All right. Be honest? Do you still have paper maps? Or do you use a GPS device or navigation on your phone? No judgement here…
I am a die hard cell phone navigator at home. But, I adore paper maps when I am traveling. I find them more reliable and interesting than device navigation. I can follow along the map as we drive noting everything I am passing along the way.
Numerous times I have used the map to determine where our next unplanned stop with be. My brothers and husband can attest to my forcing them to stop at every archaeological place of interest in the whole of Ireland “just to see what’s there.”
I brought along what was later coined “the Super Map” to Ireland the first time I went in 1999. This map has traveled with me every time I have gone there marking every road I have driven or walked on. It has helped enrich my trips and reference where I have been to and where I have yet to journey. It is now as much of a souvenir as anything else I brought home with me.
In France I brought another paper map which helped guide us in driving through the entire country. The map is a little worse for the wear being torn and folded and even used as a napkin from time to time.
How do you get around when traveling locally or internationally?
Oh paper maps! They smell of adventure.
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Exactly!
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Maps. I haven’t sorted the GPS functionality, or lack thereof, on my iPhone when I’m in Europe.
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Me either but primarily because I typically don’t have cell service when I travel. And, it’s not as much fun that way! Don’t want my head stuck in the phone when I should be looking out the window!
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Love paper maps. When we’re in a new place, I’ll study the map to the point I drive around like a local. I think it’s the best way to learn a new area and writing little notes on the map only adds to the overall experience. I do use my phone to local stores or restaurants though.
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Me too! I feel like I need to know every road or every inch of a place or I might miss something.
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Alway BOTH. We cruised on our boat for eleven years and always used both the GPS and the paper charts to mark our position. The electronics might just stop and then you would be lost at sea without the paper. Now, on land, we find that we still use both. Paper is much more reliable. The GPS has led us astray many times. We do tend to keep the GPS zoomed in so the maps give a wider context.
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Glad to hear you use both and glad to hear you wont get lost at sea! Always good to have a backup. And GPS has led me astray more times than I am willing to admit especially on small rural roads.
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I’m all about gps when it comes to city navigating. I mean, google maps does metro routes so it makes it so easy. But for walking in the Lake District I use paper ordinance survey maps.
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Perfect! That makes sense. There is something fun about having a paper map over the non personal phone for me.
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GPS but I’m not nearly as well traveled as you!
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All of the above. Maps and Google Earth are great for route planning because we can see the whole picture. I use the phone and/or GPS for navigation. I love maps as mementos too; whether highlighted with the route taken or the notes shared by friends.
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I feel like I need to somehow photograph my Irish Supermap. It is hilarious with all the comments.
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I can’t find my New Zealand map with everyone’s comments from my cousin’s birthday party; I’m bummed. I have our atlas of the trip around the USA though. And, I have a pile of old maps next to my desk waiting to be photographed for a similar blog.
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Perfect! I look forward to it. You will find the map. I have the same problem. Notes and maps and papers from all of my trips all over the place. I should have a “better system.” OH well.
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That’s how the “pile”got there. My system wasn’t working so I cleaned it out. Now I have to clean out the pile.
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I have stuff in photo albums, I have stuff in a box, I have stuff in a plastic container, I have stuff in the closet…The first step is admitting we have a problem, right?
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Right, what a great problem.
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My wife is always arguing with our gps locally. I thought, maybe it was because there was another woman telling me where to go. But even after changing it to a man’s voice, she argues. She keeps telling me we have to switch to paper maps but we have yet to do so. We now take weekend drives not necessarily knowing where we will end up. But we always seem to make it back home!
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Sounds about right! Good thinking switching to a man’s voice. And weekend trips are the bread and butter of any restless wanderer. Keep it up!
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I like a bit of both. GPS for someone to argue with and a paper map for when it gets lost. Once in Switzerland Kim did the navigation from a paper map and after a morning of motoring we stopped for lunch. This gave us time to examine the map again to find the most suitable route and Kim explained how she had carefully plotted a course to avoid places that the map helpfully pointed out as ‘worth a detour’. Kim had interpreted this information as ‘worth avoiding’ when of course it actually meant ‘worth going out of your way to take a look’. We laughed about that eventually!
