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I've been using my smartphone to navigate for many years. I had paper maps in my car as backup until 3 years ago when I got a car with a Nav system. The Nav system is now backup to my smartphone. All the maps went into the trash.
In Europe where my cellular data is expensive with a US carrier, I still use paper maps a lot of the time.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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I have maps in my cars / trucks and home! (I have a gas station 'Map display rack in my 'travel planning room' that holds 150+ tri-fold maps of all over the world).
Unfortunately, I often 'forget' to toss my maps in my travel bag, and have to buy (yet another) one.
For worldwide travel (excluding China), I use GPS enabled Maps.me, except in NZ where of course I use... Campermate rules! (what a wonderful / useful travel app!)
I only have a few of the laminated 'Michelin' maps from living in Europe 20+ yrs ago. They are still quite nice, and handy for laying on the ground while changing tires or putting on snow chains. Also useful when you forget your umbrella.
Or a road atlas? I always do, because I love maps and could never switch to using GPS, except for urban driving. I love to make unplanned detours on the spur of the moment when driving on vacation, and using a map gives me a good overview of the areas around the road I'll be driving along.
Of course. One can't 100% rely on gadgets. Phone could get lost, GPS signal could drop out, phone battery could run out. There are too many uncertain situations where you would appreciate having a paper road map.
Electronic devices just love to fail when you need them most.
When planning a trip, a paper road map or atlas is helpful because it provides the big picture. They are particularly useful in helping to understand scale and distance visually. Getting to grips with the surrounding landscape is easier with a paper map too – it’s easy to get lost in a small screen.
A paper map also may allow you to view a variety of routes and types of roads to compare
I almost never venture into the wilderness with a GPS unit as my only means of navigation. Just as we all travel with a spare tire and a set of jumper leads, even the most ardent technophiles carry a basic paper map as a backup.
Yes. Though I have thorough knowledge of the Interstate Highway System, I keep one for long trips in case of an interstate being closed so I can plan detours ahead of time.
I'd have to say Yes, as a person who has never even seen a navigation assist device, nor ridden in a car in which the driver was using one.
In all faiorness, I need tol amend this post. I did once ride in such a car. My niece came a few yeas ago in a rental car, and she brought along her personal navigation device, but I sat in the back seat, so I didn't really see it in use. I recall that in leaving the hotel, we had to idle in the parking lot a minute or two, waiting for it to lock in on our present coordinates and display the local map, before we could pull out into traffic.
Myself, I've never been lost. There have been times when I didn't know where I was or how to get somewhere, but I've never been lost.
Nope. All three of my vehicles have GPS and two of them have Apple CarPlay. I prefer using Apple CarPlay since I can look something up in Maps, hit the directions button and have the route displayed on my vehicle's eight inch screen. That's much easier than looking at a paper map or punching an address into a Garmin GPS or onboard navigation system.
The beauty of using Maps is that I can enter anything I'm looking for. Say I want to have lunch at a Thai restaurant. I enter "Thai restaurant". A map of the local area is populated with all the Thai restaurants nearby. At the bottom of the screen the restaurants are listed and each one is rated from one to five stars, based on Yelp reviews. I look at the higher rated ones and make my selection. Or I can just choose one that's nearby or along my intended route. Now I hit the "Directions" icon and Maps displays the routing on my vehicle's nav screen and provides voice guidance to my selected restaurant. You can't do any of that with a paper map. It never ceases to amaze me at how people reject modern technology and stubbornly cling to outdated ways of doing things.
My car looks like thecar of a hoarder right now. I'm accumulating things for my son's apartment he will move to April1st. I've got everything from a toaster to a kitchen table and my own eclectic bunch: boxing gloves, riding chaps, laundry soap, audio books... No map.
My brother lent me his car once with a small GPS unit that plugged in. He was happy to tell me he had pre-set my destination and would have no problem getting there.
The darn thing would not shut up. It yapped every little ways (maybe every couple miles, but "she" was a talker!). Within twenty miles I pulled over and tried to turn it off. Couldn't really find an off button. Even after unplugging it the thing kept blabbing. I pulled over again and stuck it in the trunk. Made me laugh because I could still occasionally hear it. Glad I didn't have to stop anywhere or it might have sounded like I had a person in the trunk!
Made my little trip, got back to brother's and he asked where the thing was. I told him, and he said he had a battery back up unit, that why it didn't shut up.
Gads. How annoying.
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