Who uses maps anymore?

[Undertoad]

Google Maps has routed me around hours of traffic delays.

It now tells you how much shorter or longer your trip will be if you take the next exit.

It tells you if an accident happens on your intended route and plans how to get around it

When I left for the theater yesterday, 35 minutes away, it told me I would arrive at 7:12pm and I did

It has its annoyances but one thing I do like is how new features and improvements just suddenly appear

[monster]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

When I left for the theater yesterday, 35 minutes away, it told me I would arrive at 7:12pm and I did

yebbut, it changes its estimated ETA as you drive so as you get closer to your destination, it gets more accurate. Or was that the estimate when you left home? I take that as a challenge

[lumberjim]

Waze

[footfootfoot]

I like paper maps and paper books. Even more as my irritation with computers and their ilk grows by the minute.

[Gravdigr]

I bet we have ten pounds of paper maps of Land Between The Lakes Nat'l Recreation Area, from various sizes and iterations over the years.

MyTOPO is a great internet resource. You can view/buy all kinds of different versions of maps. Pocket size, very small area. Huge poster-size of the same very small area...Or as big an area as you want. Waterproof/not waterproof/creaseproof/pre-folded. If you're a tiny bit underhanded, you can download those customized maps, from the preview page.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

MyTOPO is a great internet resource.

Good tip.

[BigV]

Paper maps? I use them still. When ElderSon was moving from Seattle to Denver, we met as he was on his way out of town. Like most youngsters, he was quite willing to meet, since it included a free meal. And a meal for his truck, gas, oil, etc. And I asked him about his map situation... he whipped out his iPhone and I facepalmed. No. just... no. Hell no. What if you sit on it an crack it. The battery dies? No signal, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Etc.

Aaaanyhow, he got all his travel victuals AND a Rand McNally Road Atlas for the region, Western US I think. FFS, he's a Boy Scout, you know how to read a map, right? He did and does, but the *value* of a map with its vastly smaller pool of possible points of failure compared to phone based navigation was completely lost on him.

I haven't checked in with him on this topic lately, but I'll ask him the next time I see him.

As for me, I love maps, I collect them, I use them, I navigate by them, I remember places by them, and I dream of places I haven't been to *yet* by them. Yes, maps, please.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by BigV

...and I dream of places I haven't been to *yet* by them.

Man, if I had spent all the time I spent doing that, actually doing something, I might have made something of myself.

[lumberjim]

MOAR BAD WORD MAPS

[Sundae]

I'm with V on this one. I don't trust my phone. It does weird things too often.
I'd rather have a (GOOD) paper map any day; as in not one of those ones drawn on location flyers by people who have missed out half the roads. Some of us are counting them as we walk past you know.

And I'm actually a competent map-reader when I'm well.
Road maps. Not great with open land and a compass.

Then again I don't drive. Sat-nav wasn't in the sort of car I could afford, so I'd never used it in my life.

ETA - LJ's post is the only shit-map I approve of.

[Undertoad]

I don't think I could live in a blue state.

[monster]

if my study/office/lair/whatever was ever tidy and clean, one might find a map-based decorative theme You can certainly see the three or four globes on top of all the stuff. Hoarder, me? Nooooooooo

[Gravdigr]

You just made me remember I have a poster-size world map still on my bedroom wall from when I was into shortwave radio.

[monster]

were all the countries discovered then?

[Gravdigr]

Yep. Some of them have had their name changed...