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That’s great! And yes paper maps are perfect for when GPS fails because it always does. And yes many happy times have been had reading the map over a cup of coffee and a sweet somewhere along the way. Do you have any old maps you use over and over that are marked up? Or are you a pristine map folder who will never write on a map?
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If it is a cheap paper map then I will scrawl all over it but never in a book.
A paper map is important in Spain because GPS sometimes has a nasty habit of sending you down some improbable routes.
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I can’t read paper maps and I’m glad I can get directions from my iPhone 😄
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Well, there you go. Your decision is easily made for you! Hope you are well Boots!
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To be honest, last time I bought a map was in France a few years ago as we planned driving from Paris to the Châteaux de la Loire, Nantes and Brittany. Trip went well. But i might now use other tools. Electronic. Old maps I hang on to are maps of Kenya, or India, or Africa. need to get them out of the Zanzibar chest where they’re stored. They’re like treasure maps, aren’t they?
Great composition with your baguette sandwich on top of a map of Quercy.
😉
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Good eye on reading the map! I was multi tasking for sure. That trip through France and in to Spain was so so very amazing. I can’t wait to go back to France and I have been three times. Never ever enough.
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The map looked sooo French. You know, visual codes, colours. And yes, France is never enough. I’m counting the days till summer when I go back… one, two, three… (What are we fighting for?) (Country Joe again…)
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Where will you go when you go back? I have a friend who is trying to get me to go again this year. I hope I can make it.
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Paris. I rent a small house with a garden in Paris for the summer. Sometimes I go down to Lyon to visit one of my brothers, nieces and friends. Do go again. We’ll have a café crème and croissants. 🙂
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That would be great! Either that or I will make it to Mexico City some day
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Most welcome. will take you around.
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Wouldn’t that be fun! I have always wanted to see the archaeology museum down there and Teotihuacan.
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Both are spectacular.
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She has invited me to go in March though…
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March is still a bit cold and rainy in Paris. Then if you go down South, weather’s ok.
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My friend will be off work for Easter so we may have no choice on the time. I don’t mind the rain. Better than no Paris at all.
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Indeed. And what would Paris be without the (occasional) rain. Let me know if and when you’re going so I can give you a few off-the track tips. 🙂
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I would very much appreciate that. Thank you. I will let you know if it works out. I have to see if the timing works out with sown projects at work and see if airline tickets come down.
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Sure. Let me know. I haven’t checked fares yet for my trip in the summer. Fares may go down, with the (darn) insecurity)
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I thought they might too but they are still high traveling from my end of the world.
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Darn. Haven’t checked yet. Actually your end of the world is (relatively) close to mine.
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You are straight down south from me a mile or two…
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Just below LA. 😉
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Keep going a little ways longer.
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LA’s just one big highway right?
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All very much in the air
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All dreams, and songs, and stories are in the air. Just a matter of pulling them down. 🙂
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You are a romantic…I love it
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Am I? Possibly. Though it becomes harder everyday to be one. 🙂
(Thanks anyway)
And that comes from a Paul McCartney interview when asked how he came to write so many great songs, he said: “I don’t. I just sit at my piano, a song passes by in the air, I catch it, bring it down to my piano, record it and that’s it…” (He can’t read or write music)
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My goodness. He must have a spectacular memory. Or he records and replays a lot. Geniuses…
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Indeed. He also has a perfect ear. Can play any instrument. Genius.
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Good subject for a post I must say. I used the same paper map in Hong Kong when I lived there for six months. I lived by it. Now I am home like you I use the phone or car GPS. Never paper maps. I do love a nice paper map though that has photos of all the places to visit. Lovely!!
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Sounds like something fun to hang on the wall!
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We use both but over time more to the GPS. Sometimes walking about we will use actual maps.
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In the car I have to have the GPS, otherwise I’m lost. I’m hopeless at reading maps, and hubby used to get very frustrated with me when he was driving and I had the map upside down. 😕
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Sounds like a perfect solution then!
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Even though I love paper maps, I have used them only a few times.. We mostly rely on google maps. But navigating with the help of paper maps makes me feel I’m going on an adventure 😜
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Perfect! We need more adventures!
