). Come on guys, break the paper habit. Save a tree 🤣

[SeaDawg]

We've used maps.me in several countries , on several continents . 

 Gps based, no  phone signal required. In Chile last year, downloaded maps from  maps.me worked way better than Google maps . It's free, as well.

Still had a paper backup. But that was much less useful than the app.

[Katjo]

1 hour ago, SeaDawg said:

Do you seriously have a true landline? We've had voip for decades, which is what the cable vendors bundle here.  I don't even know if a true wired landlines is still available here.  

We call the "landline" the solicitor line. We give out that # when someone requires a phone #. Everyone else calls our cells. 

Kind of miss those landline days, but I don't miss "dialup " speed.

And yes, we carry atlases and paper maps, as well as two phones and a GPS. 

 

 

Yes, we seriously still have a true landline and Panasonic phones..lol We love our landline, we use it the same way as you do “the solicitor line”! We have caller ID so screening is a breeze!🤣

[Ollie-Haus]

2 hours ago, SeaDawg said:

Do you seriously have a true landline? We've had voip for decades, which is what the cable vendors bundle here.  I don't even know if a true wired landlines is still available here.  

We call the "landline" the solicitor line. We give out that # when someone requires a phone #. Everyone else calls our cells. 

Kind of miss those landline days, but I don't miss "dialup " speed.

And yes, we carry atlases and paper maps, as well as two phones and a GPS. 

 

 

Love all this comparing old ways with the new. I love my digital media and resources as much as anyone else, but we have always carried pertinent hard copies of maps for all our destinations. My wife as copilot always pulls out the paper maps to gain a mental picture of the route and what's around. Funny that the land line came up as we just got a new fiber optic data service connected all the way to the house. Very fast to say the least, but it included a land line if we wanted it, and we did. But the crazy part is we connected it to a 1970's Slim Line wall mount Bell Telephone in the kitchen. Looks like walking into my childhood when we come in the back door. Oh, and we get our television service via the good old aerial antenna on the roof of the house.  😆

       

[ScubaRx]

I would never leave on a trip without a paper atlas. And recently we’ve taken to stopping at the welcome centers when entering a new state and picking up their latest official state map. A large map gives you the option of seeing a Birdseye view and being able to “look down the road” further than you ever could with the tiny screen on your phone. 
 

Then we look at the GPS. 

[Mainiac]

7 minutes ago, ScubaRx said:

large map gives you the option of seeing a Birdseye view and being able to “look down the road” further than you ever could with the tiny screen on your phone. 

So totally agree...

We also have a corded phone in the home office. The corded phone is the only one that usually works during a power outage. The answering machine is special for us too. There are a lot of spots around us without cell coverage and the corded phone with answering gives us our needed coverages being a mile in the woods...

[Mike and Carol]

1 hour ago, Paul and Santina said:

Many years ago, more than I like to admit, I used a slide rule in college

I still have my slide rule.  I still like paper maps.  I also like my iPhone with all the nifty apps for camping and traveling.  Like Steve, we pick up maps at welcome centers too!  Mike

[AlbertNTerri]

2 hours ago, Ollie-Haus said:

Love all this comparing old ways with the new. I love my digital media and resources as much as anyone else, but we have always carried pertinent hard copies of maps for all our destinations. My wife as copilot always pulls out the paper maps to gain a mental picture of the route and what's around. Funny that the land line came up as we just got a new fiber optic data service connected all the way to the house. Very fast to say the least, but it included a land line if we wanted it, and we did. But the crazy part is we connected it to a 1970's Slim Line wall mount Bell Telephone in the kitchen. Looks like walking into my childhood when we come in the back door. Oh, and we get our television service via the good old aerial antenna on the roof of the house.  😆

       

they make a new and improved portable version of the wall phone now

 

 

[ScubaRx]

2 hours ago, Mike and Carol said:

I still have my slide rule.  I still like paper maps.  I also like my iPhone with all the nifty apps for camping and traveling.  Like Steve, we pick up maps at welcome centers too!  Mike

I still have a couple of slide rules from college. I’m gonna bring them with me when we stop by your house to drop off the alligators you need. And, I need a refresher course on how to use the slide rule.  

