Multi month trip planning

I am exploring Bing Maps & Google Maps. Both seem very similar.

We are about a month delayed right now. The hold up is the opening date of MD state parks & a reluctance to pass through NYC public transport as part of route to get to MD.

Lots of time to fool with Google & Bing. Meanwhile here in Bermuda we are hunkered down like everyone else.

Veebyes wrote:
Well, I fought the good fight to the bitter end but it looks like my use of Streets & Trips 2013 has finally been taken from me. I have not found a stand alone, no internet required, app to replace it. My 2009 Samsung laptop which has endured 3 bumpy trips on a table infront of the passenger seat to Alaska plus tens of thousands of miles all over the lower 48 & Canada, has finally died on me taking with it MS S&Ts to its grave.

So now I need to find something else that I can plan 100 day plus trips with.

I have tried the MAPS provided on Windows 10. Is it me or is it that cranky & frustrating to use?

I have a 3 year old Garmin 770RV which is fine for A to B trips but that is not how we travel. We avoid interstates like they have COVID 19. We do meandering day routes, often with changes on the fly when we don't like what the Garmin has come up with. The DW is a darned good navigator & given something with the details available of S&Ts she can navigate out of any wrong turn.

So, what else is there that I can use to plot away creating the next multi thousand mile trip, along with ideas on where to stay?

Would this work Ebay - Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 (Retail) (1 PC/s) - Full Version for Windows B17-00563

While I still have an old copy on an old computer I worked my way into Bing Maps years ago - has never let me down and is easy to use.

Best of Luck,

The thing is that all these methods are tools. And like all tools they are extremely useful in the hands of someone who understand how to use them.

And dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn't want to be bothered to learn how to use them. That's the problem I have with many internet tools. They are so easy to use that many people, my granddaughter for one, don't bother to look at the whole route picture. To understand the potential faults.

Not learning how a tool works, it's strengths and its weaknesses, is how people get down dead end roads with 60' long rigs. Or drive into a lake.

I like my method of planning, and you are very welcome to yours. I enjoy the level of planning that I do, and I'm sure it is excessive and a waste of time in almost everyone else's mind. Now when I'm not towing, well my wife calls some of my trips 'adventures'. Sometimes there isn't a ditch, or much more than two faint tracks across a field. We have fun.

Some routes I drive so much that I'm sure the truck can find it's way without me. And many others are the first, and probably the only time, I will ever travel that road.

The goal is to enjoy life's journeys, and be flexible enough to stop and smell the roses when you have the opportunity.

Safe travels.

To those who prefer paper maps, go at it. I don't drive my kitchen table. I don't have the paper map storage capacity for every state, every county, every town in the country in my door pocket. None of them can be retrieved to any degree of detail wanted with a couple of clicks & a roll of the mouse wheel or pinching of fingers on a screen.

If you are a weekend warrior you probably don't need anything at all. If you are the annual 2 week vacation traveler a phone or simple GPS will do. If you are a multi month wanderer covering thousands of miles & not really interested in a most direct route from one place to another, & maybe not even sure where the end of the day may find you, you want to have plenty of information at your fingertips & you don't want to have to rely on the internet to get it.

If all else fails I do have an old Walmart US/Canada atlas in a seat back pocket.

gbopp wrote:
How did we go anywhere when we only had paper maps :@

I still use them for getting the basic layout for a trip.

When you zoom out of google maps to look at an entire state or several states at once, half of the roads disappear. Zoom in to see the minor roads, you have too small of an area to get the big picture. So you end up constantly zooming in and out.

Paper maps -- no problem. Spread them out over the kitchen table and start making plans with my DW right next to me.

PawPaw, that was a great story about learning to read from maps -- thanks for posting it!

It reminded me of when my wife and I were very young -- I was 22 and she was 18 and we were not yet married -- huddled over maps, planning our honeymoon, adding up the daily mileages and then changing the route and re-adding the miles. Google Maps is a lot easier, but those were the Very Good Old Days, almost 50 years ago.

And if I had it to do all over again, I'd have spent less time driving and more time relaxing!! ;)

Mat_Colie, Your MO looks very similar to ours. Hours upon hours are spent researching things to do, places to see, air shows to do, dirt tracks with racing etc.etc. & trying to organize it all in a trip that makes sense with the time available.

All of this creates a S&T Master trip file. From starting day a Daily Trip file is created. We also have the GPS puck. Each day the stand alone Garmin is told plan A for the days destination. More often than not how the Garmin would have us get to someplace & how the route is set out in the Daily File of S&Ts are very different things.

That is OK. The two of them can disagree all they like, the final say goes to the navigator who can change the route on the Daily File on the fly if she likes.

We are planning to be in SE MI late June. PM me. Maybe we can hook up for that 'new' S&Ts.

Our second trip we headed West from Florida. No planning. Just West. No timeline. Just West. No planning. Just see as you go. WOW did we ever see. Remember, Your memories about the trip will be more about the journey than the destination and planning.

Well stated response, profdant139.

Veebyes and PawPaw n Gram,

I am so with both of you. I cannot see the value in something that I cannot use if I don't have internet.

It is a big shame that nobody will ever again know the planning and navigation power available with these program packages. The nearest to them was Copilot RV, but I never learned how to make it do all of what we want. It is still a resident maps package, but with an annual subscription. Maps should be good because they are now owned by Trimble. But having Garmin buy up Delorme didn't do us any favors.

Furkot is every bit as good as TripWizard and it was free. When I last used it, it was suffering because they were having some disagreement about Goofall Maps.

Now, Who Plans??
Before we departed on a 119 day ~11,000 miles excursion, I had a solid plan in place. Of course the plan had to be modified on the third morning because we found fuel at a very good price and then a museum that took more time than I had allotted, but those things have to be accommodated. When we travel our schedule is always loose.

Veebyes:
If you would like a copy of Street Atlas 2015, I could make that happen. That is the last published, and it was years out of date that season. I still use it because it is the only thing that works as an enroute navigator and can be updated on the fly so the ONP and fuel stops suggestions stay good.

When we are in travel mode, we have the laptop with GPS running SA, and a road GPS for the driver that has been loaded with the day's plan before departure. It is then up to the navigator of the day to chase attractions with guide books and internet (if available) and make possible changes to the day or maybe future plans. We have had some amazing and wonderful stops. It works the other way too. One stop we were told was good for a whole day. lasted less than two hours before we were bored. These sort of things make revision underway essential. I did try this with RVT, that is why I never renewed it.

We have always had a repeater and an outside antenna for cell service. Even with that, you can end up in dead areas once you are clear of the interstate. This is less common east of the Mississippi, but it still happens.

While I know that part of my attitude is left over from the days that I had a name tag that said "Navigator" under my name, I developed a number of very good habits in those days. Things like managing fuel inventory and having confirmed places to moor for the night just take a whole lot of unneeded stress out of the excursion.

In an unfortunate incident last year, we lost most of the 9yo laptop that had replaced the almost as old predecessor. I have a new one and it is running SA and a GPS puck and has been a good friend.

If you have not tried this type of cooperative travel, you should. If the driver does not have to also be the navigator, it unloads a lot of the stress for that individual.

Matt