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Yes we do!! 😘😜
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I am a map junkie. There, I confessed. I don’t mind GPS, and there are times when I really appreciate it, like when I am in an unknown city, and it is after dark, and I’m by myself, and it is pouring down rain. Even then I become very nervous about not having control over where I am going. I have file drawers full of topo maps, and every other kind of map as well. 🙂 –Curt
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Glad to hear you are a map junkie! I love pouring over them to find out where I am going and whats around me and where I can stop along the way.
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Good maps tell stories, which is one reason I’ve always loved topo maps. Like you, I need to see the bigger picture of where I have been and where I am going, with options. I’m busily planning our 10,000 mile journey around North America for March, April and May, which is based on my 10,000 mile solo bicycle trip I made in 1989 starting from Placerville/Diamond Springs. This time we will be traveling in our van, however. (Grin) I went out and bought a new road atlas and I still have a number of the AAA maps I used for the original planning. –Curt
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That’s exciting! I hope to do that someday. I don’t have that kind of time so it will have to be after we retire probably.
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Always figured I’d take my retirement as I went along… 🙂
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I have a confession to make: I am hopeless in reading a map, so the GPS device is a truly amazing invention to me 😀 However when we were in Scotland, we used paper map 🙂
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I found the GPS to not be terribly reliable in Ireland. I can only imagine it would be the same in Scotland.
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At the end of the day, I still prefer paper maps. 🙂
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Lots of interest in this post. It’s fun to read what everyone has to say, especially the person whose wife argued with his GPS. ha ha ha! I use GPS in the city, because it keeps track of one-way streets, and there are a lot here in Portland. Overseas I can’t rely on cell phone service. But that’s ok, because I love maps most of all. My fave maps are the topo maps I take backpacking. They get worn and stained and folded and scribbled on, but that shows how much they are loved.
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I rarely have service overseas either. But that just makes it more fun to have a map for me. It’s always hard though to look at them and drive at the same time especially if you are driving on the left in Ireland!
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Right! Yikes!
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I use both… Although when my friend and I were travelling around California a couple of years ago, we were so grateful for our trusty satnav! We’d probably never have made it out of LA without it 😀
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Gosh. No kidding. La is the worst. Although I’ve found that GPS fails a lot there! More than elsewhere. Don’t ask me why!
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Ha! Maybe ours was monkeying around with us too, but we couldn’t tell the difference… As long as we got to where we were going eventually, it didn’t matter! I dread to think where we would have ended up if we’d been relying on paper maps though 😆
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You would still be there driving around.
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Probably 😂 I can just imagine myself calling my old workplace… “I’m sorry, I can’t come in tomorrow – I’m lost in LA!”
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I absolutely love a paper map in a new city or road trips. I find following a GPS often leads to being less aware of the surroundings and I don’t want to miss the random sideshow that comes with great travel.
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Thank you! Yes I agree with every word! (Sometimes it is a necessary evil though.) And if you read through some of the comments of my readers they have some witty and good reasons for GPS. 😉 Thanks for the comment! Welcome to the blog.
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When I’m driving, I have to use GPS. But, if I get a paper map to roam the city, I can navigate fairly well.
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A mix, usually. We always pick up a paper map when we can, as they’re just such a fun way to navigate by in a new place. On the other hand, while I prefer to not use a phone wherever possible while exploring – some apps can be pretty useful. My favourite is one which lets you download a city map before arriving, so you’ve got it when you go out of service, and then can also show you where you are via GPS if you ever really need it.
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It’s a great idea for sure. Staring at a phone is lame but so is managing a large map in the middle of the street when you are lost huh? 🙂
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Maybe the best combo – a sneaky glance at the phone while trying to find somewhere on the move, if it’s needed, and save the maps to spread out across a table and savor over a coffee or a beer when you’ve more time
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Perfecto!
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I am a paper map kind of girl. Always! x
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It has been so long since I’ve used a paper map ! Something I have some of them as a backup just in case my google map would fail me 😀
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They are certainly harder to find than they used to be. Thanks for the comment.
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I remembered when I was little, sometimes we got lost on our way to our holiday and my dad used to pull out the map and put it on the front of the car.. haha it was hilarious. It was so big.
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My first Ireland map took up the entire floor! My flat mates actually layed on it so we could see whatever we were looking at. Makes for a comical car ride when I need to turn it over to see the next page.
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haha ! I can imagine !
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