How do you plan your travel route? Or the value of paper maps for trip planning.

I’ve been planning a trip in a totally unfamiliar country (England). That got me thinking that my difficulties were a bit like those experienced by newbies planning a trip around Oz. We frequently see on the forum questions about which road to take, how long to get to Woop-woop, what is there to see and so on.

For travellers unfamiliar with the geography of a country it seems easy to hop on to Google maps or the like and plug in A to B and hey-presto here is the route to follow and this is the time it will take. But this approach often ignores the wealth of things to do and see along the way. So, is it the best way to go about planning a route for a much-anticipated trip?

As I have been trying to come to terms with a dense tangle of unfamiliar roads, new locations and masses of new places to see, I’ve gone back to basics and started with a good old fashioned paper map at the biggest scale that I can find. That has allowed me to get some idea of the lay of the land. Next has come much consultation of guide books and Googling of possible places to visit.

When all that was well in hand then it’s on to our E-mapping program of choice, marking points of interest so that a day’s route can be quickly constructed. Google Earth is useful to get exact locations if addresses are a bit fuzzy, and Google Maps helps to find out approximate travel times.

Before long we will get to see if all works out as planned!

Our Oz travel planning usually starts with our big wall map of Australia to give us a birds eye view of where we might go on our next trip. Our Hema 4WD map book, any any other relevant paper map, helps with detail, as does any source of information about things to see or do in the vicinity of our proposed route. Only then do we get on to OziExplorer to plot a detailed route. Google Maps hardly gets used at all as we have enough Ozi experience to guide us in working out likely travel times.

As we travel in Oz we have OziExplorer running all the time, although we may not follow the planned route exactly. The plot of our journey (especially if overlaid on Google Earth) is invaluable in writing blogs, locating photos and just generally recalling the trip.

Despite our use of electronic, GPS based navigation systems I think that paper maps have an essential role in trip planning. They are also essential to carry in case the electronic system fails. Another essential is to keep a sharp eye out for landmarks, road junctions etc to check that turn-by-turn systems aren’t leading us astray.

Interested to hear how others go about planning the route of their trips and what use they make of paper maps.

Cheers,

Val