[John E Davies]

I keep some Benchmade atlases as emergency backup, but no longer use paper maps normally. I am hooked on Pocket Earth Pro OFFLINE maps on my iPad Mini 6. It provides tons of situational awareness when zoomed out to say 20 miles, but you can bore down to great detail too. The Pro version adds Topo. This map is nor as good as some others for off road exploration, for that I prefer GAIA Premium, but it makes a GREAT paper atlas replacement.

 

 

 

 

 

A great feature is the place names are not fixed fonts, you can specify SIZE and they are also dynamic - as you zoom in they get bigger and bigger until the scale changes, then they get small again, you can choose a zoom level that makes the small towns pop visually. Very neat! They have changed the pricing recently, see below. It is not quite as good on a small iPhone screen, but on larger devices it is terrific. Highly recommended! Sorry, no Android version yet.

 

 

https://pocketearth.com/

John Davies

Spokane WA

[Patriot]

We always carry a Road Atlas and paper maps as a back up for use in combination with our Garmin 890 GPS. The paper maps can really come in handy on those roads less traveled. Lucky me, my bride and “navigator” is an excellent map reader.

We dropped our land line and answering machine several years ago after retiring. Zero regrets as  we really don’t miss any of the silly random political and marketing calls at especially dinner time or worse in the middle of the night. Only cell phones now.

Patriot🇺🇸

[Mainiac]

I have used paper maps to save me many a mile of useless travel "suggested" by the electronic device. It was especially nice that time in the mountains when the Garmin didn't know the rain had totally washed out the road. (Backing down the mile and a half to a barely adequate turnaround was fun too). The paper map probably saved us 40 miles of so from the "suggested" alternative...

[Steve Morris]

18 hours ago, Caddymv said:

The GPS only takes you where you asked it to take you.

Sometimes with interesting results!! We were using a Garmin to get to Twin Falls, Idaho a few years back, and it tried taking us across the service road across the Snake River at Shoshone Falls! But 1), it isn't public, and 2), it doesn't go all the way across! But the interesting part was that we ended up going across BLM land on the north side, where Evel Knievel was supposed to land on his ill-fated rocket bike. You can see the launch ramp across the river.

We still have a land line, answering machine, film camera, mechanical typewriter, car with a carburetor and manual shift, and probably some 8-track tapes stuck in a box somewhere. 🤪

 

[mossemi]

I know it’s early, but this is my favorite for post of the year.  It’ great to see the widespread participation.  The history lessons are really just memories for a lot of us.  Thanks Mainiac for getting the ball rolling!

Mossey

[Rivernerd]

5 hours ago, Mainiac said:

I have used paper maps to save me many a mile of useless travel "suggested" by the electronic device. It was especially nice that time in the mountains when the Garmin didn't know the rain had totally washed out the road. (Backing down the mile and a half to a barely adequate turnaround was fun too). The paper map probably saved us 40 miles of so from the "suggested" alternative...

We wished we had a good Oklahoma road atlas last November when Google Maps took us on a wild goose chase, on gravel roads, trying to find a Harvest Host site outside Oklahoma City.

We now plan to buy a good paper road atlas, so we can double-check questionable Google Maps instructions.

[Mainiac]

1 hour ago, Rivernerd said:

We wished we had a good Oklahoma road atlas last November when Google Maps took us on a wild goose chase, on gravel roads, trying to find a Harvest Host site outside Oklahoma City.

We now plan to buy a good paper road atlas, so we can double-check questionable Google Maps instructions.

If you happen to enter a state, where their welcome center is, you can usually get a great map too. A plus is a campground guide and sometimes forgotten points of interest. Unfortunately most of them now are off the Interstates, and we have a tendency to avoid them...

[SeaDawg]

Google maps has taken us down some crazy places, I'd agree. And some extremely difficult,  and nonexistent roads.

Definitely not my favorite.  

Is artificial intelligence an oxymoron?